What is some PM you can do to keep the carbon off of your plugs? I am worried about my 5.4 Ford. Is there something you can put in the oil or fuel?

 

You can put a good additive such as Techron in your fuel (or use a top tier fuel that has Techron or a similar additive in it already), and get a BG or Motorvac job done before attempting to remove the plugs.

 

OK I ran some Techron. Anything else or than the BG job? What exactly does it do?

 

Bump

 

BG44 WAS a great fuel system cleaner. But as it always goes, they have "improved" the formulation by taking out a lot of what made it work. Techron is good and so is Gumout with Regane. Regane being a Polyether Amine and is a fabulous carbon cleaner. Techron also uses a PEA in it's formulation but the Gumout with Regane is much cheaper. Gumout also comes in a formulation that does not have Regane so make sure it says it on the bottle. If you use a bottle of either just before every oil change so the crap that gets washed in the oil comes out at oil change, you'll have a pretty clean engine and plugs shouldn't be a problem.

 

Do you put the gumout in the fuel or oil?

 

Fuel

 

Carbon can be anywhere in the combustion chamber not just on the plugs.

It was proven to be snake oil. Even Dupont, the manufacturer of the PTFE used in Slick 50, said it would not work as Slick 50 claimed because the engine does not get hot enough for it to become a coating on anything.

 

Crash, the specific issue here is carbon building up around and on the spark plug ground sleeve. This is a unique problem with the 04 to mid 08 3v engines. The plugs come out a LOT easier if they have less carbon in that particular area. The use of top tier fuel and/or additives and/or an intake cleaning system (BG, Motorvac) greatly reduces this problem.

 

Absolutely true. It'a also true about changing the oil after using the heavy duty fuel system cleaners. It will foul the oil. There are some oil analysis on the web showing that phenomenon ( I did not bookmark them). I'm fortunate that around here, a Top Tier fuel is readily available and only pennies higher than all but the "no-name" el cheapo gas. I think the regular "maintenance doses" in the Top Tier fuels are the better way to go, but not necessarily possible for everyone.