sea foam?

[Electrohacker]

i've never had smoke from seafoaming, i feel so left out, but it did help with hesitation and it does feel more powerful

I put some in the fuel in the brake booster (twice) and in the oil. for me the oil application made the best impact, just make sure to change your oil in a hundred miles or so.

 

[Electrohacker]

After reading this thread I am going to try it out on my 98 5.0 133K. My only question is. Obviously the truck needs to be runnign to put it in the vac line, but how long do I let it run/ smoke for before I shut it down? Are there procedures that you all have followed? The throtle response is a little slow and she seams to bog down when I need it the most up in the mountains of Maine! Thanks in advance!

you idle it then suck in the fluid till the engine dies. then wait 15 minutes or so. then have fun with the hardest start you ever had, and take it on a nice drive

 

[Lzwo]

Everyone in my family uses seafoam, and we all really love it on all of our vehicles, with one exception. My brother got a new to him 1998 camry with about 100k miles; seafoamed it soon after he got it. Ran like absolute crap afterwards, he ended up taking it to our local mechanic, who had to disassemble and clean the intake manifolds.
Only thing we can think of is 1 can was enough to loosen 100k miles of crap, but not enough to burn it off. Other than that, I've had nothing but good experiences with it.

 

[leov5]

I use Seafoam as gas sabilizer for the boat. I have been doing this for about 5 yrs and she starts right up every summer. I use a can twice a year in the gas tank of all the other cars aswell. I tried it in the vacuum line once in the 280zx and did not get much smoke, she had about 150,000 miles on her back then. I feel it is a good product.

 

[Kriegen]

When you seafoam, you are supposed to warm up the engine before you suck up the seafoam

 

[gijoecam]

Snake Oil with a nice smoke show to let you know how well it works.


Seriousely.........

Ditto.

A.) It only smokes when you put straight into the engine, through a vacum line into the intake. This is because this method is the most effective/rapid at removing internal deposits.
B.) The smoke is the engine burning off carbon deposits loosened by the SeaFoam when used through the intake. It will also only smoke on a dirty engine.

False on A and incorrect on B. Take a gander at the MSDS for Seafoam as published by the manufacturer. You'll see it's mostly pale oil (similar to WD-40), Napthalene (the stuff in moth balls), and a small portion of isopropyl alcohol. Run it through your engine, and the majority of the smoke you see coming out the tailpipe is the pale oil hitting your hot catalytic converters. If anything really makes a difference, it's the 10% alcohol that's vaporizing *some* of the carbon.

... snip... but the SeaFoam took care of the "leftover" issues from the carbon deposits on the valves/in the combustion chambers.

Ever looked at a valve? Here's mine with about 135,000 miles on it.

Do you really think that little bit of carbon build-up is going to cause an issue? Really?

On the other hand, I ran a can through another car, that had had a recent head gasket replacement. The seafoam did NOT produce any smoke, because (I'm assuming) the head gasket failure did a pretty good job of steam cleaning the inside of the engine.

No way. I find it hard to believe you can run a can of oil through the engine and NOT have it smoke, no matter how pale or thin the oil is.

C.) There are MANY, MANY people on this board (including some of the most knowledgable and respected members), as well as in the "real world" who have used SeaFoam and been very satisified with the results. It is not snake oil.

Using that logic, I guess a hundred million Turbonators and their knock-offs can't be wrong, can they?

Are most of the $2.99 STP/Gumout/etc.... Fuel Injector cleaners a waste? Yes. There basically kereosene, with a few other things, and they don't really do much. The SeaFoam, when used through the intake, gives a clear indication that it is working.

So, kerosene is so much different than pale oil? You really think so?

Try it for yourself. Based on the tone of your comment, I'm guessing that you either 1.) never used Seafoam, 2.) Didn't use it properly, or 3.) used it on a car that either didn't need it or had other issues. Try it on an older high mileage that has no real engine problems, but maybe just feels a bit "off", maybe is down on fuel economy. Maybe it pings going up hills, and never used to. You might be surprised.
......just don't do it when the neighbors are home....

There's no disputing that it may help remove some carbon from the combustion chamber itself... but so will kerosene, alcohol, washer fluid, and just straight water. The cleaning action so many attribute to the wonders of SeaFoam can be accomplished for a fraction of the cost using other means, and none of them really *fix* anything. Some small amount of carbon is going to build up on the intake valves of a running engine. Some small portion of the fuel is going to carbonize on the inside of the combustion chamber. Some small portion of un-burnt fuel is going to get vaporized in the cats. But any engine designed in the last 20 years is designed to recognize those conditions and compensate for them as necessary, and generally speaking, none of those conditions will be enough to cause a perceptible loss of power to the average driver.

I'm quite sure if there was a need to run a can of some sort of solvent through the engine at regular intervals, the OEMs would highly recommend it. I guess the guys in Dearborn that spent a decade developing that engine just had no idea what a crappy job they did and how an $8 bottle of wonder-mix could solve all their ails.

(Yeah, I'm callin snake oil too)

 

[sethpdx]