Intake and Valve Condition Questions

[Backfire]

I am in the process of replacing the intake gaskets to hopefully rid my car of a nasty little oil leak. Now that I have every thing off, up to the heads, I can see the insides a little better. The intake and plenum show a black coating on them, both pretty heavy. I can also see down into two of the intake ports on the heads. Both valves looked to be just cakes with crap. You know those valve pictures the engine treatment bottles use to scare you with, well my valves look a lot like that :( .

Now, not having any real engine work experience before, I could be over reacting, but it looks pretty nasty on the valves. Is there any way to clean them up with out pulling and tearing down the heads? Any sort of additive that could be sprayed on without causing problems when I go to start it up? Is it even possible to clean them up if I pull the head? Or do I need to buy new ones?If I need head work done, I would really like to get it done now so I don't need to pull the all this crap again.

To go along with the repair side of things, what would cause that kind of build up? There are 58K miles on the car, and a catback is the only mod up to this point, so no messing with fuel mixture, timing, etc. Is that normal? I have used SeaFoam twice, both through the vacuum tube and spray though the intake. The last time was maybe 7.5K miles ago.

Any suggestions/insight/general knowledge welcome [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Patrick Javert]

go to your local mechanic and ask him if he has some valve cleaner solution he can run through your car. if it cleans all the gunk out that you say is on the valves, when he does this, yuor exhaust will be putting out white smoke until it is totally clean. the valve cleaner just gets put into the gas tank.

[Backfire]

Is this valve cleaner any different than Seafoam? I was under the impression that that is what Seafoam was, top end engine cleaner. I suppose I could spray it directly onto the valves with the intake off. Then hopefully burn/blow it all out when it starts.

[Magnus]

My valves were a little caked.. they didn't look new thats for sure.

I didn't have much buildup on them though.. just like a cracked off color coating.

Its normal for the intakes to be black.. Thank your EGR for that.