Will driving a long distance remove carbon?

Answer 1

Sort of.

Carbon build up from short trips inside combustion chambers, off of Valves and such, yes, I have personal experiance with this. (Story at bottom) But this isnt a quick 1/2 hour trip, it takes 2 or 3 thousand miles.

Cleaning Intakes and throttle assemblies, NO

Carbon Build up from short trips and not warming the engine completly and correctly was demonstrated to me with a Ford van I was assigned to drive in the winter of 1990. The Manager of our depot had been using it as a personal vehical. It got 2 trips a day of about 5 minutes to and from his house through a little sleepy tourist town.

It still ran fine when I got it. I was assigned to run it on a five hundred mile round trip each day. The first day I had to stop for fuel twice, having emptied both tanks.

The next day I had too refuel only once at the 250 mile mark.

A week later I was finaly able to make the round trip, with a little less than a quarter tank left over. That was the range it operated at for the remainder of the winter. Including one terifying trip through the ditch in a blizzard.

All good fun