Hello everyone and welcome I am sitting inside of a Maserati Quattroporte GTS
Gran Sport and I thought while I'm driving this nice Italian car
Why not answer the question does the Italian tune up actually work, in other words
Can you remove carbon deposits by driving your car hard?
Now, I read a ton of research papers about this subject for different, you know questions that I have about it
And so I'll include links all of that in the video description, but really, you know
I want to break this down into more questions, because I think it's more complicated than just simply asking
"does the Italian tune-up actually work?"
So, my questions are:
What temperatures do carbon deposits actually form at in an engine,
and then is there a certain temperature at which you can get the engine hot enough to
actually remove those carbon deposits? And then do engines actually get that hot in which you could remove carbon deposits
So is there a temperature which you could remove them; and then do the components of your engine, the pistons the valves things like that
actually get hot enough that you could remove those deposits? And so that's what we're gonna kind of break through
So starting at the very beginning, you know, what is the Italian tune-up?
And so the idea behind it is, you know, you're driving your car, you know
Whether you drive it a bunch or not all that much, you know the EGR the PCV
these are systems that are going to eventually cause, you know carbon deposits to build up especially with direct injection engines and
So the idea behind the Italian tune-up is you go out on a highway you rip a few pulls, you know
Get it up into the higher RPM; high load scenarios and that gets you know
It breaks down those carbon deposits they get so hot that they break apart and then you just kind of push them out the exhaust
So that's the idea behind the Italian tune-up
So then my next question was well what temperatures do carbon deposits form in engines?
and so, I found a research paper that was looking into this and it looked like it was about
195 degrees Celsius to about 290 degrees Celsius.
The peak there where you know, you get the most carbon deposits forming was at about 200 degrees Celsius
So that's really the sweet spot for carbon deposits to form
That's where they're going to react with the metal surfaces kind of build down that layer where that deposit precursor
You know it attaches to that metal surface and then bonds to it,
and then you have that carbon deposit forming. That generally seems to happen the peak of that is around
200 degrees Celsius. Now, if you get below about 190 degrees Celsius
Then it's too cold. The precursors don't actually react with the metal; and then if you get above about 290 degrees
It's too hot for those molecules - they don't want to bond
They either break apart and just go out the exhaust;
or they they just it's too hot for that molecule to actually bond with the metal.
And so that sweet spot is where you know, you really don't want the engine components to be from a deposit standpoint.
Ok, so the next question then is can you use heat to remove carbon deposits?
and so I found another paper which looked into this and what's interesting is they found starting at about
325 degrees Celsius you can really start to remove carbon deposits
It's hot enough that it actually will break apart those deposits and so you can start to remove them and they also found that above
325 which as I was stating earlier, above 325 degrees Celsius, you wouldn't have carbon deposits forming
So naturally, my next question was "well, what's happening at 325 degrees? Why is this causing carbon deposits?
to be removed?" and my chemistry is poor. So forgive me on this explanation here -
I don't really understand chemistry all that much at all, but it's a reaction called
"decarboxylation", and basically what this means is the temperature is so great that the
Carbon is kind of ripped out of that molecule
so the molecule is split into separate components; it then detaches from the surface and then that you those
Deposits then just go out the exhaust
So you've basically just heated up so hot that you break apart the molecules and then you just burn them out the exhaust
Hopefully, you know
they don't get stuck in your exhaust equipment or you know back in EGR and then back into your engine you just
Shoot that out the exhaust. So that's the idea: above 325 degrees Celsius
You can get hot enough where you can actually remove carbon deposits and it's actually at a pretty decent rate
Which was interesting to see.
Alright, so now the question is can you get the components in your engine hot enough to actually remove deposits?
so I was looking at studies that we're looking at the temperatures of different components in engines and
Starting with pistons; those seem to be around, you know
the surface of the piston where you would have those carbon deposits
forming, the surface of the piston was looking at about you know 280 to about 300 degrees Celsius.
Of course peaking in the center where it would be the hottest, and then
You know declining as it got towards the cylinder walls. The cylinder walls are of course liquid cooled,
the Pistons are oil cooled from beneath
So there is cooling that's happening there to keep those temperatures low, of course combustion temperatures, you know
The the flame itself can be as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius
but those Pistons are going to be cooled from the oil and then also cooled somewhat from the cylinder walls, which are liquid cooled
So looking at that range of about 280 to 300 degrees C
That's the range where you're not really going to have piston deposits
forming all that much, because you're above the temperature
So it does seem like if you're gonna drive it hard, and bring those temperatures up not all that much
You know to 325 degrees C
Then you could actually start to get into that range where you could start removing deposits.
Now, exhaust valves because they don't really have much cooling and they've got hot exhaust going around them. They get quite hot.
So they're in the 650 degree to about 800 degrees Celsius range
And so, you know, you don't really have to worry too much about carbon deposits getting real thick buildup on the exhaust valves,
they generally stay hot enough. We're not all that much can actually build up on the valve. Now, what about intake valves?
Well, the first study I film looked at intake valves on a port injected engine
And so this of course means you're going to have fuel spray over that valve that is going to have somewhat of a cooling effect
But regardless it's an interesting thing to look at as far as the temperatures are concerned
And so what they saw is that the temperatures on that valve
Both the side that was hit by the fuel and then the other side of the valve
Which it doesn't really get that fuel spray on
They saw the temperatures on that
range from about 170 to about 190 degrees Celsius and so
And so, you know a bit below where you start to have carbon deposits forming
But then they found that running the engine at 5,000 RPM at a high load
They were able to get the intake valves up to about 272 degrees Celsius
And so that's you know
That's definitely getting into that range and crossing over the peak range of where deposits start to form
and of course with the port injected engine
You don't have to worry about it nearly as much, because the fuel spray is washing off those deposit precursors
So they don't attach to the actual valve and they have cleaners to help remove deposits that are attached to the valves
but overall it doesn't look like the intake valves in this port injected engine no matter you know,
How hard you're running it we're able to get to those high temperatures in order to remove deposits.
And so then I found another study in
2016, looking at deposits in an engine; a direct injection 2 liter turbocharged engine
and, the unfortunate news that they found out in their study was that they saw a correlation between engine load and
deposit formation so they saw that the higher the engine load the more
deposits you would actually form and so that doesn't look good. You know, that means the harder you drive your car
Actually, you're making it worse on it
But you know from a temperature standpoint there are ranges where you can start to remove deposits
So what are our conclusions here? Does the Italian tune-up actually work and unfortunately,
it seems like another one of those questions where the answer is always, you know
"it depends" if the engine is capable of getting
components hot enough, perhaps so. I think it's gonna be more than just a single highway pull up to redline,
you know the saying like "a redline a day keeps the carbon at bay" or things like that
I don't think it's just going to be one redline,
I don't think things are necessarily going to get hot enough and that one strong pull in order to start removing deposits
I think it's going to take sustained heat more like track driving where you're going to have a lot more heat going into the engine
Forcing those temperatures to rise quite a bit.
And so it seems like pistons you could actually get the temperatures hot enough. As far as intake valves,
it really seems like it's going to depend on the engine and in some cases
It could actually make it worse because you're kind of putting it in that sweet spot where deposits actually do form.
Also, you know when you're running your engine really hard
You're of course going to have a bit more blow by so that means the PCV system is going to be sending more of that
Back into your engine so that blow by is going in you've got oil
droplets and the blow-by that's gone into your crankcase. And then you're sending that back into your engine
So that gives you an increased tendency to have those elements, you know
Those deposit precursors hitting your intake valves and potentially causing more deposits
So, you know does the theory behind the Italian tune up makes sense? Yes,
you can remove deposits with heat. Will it work for every engine?
And is it, you know a simple redline is all you need to do it?
I don't quite think so, based on the research that I've found
So thank you all so much for watching, if you have any questions or comments or additional insight on the old Italian tuna
Please feel free to leave those below
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