Recommendations for flushing engine before new oil goes in?

[E92E30Nut]

I would like to do what I can to flush out any gunk from the motor before I out fresh fluid in. Anyone have recommendations or specific products that work well to achieve this?
Thanks in advance

[george graves]

A mechanic friend of mine swears by this: http://www.cyclo.com/C19.html

I believe it's sold under a few brands, but they are all are in an old school can with a pull tab.

You'll know how well they work by how many warnings it comes with. The stuff that says "Only run for 5 mins" - you know might actually work.

Pull the oil cap on your head, and look inside. If you see black, you might need it(and have issues). If your see more-or-less gold/orange color, I would skip it.

[jlevie]

The safe way is to change the oil & filter, drive the car about 500 miles and change the oil & filter again. You can repeat that cycle a time or two if you want to. Looking into the oil fill cap will give a good indication of how dirty the engine is, as george graves said.

The nicest thing you can do for your engine is to take it out once a week for a 20-30 minute highway speed drive. It takes that long for all parts of the engine to reach the temperatures needed to boil off combustion blowby condensates. If you do a lot of urban driving (lots of short low speed trips) reduce the oil/filter change interval to something like 2500mi to get rid of the condensates and keep the engine clean.

Conversely, if your driving includes daily 20-30 minute highway speed driving, you can go the full interval (as indicated by the SI lights) on oil/filter changes.

When it comes to oil and filters, you wan an oil with a high ZDDP content to protect the rockers. Amzoil has a good product and Rotella T is pretty good. There are racing oils with higher ZDDP content, but they don't have the detergent packages as they are meant to be changed frequently. The best oil filter is a Mobil-1 filter, but the OE or Mann filter is okay.

[TobyB]

Removes power-robbing deposits
Dissolves gum, sludge & varnish
Helps free sticking valve lifters & rings

In all my years as an idiot DIYer, I've never met a 'power robbing deposit'
that didn't live in a fuel injector. Everywhere else, they just hang around and
don't bug anyone.... well, except in the throttle body, but those are easy to clean.

We have solid 'lifters', and a stuck ring on a BMW engine is usually a broken ring.

I am firmly with Jim on this one- just reduce your oil change interval if you're worried.
You run the risk of doing real damage with additives/flushes/bananas/snake oil
in your oil, and the benefits are unmeasurable. Yes, it's NICE if the top of the
head looks all spanky, but it doesn't matter much.

t

[george graves]

In all my years as an idiot DIYer, I've never met a 'power robbing deposit'
that didn't live in a fuel injector. Everywhere else, they just hang around and
don't bug anyone.... well, except in the throttle body, but those are easy to clean.

Deposits on the back of the valves are a real issue.

[digger]

Yeah don't flush it with anything

[TobyB]

Deposits on the back of the valves are a real issue.

Oh, right- Ventil your Sauber, eh? But that's nothing an oil 'flush' would fix.

I've never come across that very much- but then, I Chevron, too...

t