That's not the combustion chamber, but the backside of the intake valve. The buildup is, unfortunatly, pretty normal since this is a CIS (constant injection) engine, so fuel is coming out of the injectors all the time. Over time it just builds up carbon on the back of the valve. There's no real good way to clean it up short of taking the heads off the engine removing the valves. For a while when gasoline started having a lot of additives put in, it was fashionable (not necessarily on DeLoreans) to remove the intake manifold and blast the back of the valves via the intake port with walnut shells, but I've not heard of that process for a long time now. I'd let it be, just going in there and scraping off chunks of carbon is likely to cause you more problems than you'll solve. This is one of those "they all look like that" things. Dave S --- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "supermattthehero" <supermatty@xxxx> wrote: > Hello, > > I pulled off my intake manifold last weekend to clean things up, and I > sure am glad that I did. > > Anyway, getting to the point, when I pulled the fuel injectors, I saw > quite a bit of carbon buildup in the combustion chamber. I mean, I > can clearly see a metal rod that goes through each chamber, but the > bottom of it is really caked up with a hard black material. To address comments privately to the moderating team, please address: moderators@xxxxxxxxxxx For more info on the list, tech articles, cars for sale see www.dmcnews.com To search the archives or view files, log in at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: dmcnews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/