just curious of getting opinions of injecting water through a vacuum line into your intake manifold to break up carbon build up. ive read and have done this procedure and it did make my engine run better, the reason i did this is because i had a 80s model mustang that a had bad idle problems and what i can remember sluggish power also, took it to the ford dealer and a mechanic backed it out side and took the breather off and reved up the engine and started dumping a coke bottle full of water straight down the carb., it shot out alot of black smoke and steam, well needless to say ii didnt have any more problems with it,i understand why he did it, just curious if any one else has done this, thanks

 

i have never hurd of this. you could try to seafoam it. i would not put water into my motor.

 

Let me offer a new perspective for you on modern engines since 1985.
The old engines you refer to had very poor fuel manegement using carbs.
Oils were mostly from refined stock out of the ground with various contaminates.
Engine design was not as good and maintaince not performed quite as well.
The results of this in total was short engine life and high accumulations of carbon as compaired to todays engines and oils.
Today modern engines are very tightly computer controlled for fueling by OX sensor, timing and temperature control that the carbon accumulation is very low even at mileages over 150,000 miles.
The exhaust still has a lot of contaminates, carbon and moisture that is sampled by the EGR system and does cause maintaince issue with that system.
On out the exhaust is the cat converters that run in excess of 600 degrees and clean up most of the remaining contamination.
Bottom line is you would never see the level of buildup in these engines that you refer to on the old ones.
The oils today are blended with synthetics and cracked from crude in different ways. This helps a great deal in extending engine life a long way past 100,000 where the old one were in trouble often by 80,000.
Unless an engine was abused by not changing the oil, filter and given poor general care, there should be no real need to do any cleaning of an engine to those old levels.
By the time the engine has run to it's end life, the rest of the vehichle may also be at end of 'practical' life as well.
Use injector cleaner once in awhile, change oil and filter at around the 7k range +/- and keep air filter from letting dirt in the intake and the engine should never accumulate carbon to the levels of the oldies.
My 02 4.6 is at 167,000 miles and still quiet as new and runs strong.
Along the way for some there are always exceptions and other kinds of failures.
Good luck.

 

thanks bluegrass, gotcha i understand about all that, just i read alot of post on here about people taking off there intakes and cleaning ports, just thought id throw this out there to get opinions, thanks again ive had at least 6 ford vehicles with well over 200,000 miles since 89, my 99 f150 4.6 had 266,000 miles still was running great and very quiet, oh and still sold for $2800.00 2 years ago and i see it around town rolling along

 

Please excuse this but I am going to have to disagree with some of that comment about engines referred to since 1985, first, having “very poor fuel manegement using carbs” ---without even worrying about the misspelled word, I happen to have a couple of vehicles a little older, one being a 1981 350 with a “carb” (Rochester 830cfm) which has over 250 thousand miles on it and doesn’t smoke. The factory Cats have been taken off and when I took it to the inspection station and had it emission checked, they told me that it was burning CLEANER than most newer cars. As a matter of fact, the volumetric efficiency is 97%. The fact is, many of the older vehicles which I have personally seen, have achieved almost 400,000 miles. Some domestic and even foreign cars, late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s.

The comment, “Engine design was not as good and maintaince not performed quite as well”(Copied & pasted the quote) That is totally unfair and an inaccurate statement as well, one being totally obvious “maintenance not performed as well”? How can we keep track of how well people maintain their vehicles? Some do it very well, other people totally neglect their cars never even checking their tires, much less change the oil and other routine maintenance. So people haven’t changed, which has nothing to do with the quality of cars and trucks. Engine design? Some of the older engine designs are still being used on the street and even in racing. All you have to do is look in any Summit or Jegs catalog to see the Small Block Chevy design being duplicated and mass produced in numerous after market engine blocks. A very OLD DESIGN, which by the way, the small block Chevy is the most made and built engine in the world, still being used in street and/or racing where high horsepower is required! And again, not forgetting the high mileage that they achieve.

I have owned approx 15 Ford F-150’s, all of which got super high mileage in the 3 and 400,000 mile range
Not to mention lots of GM trucks and cars and getting the same high mileage.
(I tried to stay away from foreign makes and buy American)

Having worked in machine shops for 1,000’s of hours, I have seen many of the engines man has made, inside and out and when you refer to carbon buildup, it is usually the newer engines that suffer that one, not the old ones. How many Ford 4.2, 4.6’s and some larger V8's for example have been taken to the shop for the P1401 code? Then finding out that the intake manifold has to be pulled for carbon buildup and the vehicle doesn't even have 1000,000 miles on it? We never had to do that on the old “carb” engines! Some may have sludge in them, but that was from not changing the oil, not factory design limitations.

I’ll take an older vehicle that’s been rebuilt before a new computer on wheels any day of the week and go over 10 years with ever pulling up a “code” and only changing spark plugs, wires, Dist. Caps and rotors.

Or how about the old temperature control (hot/cold on the dashboard) that used a cable or a vacuum hose? It almost never failed. Now it is controlled by a stepper motor hooked up to the ECU and when it frequently fails, costs about $60 for the part and $150 for labor! It is all about MONEY. Some of the older guys will remember NEVER having to change a condenser coil because the aluminum was very thick. Now that the car companies have caught on that they can make more MONEY, condenser’s are thinner aluminum and have to be changed out about as often as an evaporator coil! Dealerships are making more money now on servicing than ever before--- EVER BEFORE!

Certainly technology has gotten better, and some engine designs have even improved, but better and not as good cannot be compared as you implied in the comment. Like I said, the old designs are still being used as a preference to some “new” designs. I remember my 1985 F150 EFI 4 speed automatic had over 250,000 miles on it and I began to worry about the transmission so I rebuilt it when it was still shifting good so that I could save $$ on hard parts. That was an old “85” as you referred to. That old truck was one of the best trucks I ever owned finally selling it with over 350,000 miles on it.

I have a 1979 Z28 approaching 600hp that “spanks” most Mustang GT’s, lots of newer Camaro's also and it has a OLD DESIGN block. I admit it can’t beat the 630hp SS except over 100mph where the Camaro has a governor at about 92mph.

Of course some new designs are better than some older cars could ever hope to be, but it is doubtful that the average car is. Codes galore, costing more to fix than ever before in history. Some people are stuck, unable to do mechanical work and are poor, so they have to buy cheap new crap, then go to Auto Zone so they can get codes pulled up and buy parts we never used to have in our cars! Awful!

The point is, you cannot refer to old and new in absolutes as you did because some of the old cars were awesome designs, turning into desirable classics, and some were the exact opposite, Newer vehicles have some great engines and transmissions, but some of them suck. It’s all relative.
Remember, experience is the best way to learn about engines, the second best way is to look it up online where about 50% of it is wrong, especially youtube, I've seen some shadetree mechanics do some really stupid stuff. One being some kid had the idea to put a valve suction cup on a drill (most of the time you don't even use one, and if you do, only a few spins! Then the guy had comments from other idiots saying that whoever invented that tool was a complete idiot! I'm sure a lot of valve seats were ruined by that video and that was one of the not so bad ones! Take your time, research, and use common sense remembering there is a reason some of the old methods work as well now as they did then. And some of the old engines
You may have gathered that I own both Ford's and GM. However, I like Ford better now as they are more American then the other "two"-Years ago, GM and Ford were both good.