VR6 injectors...cleaner is better!

[JohnJ 0]

Just had all 6 injectors ultrasonically cleaned and flow tested (at £25 each) to try and cure an intermittent 'induction backfire' problem. Thought my car was running reasonably well beforehand and it did well at a recent RR-day but:

 

Cold-start is now instant. Always started first-turn but was taking a few seconds before it would catch. Think this might be down to losing fuel rail pressure via a leaky injector?

 

Start-up feels 'smoother'.

 

Idle is totally solid with no 'charateristic VR6' lumpiness.

 

Throttle response is much sharper, engine is generally more refined.

 

My mileage (120k) and care (FSH, regular oil changes/filters etc) are fairly typical so I would have thought that other owners might be suffering similar, without even realising it???

 

HTH.

[jedi-knight83 0]

i put a bottle full of injector cleaner (not just your average redex off the shelf at halfords stuff) in the tank at every service....

 

.. what added advantage will getting them taken out and cleaned give?

 

did you ever put fuel injector cleaner in to try before getting them all done?

[dr_mat 0]

I've heard this of ultrasonic injector cleaning before, it sounds like a good thing to keep up your sleeve. Not something you'd want to try "on the offchance", given that £25 each makes £150... but.. worth a thought.

[JohnJ 0]

No never did try cleaner, was thinking about giving it a go but my car was off the road waiting for a bearing anyway so I took the chance to get them refurbed.

 

I suppose taking them out to be cleaned and tested means 100% certainty that they are good. I was told each injector has its own built-in filter (true?) and these were pretty gunged up, presumably injector cleaner would not have been able to entirely clean the filter elements?

[jedi-knight83 0]

well the stuff i use (which my mechanic friend gets me for free, aparently you cant buy it in the uk???? i'll have to ask him what it is) makes a difference from what i can tell. especially the first time you use it.... thereafter it wont be as noticable as its just 'keeping' them clean instead of cleaning for the first time. But mine runs fine if thats anything to go by?

[Henny 0]

I had the injectors on my 16V MKI golf ultrasonically cleaned and the difference was unreal! It went from running mildly lean all the time to being spot on with the fuelling and made her fly like she always should have done... 8)

 

I had tried red-ex injector cleaner in the past with it and it had made a small difference, but that seemed to only last a little while... The ultrasonic cleaning will get ALL the in-grained muck off them and get them back to being basically like new again. 8)

 

The only thing to watch for is that if the injectors are worn as well as being dirty, they may develop a leak after you have them cleaned as the crud you clean out may have been making the seal effective... :? 2 of the 8 injectors I had done (don't ask, long story! ;) ) failed in the test after the clean for precisely this reason...

 

I'd still get it done again if I wasn't gonna replace my injectors with red tops in 1500 miles or so... :D

[dinkus 10]

Sounds like it's well worth the investment... how much to new OE injectors cost though? Are you better to just replace them?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

VR injectors are about £50 each new from Euro crud, but I reckon they can be had for less if you shop around.

 

£25 seems a lot for the cleaning but that does include flow checking and balancing to ensure all 6 deliver the same rate over time. Only snag is your carless for X amount of days.

 

Cleaning just doesn't sound as good as 'new' physcologially though!

[dr_mat 0]

Au contraire, Mr Haywire, I think cleaning sounds great, as it implies CHEAPNESS!!

;)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

If cheap was better then you wouldn't be taking your car to Stealth for chains, clutch and Schrick now would we?

 

You'd have made the parts yourself from crushed coke cans and had a back street garage do it all

[dr_mat 0]

Now you're being ridiculous. Coke cans don't contain the correct hardness of material.

Boddingtons cans, every time..

[VR6 0]

You'd have made the parts yourself from crushed coke cans and had a back street garage do it all

 

....aka Jabbasport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: VR6's above statement is not based on material facts and everyone should use Jabbasport for all of their performance tuning needs. :lol:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

LOL Tom......

 

Matt, thought about junking the chains and using a cambelt instead? Thought about just finding a random bunch of toothed pulleys and throwing them in there and see if it works with a Lada Samara belt?

[dr_mat 0]

Well, kev, it's tempting, given that it sounds like VR6s chew timing chains, camshafts, need replacement injectors, aux belt pulleys.. and then you're having to start replacing bits in the coolant system and it starts getting *really* pricey..

[Jim 1]

Ouch.. they are a bit more pricey for the G60 at nearly £70 a piece! :shock:

[Mike Edwards 0]

I had the injectors on the blue VR6 serviced last year. The garage's comment was that the filters were so badly bunged up that they were dribbling rather than spraying fuel.

 

Injector cleaner wouldn't help, as it was sediment from the tank that was cloggin them up.

 

The lesson is - when was the fuel filter last changed on your car?

[Rocket Ron 1]

I live in Portsmouth can anyone recommend a place to get injectors cleaned down my way.

 

Thanks in advance

[Rocket Ron 1]

Injectors cleaned by JMR Littlehampton now back in car and started fine all I need now is nice day to give it a blast thanks for everyones advice

[J-Lynch 0]

Has anyone tried fitting newer injectors to the VR 12v for better spray pattern?

Seen a few videos on YouTube demonstrating old vs new Bosh spray patterns.

There must be improvements on the 12 valve setup to be had where the fuel has to find its down the intake manifold way past valves and stuff.

[Geeba 0]

Funnily enough I opened a customer support case with Bosch UK regarding this - to see if there was a superseded part we could use, and they called me this morning.

 

They said when WV approached them for the injector setup on the VR engine it was a pain because of the offset cylinders odd length inlet ports - apparently the ECU is pretty clever, tweaked over a standard 6 pot brain and actually compensates for this and is matched to the injectors.

 

His advice was to replace or clean/service the ones I have unless I have a lot of spare cash to spend on ECU's, FPR's, Injectors and most costly of all dyno time for probably very minimal gains.

[J-Lynch 0]

That is odd I wasn't even expecting a reply, never mind the definitive answer direct from Bosch. Ths is for sharing that is quite interesting.

So the ECU is calibrated the factory bosch I'm Still curious how sensitive the setup would be to something with better spray. Found these on eBay which claim to be an upgrade to the factory boschs but are just rebuilt with quad spray nozzles. I thought the stock ones were quads but since I seem to have lost the them over my stupidly elongated rebuild time I don't actually know...

Here's the link to them.

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F192463934408

 

Fully refurbished with the 4 spray pattern upgrade(?)

 

Seems to good to be true at the price...

 

Sounds like nicely balanced injectors will do wonders for performance though

[Geeba 0]

Could be worth a go, they look good! - he did say obviously other injectors will fit, but they've not tested different setups or make what they would class as a revised replacement.

 

I think these are the ones you have to use a 3bar FPR with or it will run rich?

[fla 9]

look good - although the link says he doesn't ship to the UK??

[Geeba 0]

look good - although the link says he doesn't ship to the UK??

 

Yeah he wont even accept email from the UK, I did try dropping him a line

[VR-Sixy 0]

Yeah he wont even accept email from the UK, I did try dropping him a line

 

Miserable bugger!!