Ok, here is a questions I have always sort of wondered. I was once told that you could clean your cylinders and pistons by putting in a slight amount of water through the intake, and then during the combustion it sort of "steam cleans" the cylinder and pistons. If that is in fact true, has anyone who has disassembled a few engines ever that WI engines are usually cleaner inside than non-WI engines?

Please, if this is stupid and silly, I don't need to be made fun of. I am simply asking a question to see if there is any truth to what my boss has told me.

Thanks

This is perfectly true. people use to drip water into carbs and let it idle for 30 minutes. This is an old fashion way of clean the engine internal.

When I pulled my 2.0l short-block, which had been run for nearly 2-years with 50/50 mix of alky/water, it was unbelievably clean on the inside! We couldn’t believe it, no carbon build-up whatsoever, and the piston tops weren’t even black. This could only be attributed to the injection system and inherent “steam cleaning”…

Excellent to hear!! My boss doesn't just lie to me and try to feed me bull. Anyway, on to another question. Do you think that adding WI to an old engine will actually help it then? In the sense that after time carbon will build up and cause hot spots which could cause nasty things to happen, but if you add WI after it has built up these spots, the carbon could be "steam cleaned" away? Or is it that once so much has built up, you cannot really get it off with this method. I am not planning on adding WI just for the cleaning purpose, actually I am not planning on adding it at all. I would just like to know all of the little hidden fringe benefits associated with different parts.

Thanks,
Scott

If its really built up it will take some time but the WI should clean it up...