Of Scopes And Scanners ......

[brother bubba]

How ‘bout we try something a little different here. Nowadays every shop has a scanner and some sort of scope. For the most part, the scope collects dust while the scanner gets used as an overpriced code reader. But every now and then, the gator of the month rolls in and it’s time to break out the big guns for some world class diagnosticating. And when you finally find that elusive little glitch and print out the scanner movie with pride swelling your chest you suddenly realize your customer just wants his wheels back and nobody wants to see your stupid little scanner movie. Well, we would like to see your scanner movie, so post ‘em up right here and maybe we can all learn something. Here’s one I found kind of interesting from not too long ago …..

Customer comes in with a 2000 Honda 2000, sporty little two seat go kart on steroids.
60,000 miles, CEL, random misfire codes but ran smoothly and the customer said he had not noticed any misfires. Cleared codes, scheduled him for a tune up. Back in three days, same codes. Replaced plugs and test drove. Noticed after test drive that you could hear a noticeable blubber out the tail pipe. Captured this movie …..

HONDA1.JPG (80.97 KiB) Viewed 6004 times

Scanner help said possible exhaust valves. Didn’t want any part of that. Checked compression and leakdown, nominal and consistent. Never been a big fan of induction cleaning but something said give it a try. Afterwards, drove the same test route and came back, no misfires. Captured this movie.

HONDA2.JPG (85.33 KiB) Viewed 6004 times

Differences were kind of subtle. Oxygen sensor maybe a little more active, hard to tell. Pulse width dropped by 0.1. Significant but not very noticeable. The most noticeable change is at the DOWNSTREAM oxygen sensor. From full rich to lean. And the misfires were gone. Maybe induction cleaning aint a waste of time after all.

[liljoe]

Now really every body, does this look like something I would post? NO! It is too professional looking and no use of red neckisms, nor mention of needing herbal relief from the headachs that are caused by the things we deal with every day.......

[steven kiser]

I LOVE IT. DIAGNOSTICATING, AND REDNECKISISMS. I THINK I'M GOING TO KICK BACK WITH MY DOGS DO SOME FISHIN, THROW A SLAB OF SMOKED BRISKET ON THE BBQ (1/2 WRAP IT IN FOIL, SET IT IN A PAN OF WATER THAT COMES 1/2 WAY UP THE SIDE, SLOBBER SAUCE ON IT, MY FAV IS APPLE/ORANGE, TAKE MY PELLET GUN AND CLEAR MY LAND OF TREE RATS. i just get so young feeling when i talk about red necks. they/we know how to have fun. you'll never see me in a mullet or wearing a belt buckle as big as my truck, but i'll sit down and eat catfish, squirrel, pigs feet and yes oysters. lest not forget the lemonade so bitter you have to keep it moving so the sugar won't settle and can't take big gulps because of the seeds. another thing i love to do is after all the feeding is done i take all the left over juices from my plate and pour it over a piece of dry corn bread. what i don't finish i can pulverize into cat fish bait.................................................

[jbadenoch]

Well, not sure if this make me a wiskered fish or not but I save the old corn bread for breakfast. Warm it up and pour a bit of milk, buttermilk if ya got it, and a dab of butter.... Ahhh, good eats! Then the dog cleans the bowl.

[brother bubba]

Myself,I like a piece of hot corn bread with a big old scoop of vanilla ice cream on it, but you're missing the whole point of this thread. What did you think of my pictures ???

[brianp87]

Did you just take a snapshot with the verus then load it? Im not sure I could figure out how to get it to the forum. I barely figured out to how to take the snap shots with the verus

[brother bubba]

Did you just take a snapshot with the verus then load it? Im not sure I could figure out how to get it to the forum. I barely figured out to how to take the snap shots with the verus

It ought to be that easy, but there are a few software conflicts you have to skate around. Once I have captured a screen shot (or better still, a movie), I transfer it to my PC using ShopStream Connect, (free download). That is where I review my data and set the PIDS I want displayed. Once I have the screen looking like what I want, I hit the “Print Screen” button. Then I open up Paint (Photoshop would probably work just as well) and paste from the clipboard, reduce the size to 65%, then save as a JPEG file. Now the file can be uploaded.

DONS RIDE.JPG (98.19 KiB) Viewed 5926 times

[fortknoxx]

looks great to me. (gots no clue what I am looking at) but it still looks great

[brother bubba]

looks great to me. (gots no clue what I am looking at) but it still looks great

Let’s see if I can put this in a little better perspective. The first two images I posted were before and after ‘movies’ of test drives of the same vehicle taken with a Solus Pro scanner. Both show that the vehicle was driven at highway speeds and then allowed to idle for a period of time, as shown by the VSS and RPM graphs. If we compare the other graphs with each other, we see very little difference with one exception, the downstream oxygen sensor (second row, third column). The output of the downstream oxygen sensor is not used in computing fuel mixture or timing. It is used to indicate catalytic converter efficiency, an EPA function. But what we see here is that before we cleaned the upper intake, our output was well above .5 volt but was well below .5 volt after we cleaned the intake. What this shows is that before we cleaned the intake there was sufficient unburned fuel in the exhaust that when it was burned in the converter, there was very little oxygen left, giving us a rich indication at the downstream sensor. After cleaning, we now have more oxygen left in the exhaust, giving us a lean indication. This means that we are burning the fuel more efficiently in the engine and not wasting as much fuel that is being burned in the catalytic converter. This is also indicated by the difference in injector pulse width, but the difference there is so slight it is almost imperceptible.

For a shop that offers upper intake cleaning, a before and after shot like this, printed out and shown to the customer is a graphic indication that the $100 or so that they have spent on this service has actually done some significant good. With the cost of fuel being what it is, the savings in fuel will quickly pay for the cost of the service. The customer can readily see that there has been an improvement in efficiency and leaves confident in the fact that they will see an increase in fuel mileage.

The point of this thread is that there are capabilities of our scopes and scanners that often go unused. The graphical presentation of the data we can obtain not only can be used as a diagnostic aid, but as a sales tool as well. By sharing these real world problems and solutions in a forum like this we are also using it as a teaching aid, providing virtual knowledge and experience that we would otherwise have to learn the hard way, if at all .....

[ricmorin]

So can you help me understand how the upper intake affects fuel mixture? We are talking about the portion of the intake above the injectors, yes?

[a&mauto]

What I have seen in the past, is when you get a large build up of carbon on the backside of the intake valve, it acts as a sponge. A regular injected car gets the fuel sprayed right on that carbon sponge and it messes with our atomization. When the valve opens, we are getting large drops of fuel sucked in instead of a fine mist. Your borescope will prove that the carbon is there. I will be curious to see if a direct injected car ends up having more or less carbon build up there.

[brianp87]

I agree but cleaning just the upper intake shouldnt affect that carbon an decarb service can and usually does. It also may clean the injectors somewhat.

[steven kiser]

lets take a step back here. on a cold start you may experience a lean condition and when warmed up a rich one. it will take a few minutes for the carbon to start dripping fuel into the cylinder to add to the amount being sprayed. there is a misconception of carbon and oil contamination. if there is a buildup enough to cause this issue the guides are probably junk. i've always been a bit apprehensive that a solvent strong enough to clean this amount of carbon off the valve would trash the cats. 30 years ago showing my age, we would mix brake fluid with water and pour it through the carb keeping the rpm's above 3k. on occasion we would knock off pieces of carbon and the engine would start to knock and stumble. they key here was to keep it running and eventually it would clear out. i had some vehicles that would smoke so bad you couldn't see the shop........................

[brianp87]

The bg decarb kits i use work really really well for some driveability issues I have seen. Ive used them on some oddysy vans with a huge difference that even the customer notices.

[brother bubba]

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Thanks for the input, guys. This was a BG unit that was used in this case. Kind of fogs the cleaning solution in through the intake, supposedly cleaning the MAF, throttle bore and plates, intake runners, intake valves, combustion chamber and the top of the piston. I tend to agree that it was probably deposits at or just above the intake valves that was causing the problem. The “Upper Intake Cleaning” ( kind of a misnomer) took care of it. Being an old school, die hard, junk yard dog, I was a little skeptical at first. The scanner movie convinced me.


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