Hey Folks,

So I had noticed a lack of power in my 2001 Protege 2.0L engine. Its has slowly been getting worse and worse over the past year.

I decided it was time a for a fuel system cleaning. So I shopped around and everyone wanted around $100 to clean the fuel system. All of them basically said they would add a "special chemical" to the tank and use compressed air to blow out the throttle body.

So I cleaned my throttle body my self for $6 and 15 minutest of time. Just took the air hose off, disconnect the sensors, and sprayed some throttle body cleaner in there to clean things off. I didn't notice much of an improvement in engine performance.

I also looked at these "special chemicals" to clean the fuel system...some are really pricey around $30 for a small bottle. I did some research and found out that most of these are just bottles of kerosene. They buy it cheap and mark it up to sell as "special chemicals".

I then went to Mohawk, filled up with 92 Octane (10% ethanol blend) and then dumped 500 ml of camping fuel (made sure it was Kerosene). Well about 100 km of driving my car feels like it is back to normal. As far as I can tell I have the same power I had when the car was brand new. Everything is much more responsive, and my mileage seems to be much better.

My conclusion is that the power decline was a result of carbon, gum, and varnish build up in my engine. The ethanol and kerosone in my opinion had cleaned this out.

Just thought I would share this with everyone.

Cheers!

 

thats some good info! might try this in a few years, my 02 seems just fine...i think.

 

also if you feel confident about removing fuel injectors, you can take them out and spray them directly with carb cleaner