One of the guys at one of the Miata boards I visit had their air induction service done and gained 6hp at the rear wheels...and he had before and after dyno plots to prove it. I have no reason to believe he would lie about it either. The only thing I don't know is what kind of condition the car was in mechanically before the service. From what I hear the service is pretty expensive (about 150-200) but hell, if you got some miles on your car this could make a HUGE difference.
I have never owned a Miata before, but I will say that with a little electronic parts cleaner you can clean out your throttle body, MAF, EGR and idle speed controller, etc. Its typically not really hard to do unless the placement of the parts are hard to get to. The can of electronics parts cleaner is going to run you maybe $5. Im planning on doing my EGR here real soon since its probably due with over 100k on the car now.
Now, on the fuel (read, combustion chamber, valves, etc) treatment I have been testing a fuel cleaner/additive that so far is showing really good results. It inexpensive, working out to about 0.20/ounce, it really peps up the car and seems to be cleaning things out, thoug its more of an over time cleaning rather than the one shot cleaning like with the BG service.
Ive also been testing another product that is used in the oil. Normally I wouldnt go near my oil with any type of additive, but in trying to address and find a solution for the thickening issue with the 0W30 I ran across a huge recommendation for this product and decided to give it a try. In addition to it being able to address the viscosity issue it also deals with nitration and oxidation levels in the motor. If you keep those numbers clean, you will lengthen the life of the oil, as well reduce deposits among other things. Though synthetics are naturally resistant to deposit formation, if I can help it out Im all for it.
The viscosity issue has definately stabilized and Im sure that with 16,000 miles on the oil at this point I could go the distance with the 0W30. Im going to try and have an oil anlysis done just to get the final word, though I can tell from just familarity with the oil that its helping out.
I hope to do a write up on both products once I have all the information. Ive also begun testing another product thats sole purpose is to remove, not reduce, remove sludge and varnish build up among a host of other things. With 100k+ miles on my car I know the synthetics have kept sludge from forming in my motor, I know this to be fact because I dropped the oil pan last year and there was not one spec of sluged in the pan. There was on the internals just a very slight build up of varnish (that brownish looking color your parts take on after some time). The synthetics are clearly superior in preventing the build up of varnish over petroleum oil because they dont evaporate at anywhere near the rate petroleum oils do, but they still do evaporate a little which over time will cause a little varnish.
Well this product will remove all that and restore everything. They also claim that if you have stuck rings and such it will get in there and will be able to free them up if the sticking is due to build up, sludge, etc and isnt a mechanical failure. Im in the process of testing that and we'll see how that goes, I can say that looking at the camshaft area I can see that the varnish is beginning to clear up. And if it is working on the top end of the motor, I can only imagine how well it is working in the lower part where there is more oil pressure and oil flow.
So, I would think that unless you wanted to spend that kind of money just for the peace of mind there are alternatives out there that are considerably cheaper. And once you get things clean and as they should be, its much much easier to keep them that way with just general maintenance.
The products I mentioned above that I tested for the fuel and oil ran me about $25/gal. I bought it in the gallon size so I would have enough to do a long term test. Even with that, as I mentioned above were talking about 0.20/ounce and in both cases you only need just few ounces per application.
The engine cleaner that removes varnish and sludge and so on is a bit more expensive but you only need to use one or two applications depending on mileage and you're done.
Now, you can clean your combustion chamber out yourself too. You can take an ounce, two max of transmission fluid and dump it in the combustion chamber through the spark plug holes. Just remove the spark plugs, dump in 1-2 ounces of tranny fluid in the chamber and let it sit. Go out ever couple hours or so and turn the crank so that it gets worked in on the full stroke and into the piston rings and across the whole chamber and then let it set over night. Go back out and put the plugs back in and connect the spark plug wires and start it up. What fluid is in the chambers will burn off. It will smoke like a 70's hippie smokin a cigar sized joint but it will stop after a while. In fact its best if you can to just get it on the road and flog it until it stops smoking. You might need to change your oil afterwards depending on how much gets past the rings but it should clean a lot of junk out and help free up any ring packs that are hindered by build up.
Anyway, there are my thoughts on it. BG makes good products from what I have heard from people around here, but its pricey. And with good maintenance it shouldnt be all that necessary, especially if you are running synthetic oil. The fuel system may need a jolt from time to time, but if you are using a good fuel you shouldnt have much trouble their either.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
