Is Redline Good For Your Car's Engine? Italian Tune Up

Hello everyone and welcome. I am sitting inside of a Maserati Quattroporte GTS Grand Sport and I thought, while I'm driving this nice Italian car, why not answer the question, does the Italian tune-up actually work? In other words, can you remove carbon deposits by driving your car hard? Now I read a ton of research papers about this subject for different, you know, questions that I have about it and so I'll include links to all of that in the video description but really, you know, I want to break this down into more questions because I think it's more complicated than just simply asking, does the Italian tune-up actually work? So my questions are, you know, what temperatures do carbon deposits actually format in an engine and then can, is there a certain temperature at which you can get the engine hot enough to actually remove those carbon deposits and then do engines actually get that hot in which you could remove carbon deposits? So is there a temperature which you could remove them and then do the components of your engine, the pistons, the valves, things like that, actually get hot enough that you could remove those deposits? And so that's what we're going to kind of break through. So starting at the very beginning, you know, what is the Italian tune-up? And so the idea behind it is, you know, you're driving your car, you know, whether you drive it a bunch or not all that much, you know, the EGR, the PCV, these are systems that are going to eventually cause, you know, carbon deposits to build up especially with direct injection engines and so the idea behind the Italian tune-up is you go out on a highway, you rip a few pulls, you know, get it up into the higher RPM, high load scenarios and that gets, you know, it breaks down those carbon deposits. They get so hot that they break apart and then you just kind of push them out the exhaust. So that's the idea behind the Italian tune-up. So then my next question was, well, what temperatures do carbon deposits form in engines? And so I found a research paper that was looking into this and it looked like it was about 195 degrees Celsius to about 290 degrees Celsius and the peak there where, you know, you get the most carbon deposits forming was at about 200 degrees Celsius. So that's really the sweet spot for carbon deposits to form. That's where they're going to react with the metal surfaces, kind of build down that layer where that deposit precursor, you know, it attaches to that metal surface and then bonds to it and then you have that carbon deposit forming and that generally seems to happen, the peak of that is around 200 degrees Celsius. Now if you get below about 190 degrees Celsius, then it's too cold. The precursors don't actually react with the metal and then if you get above about 290 degrees, it's too hot for those molecules. They don't want to bond. They either break apart and just go out the exhaust or they just, it's too hot for that molecule to actually bond with the metal. And so that sweet spot is where, you know, you really don't want the engine components to be from a deposit standpoint. Okay, so the next question then is, can you use heat to remove carbon deposits? And so I found another paper which looked into this and what's interesting is they found starting at about 325 degrees Celsius, you can really start to remove carbon deposits. It's hot enough that it actually will break apart those deposits and so you can start to remove them. And they also found that above 325, which as I was stating earlier, above 325 degrees Celsius, you wouldn't have carbon deposits forming. So naturally my next question was, well what's happening at 325 degrees? Why is this causing carbon deposits to be removed? And my chemistry is poor, so forgive me on this explanation here. I don't really understand chemistry all that much at all, but it's a reaction called decarboxylation. And basically what this means is the temperature is so great that the carbon is kind of ripped out of that molecule. So the molecule is split into separate components. It then detaches from the surface and then those deposits then just go out the exhaust. So you basically just heat it up so hot that you break apart the molecules and then you just burn them out the exhaust. Hopefully, you know, they don't get stuck in your exhaust equipment or, you know, back in EGR and then back into your engine. You just shoot that out the exhaust. That's the idea. Above 325 degrees Celsius, you can get hot enough where you can actually remove carbon deposits and it's actually at a pretty decent rate, which was interesting to see. Alright, so now the question is, can you get the components in your engine hot enough to actually remove deposits? So I was looking at studies that were looking at the temperatures of different components in engines. And starting with pistons, those seem to be around, you know, the surface of the piston where you would have those carbon deposits forming. The surface of the piston was looking at about, you know, 280 to about 300 degrees Celsius. Of course, peaking in the center where it would be the hottest and then, you know, declining as it got towards the cylinder walls. The cylinder walls are, of course, liquid-cooled. The pistons are oil-cooled from beneath. So there is cooling that's happening there to keep those temperatures low. Of course, combustion temperatures, you know, the the flame itself can be as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius, but those pistons are going to be cooled from the oil and then also cooled somewhat from the cylinder walls, which are liquid-cooled. So looking at that range of about 280 to 300 degrees C, that's the range where you're not really going to have piston deposits forming all that much because you're above the temperature. So it does seem like if you were to drive it hard and bring those temperatures up, not all that much, you know, to 325 degrees C, then you could actually start to get into that range where you could start removing deposits. Now exhaust valves, because they don't really have much cooling and they've got hot exhaust going around them, they get quite hot. So they're in the 650 degree to about 800 degree Celsius range. And so, you know, you don't really have to worry too much about carbon deposits getting real thick to build up on the exhaust valves. They generally stay hot enough where not all that much can actually build up on the valve. Now what about intake valves? Well, the first study I found looked at intake valves on a port-injected engine. And so this, of course, means you're going to have fuel spray over that valve. That is going to have somewhat of a cooling effect, but regardless it's an interesting thing to look at as far as the temperatures are concerned. And so what they saw is that the temperatures on that valve, both the side that was hit by the fuel and then the other side of the valve, which it doesn't really get that fuel spray on, they saw the temperatures on that range from about 170 to about 190 degrees Celsius. And so, you know, a bit below where you start to have carbon deposits forming, but then they found that running the engine at 5,000 rpm at a high load, they were able to get the intake valves up to about 272 degrees Celsius. And so that's, you know, that's definitely getting into that range and crossing over the peak range of where deposits start to form. Now, of course, with the port-injected engine you don't have to worry about it nearly as much because the fuel spray is washing off those deposit precursors so they don't attach to the actual valve, and they have cleaners to help remove deposits that are attached to the valves. But overall it doesn't look like the intake valves in this port-injected engine, no matter, you know, how hard you're running it, were able to get to those high temperatures in order to remove deposits. And so then I found another study in 2016 looking at deposits in an engine, a direct injection 2-liter turbocharged engine, and the unfortunate news that they found out in their study was that they saw a correlation between engine load and deposit formation. So they saw that the higher the engine load, the more deposits you would actually form. And so that doesn't look good, you know, that means the harder you drive your car, actually you're making it worse on it. But, you know, from a temperature standpoint there are ranges where you can start to remove deposits. So what are our conclusions here? Does the Italian tune-up actually work? And unfortunately it seems like another one of those questions where the answer is always, you know, it depends. If the engine is capable of getting components hot enough, perhaps so. I think it's going to be more than just a single highway pull up to redline. You know the saying, like, a redline a day keeps the carbon at bay or things like that. I don't think it's just going to be one redline. I don't think things are necessarily going to get hot enough in that one strong pull in order to start removing deposits. I think it's going to take sustained heat, more like track driving, where you're going to have a lot more heat going into the engine, forcing those temperatures to rise quite a bit. And so it seems like pistons, you could actually get the temperatures hot enough. As far as intake valves, it really seems like it's going to depend on the engine. And in some cases it could actually make it worse, because you're kind of putting it in that sweet spot where deposits actually do form. Also, you know, when you're running your engine really hard, you're of course going to have a bit more blow-by. So that means the PCV system is going to be sending more of that back into your engine. So that blow-by is going in, you've got oil droplets and the blow-by that's gone into your crankcase, and then you're sending that back into your engine. So that gives you an increased tendency to have those elements, you know, those deposit precursors hitting your intake valves and potentially causing more deposits. So, does the theory behind the Italian tune-up make sense? Yes, you can remove deposits with heat. Will it work for every engine and is it, you know, a simple red line is all you need to do it? I don't quite think so, based on the research that I've found. So thank you all so much for watching. If you have any questions or comments or additional insight on the old Italian tune-up, please feel free to leave those below.