A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

I didn't really take a lot of stock in this until I experienced it first-hand. My pistons looked like the latter at 9600 miles.

Yes, there are products that will clean it. The issues I have are that internal venting puts oil on the throttle blade, inside the throttle body, inside the intake, inside the intake ports, intake valves, and ultimately bakes onto the piston. Carbon on a piston robs power by absorbing some of the fuel in the intake charge. It also slightly alters the compression ratio if there is enough of it on the piston. To me, the best solution is to nip it at the source and prevent it from happening.

The cons for external venting are EPA non-compliance and increased air pollution. Aesthetics, potentially. External oil or oil vapor getting on the bike, or the rider. potential to plug up and become inoperative. If you use a can, having to add that to your daily ride checklist, or maybe having to empty during a long haul.

 

So have you vented your M 8 externally then?

 

Yes sir, with a catch can. I had to modify my original design, but it's working great now. More info here, if you're interested. Most guys are running aftermarket air cleaners, so this mod is of little interest to them.

 

 

All of us here at DK thoroughly believe in venting externally. When you look at the Pros and Cons, it is overwhelming pros.
As you can see from the pictures already posted, the pistons get VERY nasty when everything is vented internally which is not good for the power or longevity of your motor.

You can see much more information and pictures at this LINK, that goes much more in depth.

Just another picture to show all the mess you DO NOT want in your engine:



You can see all of our external breather systems at this LINK.

You can always also give me a call here at the office about what options will work with your current setup.... or to get a whole new one

A company is only as good as its customers..... and we have Awesome customers!!!

Natalie

 

well, this has been a very much studied subject from an automotive view point and under designed working parameters, it does little harm to a healthy engine and can last decades. while it is true that oil in the cyl has ill effects, water not so much from the blow-by issues. now that said, when an engine does wear to the point to tip the scales and the venting system is over taxed, then things turn south. the way hd vents is a puzzle itself and yet it works for them, how ever, compare the way rice does it, much better. i vent internal but with a modified system that puts the vent into the intake air stream unlike the stock that dumps it into the air cleaner which is fine IF you do not have LAZY flow which will cause drop out and oily cleaner. i never have this issue sense the flow cannot become lazy.
water injection goes over 1/2 century back and works but you CANNOT do it like you said. the water must be injected into the air intake stream and be finely atomized. i ran water injection on my dodge 440 and nary a ping, detonation nor carbon build up. in winter, i ran rubbing alcohol 50/50. i ran a holley injection unit controlled by temperature and throttle response.
there are plenty of products that can clean top end but using a top tier fuel can help. gm used to make a top end cleaner but discontinued it as they saw the need of it very limited. did thier product work, sure did, will gag a maggot. efi changed the game with leaner burns, shoot even plugs can go 100,000 miles.

 

Tell us more about your system and if you have any pics that would be great !!

 

this is what i run.
there is more mods with the cleaner to head mounts but that isn't material although it did open up the ports a tad.
the issue with the hd is that at times, air flow through the cleaner isn't enough to carry the c/c vapors across the cleaner into the intake tract. when this happens, gravity will cause the droplet to fall out and another issue is that c/c vapors can hit the air cleaner can and coalesce to larger drops that fall out.
i have 30k miles on this and never had to clean the air cleaner, only service the k&n filter which has to be done when the red dye fades. to answer the ?, yep, i push this thing pretty hard at times and use engine braking when little air flow is there. the speedo quits at 120 and that is @ 5k and i have 2.5K to go.

 

Droplets of oil ignite in a combustion chamber at a much lower temperature than gasoline - the oil mist/droplets can cause problems with pre-ignition on higher compression, higher output engines.