I am after some help/ advice.. Early mk2 8v GTi. Whist doing bits with the engine I had blocked a tube from the inlet manifold with the thumb of a rubber glove. All worked well for an hour with the slight vacuum holding it, UNTIL an hour later and it has disappeared into the inlet manifold. Where the hell will it be? The engine was hot and is now running slightly lumpy. I even looked through the throttle body and can not see it. I assume it has gone down to the combustion chamber and perhaps melted around a valve. So, SH#T, now what do I do? Is it head off time or maybe hope it has burnt to a crisp and will disappear. Or get one of those carbon people out to spray foam in it and hope it disintegrates. Annoyed with myself Trying not to type lots of swear words at the moment....
You may be lucky and it melted immediately and struck to the inside of the manifold rather than going any further, if you took the 5th injector out could you possibly see (or feel?) the area just where it went in? Failing that maybe taking the intake manifold itself off before going deeper to check if it's in the runners? Use a vacuum, empty the canister first to more easily see what it picks up? Can you get your hands on a borescope, don't think they're overly expensive nowadays for the phone attachment type, maybe somebody already with one could recommend theirs then Amazon nextday?
Do not think it is hard enough to cause damage. Many engine swallow carbon build up from egr, manifold and have no problems, and carbon build up is much harder. Probably got chewed up and spit out right away.