2nd Gen R56 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: Intake valves horribly coated with oily black goo after 15,000 miles, half a** job

Everyone please re-read my first post, I added tons more information that I should have shared in the first place! Thank you.

Thanks for the PDF file.

The shop was operating at 7 bar or 101 psi, whether they turned it up I'm unsure, didn't know to ask. Does an extra 22 psi really make that much of a difference? I would have taken my Mini to Motoring Magic except I was able to take off work on Tuesday (elevator maintenance) and took the soonest available appointment on that day, I needed my Mini back by 2:00 pm so I could make it to work. I believe MM has Saturday appointments but not sure how booked they were being Summer, the time to get a walnut blast of intake valves on N14 engines.

I was willing to drive 200 miles to get it done! Funds are extremely low for me right now so renting a car even if paid for by the shop was a no, I still needed a rental car deposit which I didn't have at all. I had to loaned my mother $600 to buy a plan ticket to go see her dying sister in Atlanta! There's somethings you just can't say no to even if you must take out a loan for a family member for this important occasion. :frown5:

 

Before

 

After Note the crud around the edge of the valves was cleaned with pick tools, pictures taken before that was done.

 

Disconnecting the battery resets the ECU correct? If so there was no ECU reset, but the adaptation procedure had to be performed because the throttle body actuator was moved during cleaning of the intake manifold, there was a layer of oil coating the inside. Would installing the updated intake manifold even out the oil coked onto the intake valves? I want them to look more evenly so the two cylinders don't get so bad, I probably won't have to worry about my intake valves for quite awhile now. I will check them every 20k miles.

There was 62,251 miles on my 2007 MCS, I burn through a little less than half a quart every 1000 or three full-ups at the pump. I could go 2000 miles not adding any oil and still have a little less than 1/4 of oil on my good old Craven dip stick if I were dumb enough which I'm not!

You also refering to 1 & 2 cylinders, lol? At what psi should the walnut shells hit the carbon? I was told by the mechanic performing the job that the walnut blaster operated at 101 psi. The tools looked exactly like the Mini dealers tools and the mechanic performing the job and the owner of the shop said this was the hardest walnut blasting job they had ever performed! They said that every other walnut blasting job performed at their shop the valves once hit by the walnut media was sparking clean almost right away with only a few repeated attempts to get everything spotless.

Much appreciated to all and those that come after with comments.

 

My compression test late last Summer, hot vs cold yielded the same numbers, dry test only. These numbers on all cylinders built up compression quickly, 4-5 compression stokes. With numbers like these it's difficult to understand how good numbers can be possible with carbon build-up on the intake valves, I'm assuming not all the oil burns itself onto the valves but makes it into the cylinders and burns the same black carbon onto the piston tops and in and around the upper piston rings.

Compression readings to small read, cylinder #4 165 psi, cylinder #3 165 psi, cylinder #2 165 and cylinder #1 170 psi. Cylinder #1 had the most carbon build-up on the valves and the piston tops. The other piston tops mimic the same cylinders intake valves, there's obviously a connection to the amount of carbon on valves and piston tops of the same cylinder.

Cylinder 1




Cylinder 2




Cylinder 3




Cylinder 4