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Seafoam?

100K views 82 replies 39 participants last post by  HoosierGuy10 
#1 ·
What's the consensus about using a can of sea foam on the vacuum line? Something that should be done every once in a while or something to avoid? I've read a few places where people suck a can into the vacuum line as part of maintenance and tune up. Good idea or no?
 
#5 ·
Seafoam is a top notch cleaner, BUT remember to FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE CAN. If your cleaning the fuel system, change the plugs after use, if your cleaning the oil system, change the filter and oil after use, Trans is the same after cleaning replace the filter and fluid, the engine in my Jeep is a year old due to a Fram oil filter, and the new one gets cleaned at every tune up with Seafoam. I also use it in my wifes 2005 Chevy Malibu, and a 1989 Chevy S-10 Blazer that had a sludged up engine from Quaker State oil when I first bought it 8 years ago, and now thanks to Seafoam has a engine that looks new inside
 
#6 ·
I've been using seafoam for years in all my internal combustion engines, large and small. In my Jeep I use some through the tank every three or four tanks of gas. When I change the oil, I do a vacum line treatment. I've used seafoam in the oil, but just for short periods of time right before changing the oil. I'm a firm believer in the stuff!
 
#8 ·
I have finally decided to get off my lazy butt and write a tutorial on how to seafoam your car. Many of you are familiar with seafoam; some have no idea what it is. Well, for all those that are interested, seafoam is multipurpose, 100% petroleum product you can pick up at any local auto store (Napa, advance, AutoZone, etc). It is used to clean carbon buildup from your engine, clean your injectors, and clean your oil and a whole lot more. to familiarize you with the products, this is what I am talking about:

Seafoam:


Seafoam Deep Creep:


okay now that you all see what seafoam is, let's talk about what it's used for:

Uses of Seafoam

I would first like to state for the record that seafoam is NOT a power adder. All seafoam does is clean out the gunk inside your engine and injectors. This will do nothing more than restore any horsepower/fuel economy you have lost due to years of dirt and grime inside your engine. Any power you pick up along the way is because it has just been suppressed by the filthy engine and is now free again.

if you are losing power and mpg due to carbon buildup, if you are experiencing pinging and if you're having trouble passing emissions test, seafoam may be your answer (yes, seafoam will actually reduce your emissions if carbon buildup is causing dirty exhaust fumes!). Feeling the pinch at the pump lately? Well, seafoam can be used to pick up a few extra mpg you have lost over the years and reduce or eliminate your engine ping by cleaning out your cylinders!

What You Need to Seafoam Your Engine:

in order to maximize your engine's fuel economy and performance, you should do a full engine treatment. in order to do so, you will need a few things:

- 2 cans of seafoam (1st picture above)
- 1 can of seafoam deep creep (2nd picture above)
- flat head screwdriver
- pliers
- 1 long, skinny funnel

okay, now that you have all the necessary tools to complete the job, let's talk about how to use seafoam:

How To Seafoam Your Car:

Part One: Injector Cleaning

this is the easiest part of the process. Simply drive to the gas station and completely fill up your tank with 91+ octane gasoline as usual. Take 1 of the 2 cans of seafoam in the requirements above. This can of seafoam will be poured directly into your gas tank. Now, seafoam makes a great product but they didn't think too hard when they designed their can. You need a funnel in order to dump it into your gas tank. Do not try to be cool and try and beat gravity by jamming the can into your gas tank. I tried that. All I got was a car that smelled like gas and wasted seafoam on the ground. Take the long skinny funnel, put it in your gas tank, shake the can of seafoam up and pour the entire can of seafoam into the tank. Then, take your car for a nice ride so the seafoam swishes and mixes in your gas tank. The seafoam will clean out your injectors nicely. Try and run this tank pretty low before filling up so you don't dilute the mixture with more gasoline. This way, you get the maximum cleaning power of seafoam.

Part Two: Cleaning Your Oil System

as you all should know, f-bodies require 5.5 quarts of oil. Seafoam is to be added directly into your crankcase in order to cleanse the oil. Yes, you heard me; you're pouring a foreign mixture directly into your engine oil. This can be scary for newbie’s. Never fear, seafoam is 100% petroleum. It is as harmful to your engine as water is to your skin - not harmful at all. The correct measurement for seafoam is 1.5 ounces per quart of oil in your crankcase. Simple math tells us:

(1.5) X (5.5) = 8.25 ounces

a can of seafoam is 16 ounces, so for simplicity's sake, we'll add half a can directly into the ENGINE OIL spout. NOTE: I recommend pouring the seafoam into your oil when the car is cold. I would not recommend pouring a room temperature liquid into 200+ degree oil after the car is hot. Last thing you want to do is shock your valve springs.

Run the seafoam in your oil for NO MORE THAN 250 miles! Seafoam is very aggressive. Your next oil change will be black as Satan’s heart and likely thicker than usual. I would not recommend running this oil very long in the car as your oil filter is going to have quite the time on its hands and the oil won't be in the best of shape afterwards. I’ll say it again. Change your oil less than 250 miles after you put seafoam in your crankcase! I personally recommend running it 100 miles, then changing your oil. That should be plenty for the seafoam to get most of the gunk out.

Part Three: Top End cleaning

here comes the fun part: cleaning the engine internals! NOTE: park your car in a VERY WELL VENTILATED area for this step as high amounts of toxic fumes will be pouring out of your car.

As you recall, we have half a can of seafoam left. This half a can will be used to clean out your cylinder banks. In order to do this, we need to locate a vacuum line to directly feed the seafoam into the engine. The favorite vacuum line is the brake booster line. for those unfamiliar with the brake booster, here is what it looks like:


(sorry for the image quality, it was getting dark and that's the best my cell phone can do )

the brake booster is the big, black saucer shaped object behind the brake fluid holder against the driver's side firewall in case you can't tell by the picture.

We will be sucking the seafoam into the brake booster hose marked by the red arrow. (Note: some people prefer to suck the seafoam in through the PCV line. this is also acceptable, although I have never done it.)

First thing you want to do is start the car and let it warm up until the engine reaches closed loop. Basically, start your car and wait for the engine to warm up to normal operating temperatures (5 - 10 minutes depending on outside temperature). After the engine is nice and warm, turn the car off. Now we're going to disengage the brake booster line.

For this, you may need a pair of pliers and a flat head screwdriver. There is a little metal clip holding the brake booster hose to the brake booster. You want to take a pair of pliers, compress the clip and slide it down the hose a few inches. Now that the clip is out of the way, you need to disengage the brake booster hose. This can be a bear if you've never done this before. My car had 80,000 miles on it when I sea foamed it and that sucker was stuck on there tight (it's a vacuum line, it's glued by high pressure). You may need to take the flat head screwdriver and jam it into the vacuum line and wiggle it off the brake booster. This may take a while. It took me a lot of pressure to get the hose off the booster. You may have to pull pretty hard.

Once the hose is off, you're going to want to find a small funnel that will fit into the brake booster hose. I do not recommend simply jamming the hose into the seafoam and letting the engine suck it up. This makes it very hard to control the amount being sucked up and could flood the engine far too fast cause it to prematurely stall out.

Now that you have a funnel jammed into the brake booster hose, start the car. You’ll notice your rpm's are very high, likely around 2000-3000rpms. This is because your brake booster hose being disconnected is causing a massive vacuum leak. You’ll be able to feel the engine sucking air down the funnel.

At this point, you have half a can of seafoam left (8 ounces). You should, in your head, divide that into three equal parts. You’re going to want to SLOWLY pour the first two thirds of the seafoam left in the can into the engine via the funnel. The engine will start to sputter and choke as you pour in the seafoam. You DO NOT want your engine to stall out. Go as slowly as possible pouring the seafoam into the engine as necessary so the engine does not die. Do this for the first two thirds of the mixture. With the final third of the seafoam, quickly dump it down into the funnel. The idea here is to stall out the motor, suspending the remaining gulp of seafoam in the cylinder banks (don't be alarmed if your engine bay is smoking the entire time this is happening). If your car does not stall, quickly run and turn off the key.

Do not start the car for at least 15-20 minutes. We want the seafoam to soak in the motor good and hard to get all that nasty carbon out of the engine.

While the engine is sitting and soaking, with the key out of the ignition of course, get that bottle of seafoam deep creep I told you to buy.

Seafoam deep creep is to be sprayed inside your throttle body. Disconnect your hose running to the throttle body so your throttle body blade is showing. Get a friend to push down on your gas pedal so the throttle blade opens. If you don't have a friend at your disposal, a brick or something will do just fine to hold the gas pedal down, anything to keep the throttle blade open. Again, your engine is to be OFF during all this.

once you can see inside your throttle body opening, spray seafoam deep creep into throttle body, fully soaking the blades, the bottom, top, and up and down into the intake manifold behind the throttle body. Use a good amount of seafoam. Don’t be too conservative, but the whole can is far from necessary. Use your judgment. Get it in there nice and deep but there's no need to flood anything!

Reconnect the throttle body hose, the brake booster hose, the clip back on the brake booster line and anything else you may have disturbed during the sea foaming of your car.

Now we will just wait for the remaining time to pass before you can start your car back up.

Okay, now that 15-20 minutes have passed, it's time to start your baby back up. This may be a challenge. The engine is flooded with liquid so it may be a lot harder to start that usual. This is completely normal. Once your car is started, let it idle for a good 10-15 minutes. Your car is likely to smoke profusely. If it does not, lightly tap your gas pedal. Do NOT rev the engine like a madman. When I say lightly tap, I mean gently tap the rpm's up to no more than 1500. A blip is all that is necessary. If it doesn't smoke too badly, it's because your engine just wasn't that dirty.

After the car has been sitting idling for 10-15 minutes, take the car out for a spirited drive. The key word here is spirited. You want to rev your car nice and high and get all that seafoam into all the valleys of the engine. This is the perfect excuse to completely run the balls off your car. If you look behind you, you will likely see a long trail of blue smoke dusting out the entire highway. Say good-bye to the culprit carbon buildup killing your power, gas mileage and causing your engine to ping. It’s Mother Nature’s problem now

congratulations! You have successfully sea foamed your car. be amazed as your car revs faster, your gas needle moves slower, your idle is smoother and yes, even your exhaust smells less noxious (except maybe you ORY guys...you're screwed either way ).

NOTE: seafoam is O2 sensor safe and will not damage your spark plugs or catalytic converters with responsible use. This means as long as you're not sea foaming your car constantly and using far above the recommended dosages, you should be fine. It’s probably good to do this process every 10,000 miles to keep your car in tip-top shape.
 
#10 ·
Nope, your spark plugs will be cleaner than before.

Try it. check the plugs first, then run it as directed, then look at them again. they will look brand new.

I did this on a Ford Ranger(via vac. line), and was blown away. they looked brand new. (I still changed them as they were worn out.)

it idled and ran better afterwards. fual mileage still sucked...but I didn't expect it to fix that.
 
#12 ·
I've used it on other vehicles I've had it works really well. It's always unclear how to use it in the crankcase though since it doesn't say weather or not to change the oil after. Do you guys add it to the oil and drive around for x amount of miles or do you just add it, let it idle for 10 minutes then change the oil? Seems to me you wouldn't want to drive around with all that shit in your oil.
 
#14 ·
At last! Motor in a can!

So now we've heard from the marketing manager? (Check it out - he's only done 2 posts previously.) Is business really that bad?

Adding to the tank - I prefer Techron, but it really shouldn't be needed. If - if you have an emissions test soon, add 1/2 pint of denatured alcohol to a fresh tank of gas - same as the "Guaranteed to Pass" stuff. (75 cents?)

Crankcase - change your oil frequently - use of a solvent can cause chunks of crud to move around and plug a critical oil passage. Let it dissolve slowly and safely.

Adding any liquid (carbon cleaner, water, Jack Daniels, anything) through a vacuum hose or pouring it down is dangerous - a chunk of carbon can get dislodged and cause lots of troubles. You want the carbon to dissolve slowly. (Old timer's trick when we had misadjusted carburetors - The cold liquid shatters the chunks of carbon built up, then hopefully it won't catch on a valve or something on the way out.) Yes, some folks still do it - 95% of the time it works, 5% of the time you get to tear the engine down. Do you feel lucky? - Clint Eastwood.)

Besides, unless you run 2 or 3 year old stale gas all the time - the addatives in the gas keep it from carboning it up.
Unless of course you have a mixture problem of too rich - then no chemical ever invented will fix a mechanical problem.

Use quality gas, change oil frequently, don't fall for advertising.
 
#15 ·
Personally, I won't waste my $$$ on Seafoam. How it became the cure for everything to a few very vocal fans of it is beyond me. There are plenty of less costly products that are specifically meant to take care of and do a better job on specific issues. There is no one single product that can do it all as Seafoam wants us to think it can.

The hype behind Seafoam reminds me of Monster Cable who makes wiring for car audio systems. To hear Monster Cable and their dealers talk, you need battery gauge cable to power your speakers and car stereo. :rofl:
 
#16 ·
sea foam

I have wasted money on wires, spark plugs, and etc., only to run a can of seafoam through in a tank of gas, to pass emissions test. Don't ask me how, but I thank my buddy Larry for introducing me to the stuff. After failing 3 prior tests, then passing only w. the foam, I went and bought every product of theirs. Deep creep works great removing carbon from gun barrels or whatever. The only one I can't witness for is the trany conditioner, as the transmission was mechanically messed up.:cool:
 
#17 ·
If you really want that stuff to work you must also do the following:
Keep $800 cash handy.

1. Wear a pyramid hat for 3 days before and 3 days after. Search the internet for different styles of pyramid hats - the actual style itself doesn't matter. The hat has to be the only thing you wear for those 6 days.
2. Make sure there is a full moon (the moon in the sky, not yours.)
3. Start the process on Wednesday to make sure you have enough time.
4. The money - $200 will be needed to pay the fines for making air pollution. $600 will be needed for the "indecent exposure" fines (unless the judge thinks you are good looking, then he'll pay you that amount.)
5. You will notice the performance has improved by at least 3% - after they give your keys back when your sentence is completed.

Good stuff!

What ever happened to Slick 50?
 
#18 ·
Hey Jerry
I'm with you on price, the only reason I use it is because I can't find a can of Risalone, Risalone does the same thing as seafoam. After a year of having my new engine its still clean ad the last two times I forgot any cleaner, ( oops) but it didn't matter, cause teh engine has no buildup in it at all :)

Yar56
there are more than just seafoam, just keep the inards clean with whatever you can afford. (and find)

rrich
Do I have to wear the hat for the full 6 days or can I fudge an hour or two :)
Oh and is that for Jeeps or alien abduction prevention :)

Slick 50 is still around, so is duralube.
 
#19 ·
If you even take the pyramid hat off for even just a second all that effort will be for naught. It could even work in the reverse!

Modern gasolines have enough chemicals in them to keep the fuel system clean, no additives should be needed.
And the oil is the same way - it already has chemicals in it to keep the particulates in suspension so the filter can catch them.
If you use a good oil filter and change the oil on a frequent and regular basis everything will stay clean.

The danger of adding other things is the chemicals you add may not be compatible with what's already in the oil. They could actually generate sludge, form unwanted acids, or some could even combine to make a grit. Like mixing the wrong anti-freezes can make a grit. :banghead:

Most are safe, most are just "magical" mixtures of light oil and kerosene, alcohol, or some type of solvent. But why take the chance? Smell them, sometimes you can smell what they have in them. Most use some type of perfume to cover up the ingredients.

The real key - use a quality oil - I prefer Valvoline - but most any major brand oil is just as good. Avoid the "secret" and scam oils - mail order only, multi-level marketing oils, or the ones with a gimmick to fool you into thinking they are better, like food coloring etc. If they really were ligit and had those "magical" properties car makers would use them. It would save them millions on warranty repairs.

Change it when it's supposed to be changed, and use good quality filters.

And - proper engine maintenance is important. If it starts to miss, clunk, bang, or thud, repair it ASAP.

Caution -- Be careful who you tell! I told my neighbor lady about the pyramd hat. I really regret telling her - she's on day #5 - running around in the area, wearing just the hat, nothing else. :eek: I'm glad it's only one more day - she must weigh close to 500 lbs! Not a pretty sight! :hide:

Test Seafoam, Lucas, or any of those "As Seen On TV" "county fair" things - pour some in a pan, then try cleaning parts in it. A cleaning agent it's not. Why would it only clean when you can't see it inside the engine?

What is corn oil made of?
What is vegetable oil made of?
Soy oil?
Fish oil?
Baby oil?

Seafoam - snake oil? :nonono:
 
#20 ·
So I shouldn't tell anybody about the hat huh? what if a non believer reads this thread and starts marketing them as alien anti mind readers? they we'll lose money and probably get killed in the mass panic :) LMAO

As for oil;s, along with a NAPA gold oil filter I use at the advice of ..........well here, I had a sample of their NAPA oil analyzed by a friend of mine at ODU, turns out the oil is worth the price because its nothing but oil, and a small amount of engine cleaner that will not harm the innards. I'm with you on the secret oils. I advise everybody to NOT use ANY oil that you can only get through the mail or from a "friend with his own business" The company that you think of when I say that makes s a great detergent for your washer, but I doubt the know squat about car products. And WHATEVER you do NEVER use a oil made in China!!!!!!! remember the tires, toys, drywall and other stuff.........yea.
 
#22 ·
Seafoam is awesome. Does a great job removing moisture that the 10% ethynol encourages, also helps the hose lines, which ethynol corrodes. IF you use before an oil, just put a couple cap fulls in, let it warm up, then change as you normally would. I love that stuff.
 
#24 ·
Kinda amazes me, my brother keeps nagging me to do a seafoam treatment. I'm sure with a newer engine with not a lot of carbon build up would be ok but like myself I have 155,000 miles on her and I'm sure anything sucked cold into the engine will break up carbon and send chucks through my engine. What if those chunks don't find there way out?
People swear by this stuff that's what I do not understand. I know if my engine is running like crap and I do something like this and it makes an obvious improvement, I will say so and if not I will also say so. Not holy crap this stuff is amazing like everybody says??

I'm not going to do it cause my luck I'm that one person that s**t will happen and my dam engine will blow up, that's just my luck. "if it ain't broke don't fix it" that's what I'll stand by :)

Ken

Sent from my iPhone 4 using WF Access
 
#27 ·
I've Seafoamed a few engines and to be honest, I'm a nervous wreck every time :rofl: it's never ruined anything, and it did get rid of a rough idle in a Ford pickup.

I doubt I'll use it on my Jeep. I run 93 fuel, high grade synthetic oil, and change regularly. I'll let the detergents in that stuff do the work.

HOWEVER...my POS lawnmower is another story. It loves to not start or idle rough. I dump some in the gas tank, and dump half a can down the carb...let it smoke like a crackhead, then all is well again. Keep in mind though I only top off its oil, never change, and run nasty stale 87 through it constantly. It doesn't get the good stuff the jeep does
 
#29 ·
speaking of pos lawnmowers, teh cheap ones at Lowe's, Home depot and wal mart all have carbs that will totally crap out after one season using E-10 gas seafoam or not, prayer or not, the onnly fix is what I did today, recycle the mower into a utility cart and get a reel mower. My reel mower is 50 years old, no motor problems cause it has no motor and it gives a better cut than ANY gasoline mower made in the last 20 years.
Only thing I have ever done is change the blades on the reel twice and put a different type of handle on it causethe original broke
 
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