Blaze9

Wassup all.

Haven't cleaned my engine bay since I got the car, that's well over 5 years ago. So it is DIRTY. I wanna clean it sometime this week. I've cleaned my 2011 camry and 2009 rav4 before, and I just covered up the alternator/starter and that's about it. For this car, should I be covering anything else up? I have the SRI so ofc I'll bag the filter but aside from that I should be good right? I know most of these new cars have all their electronics waterproofed fairly well.

Tonyware

Maybe an overkill but I removed the battery completely. That also gave me access underneath the tray. Again, overkill but what the heck, I also wrapped with plastic lunch bags all connectors, actuators and that big box computer front passenger side. Needless to say I cover the fuse box too. I used low water pressure. Make sure the little peep holes of the timing belt covers are in place! Also, its the bottom front of the cooling fans that need the most attention, somehow that is where most of the dirt, grease and salt (if you live in snowy area) accumulate. The rest is straight forward like any other engine bay. One thing I also do is to dry any water under the intake manifold, hair dryer works well for drying just don't burn anything LOL. Also, warm up the engine but not hot hot hot, just enough to for something like "simple green" engine cleaner that I have found works best, but the engine bay needs to be warm to activate its cleaning capabilities. I have been told also not to clean an engine that has never been cleaned before, like 4-5 years old. Reason being some of the accumulated grease or other stuff may actually provide shielding around gaskets etc, but I doubt thats for the J engines since they are built like tanks ! Finally, if you can get underneath the car, (safety #1 LOL) then the transmission and diff area on the driver side may need some cleaning too. Have fun.

Blaze9

Nice nice. Thanks for the heads up. All my previous cars I've cleaned are "current generation" cars meaning all these electronics systems and safety features, and they were fine w/ just covering the alt and starter, I don't think I would wanna go as crazy as covering all the connectors. These cars have water/weather proof connectors with thick rubber gaskets at the ends which will stop water very well. I might cover the fusebox or something to the effect, as well as protecting my intake like you said.

Also good choice of cleaner. I just looked at reviews and bought a bottle =P Thanks hah.

And nah I doubt that cleaning unclean engines provides any sort of problems. A lot of people say that for stuff like their cooling system. If there's gunk there you shouldn't clean/flush it cause the gunk is covering up leaks/holes. I'm like.. Hello if there's holes the gunk isn't your problem. Fix the problem!