ORIGINAL: NeoTokyo

Rod thats a great write up but you varried from the directions in a couple area's.
You are not suppose to run Seafoam in your crankcase for any amount of milage, you are suppose to let it idle for the amount of time they specify (10 minutes if memory serves me) and then drain the oil imediatly.
You are also suppose to add the seafoam before you add the gas to the tank because it will mix there.

Seafoam will take away the lubrication properties of oil and cause excessive wear on your engine if you run it for any extended period of time.

Infact I dont recomend the crank case cleaner at all. Removing your pan and inspecting things is about as expensive (Pan gasket) and much more visual than dirty oil.

I will however recomend seafoam for the fuel injector cleaner and valve, runner, chamber cleaner. Seafoam is also a solvant so it is NOT a good idea to run it in your gas tank for more than a week. Your rubber seals will suffer.

There are warnings and precautions on the can to inform you of such things. Seafoam is a great product but its not the one time cure all that some make it out to be. I like it enough to use it once or twice a year.


Overall Seafoam rating IMPO:
Crankcase: *
Fuel Tank:***
Vacuum: *****


-Eric-

ORIGINAL: AJ97GT

"has got to be BS", meaning you don't know, but you think. A lot of people don't have a clue what Seafoam really is or how it works, and we've had the topics a lot, so let me try to explain it all.

Now lets explain why it's not. Gas comes from? Petroleum. Oil comes from? Petroleum. I bet you know what I'm getting at right? Seafoam is.... Yep, Petroleum, just a more pure form, 100% in fact. A more pure and concentrated form of petroleum won't burn as well as gas, however it will be a detergent.

When you stick it in your gas tank, it is diluted enough so that it can clean your lines and injectors, then still be burned up with the rest of the gas.

When you suck it in through your vacuum line, you're spraying it (without it being diluted), straight into the engine and cylinders, however this time it's going through the air (vacuum) passages, not the fuel, cleaning the "other side" of the engine. Again, acting as a strong detergent, you can let this soak on the cylinder walls and everything, then a 10 minutes later or whatever, start up the car and burn it up (again, only petroleum, just like your gas, just too pure to burn up itself), and send it out the exhaust in the form of a cloud of smoke. You have to give it some gas while it clears out because with the seafoam in there it will make everything harder to burn since it's too pure, you need to open the throttle and get more gas in to burn it. You want to make sure to give it long enough to soak, but not too long to dry, or else it's not going to do much. I'd say about 10-15 minutes is just fine.

Finally, again I think you see this one coming, you can put it in the oil because... it's petroleum! Just like your oil. Again, it's diluted so it's not too strong and so you don't lose the lubricating properties of motor oil, however it adds a little detergent into the oil to be splashed around on the final, bottom end of your engine. You're recommended to change the oil about a week later because it will clean crap off the inside of the engine and make your oil dirty in a few days. If you change it too fast, you wont get the full effect, if you wait too long, you'll be running dirty oil.

So as you can see, the concept is simple and makes perfect sense. Now, how well it really works is hard to tell unless you actually pull an engine apart, however for $5, if it helps at all, it's not a bad deal. And if nothing else, it's a fun little smoke show, and can have very few ill side effects on your car.

However, let me cover all my base and mention the few things it COULD cause problems with. If you have a catted pipe, while I tend to believe that it's unlikely to do much without many repeated applications (due to it not being liquid as it goes by, just some gas flowing through), it could break down the material in that cats. Again, although I haven't tested it, I wouldn't expect that to happen without many repeated applications, so I wouldn't really worry about it. The only other thing is that it could gum up your spark plugs, so I'd recommend using it right before changing your plugs. This is just because all that loose carbon is floating around and will stick to the plugs a little. This would be mainly after like a first use or a first use in a long time, if you use it somewhat regularly then I doubt you'll get enough carbon buildup on the plugs to cause any problems. I ran Seafoam for the first time after not thinking and stupidly changing my plugs the day before. I didn't feel like taking them out and cleaning them again, and I've had no problems, and that was after the first use in 78,000 miles, so I think this is mainly a non-issue as well, just wanted to mention it.


So there you have it, for those of you who really want to know Seafoam and how it works, hopefully you'll take the time to read that all. I know it's big but there has been a lot of arguing back and forth on this board, and not much, if any, facts about the product and how and why it works included, so I thought I'd just clear it up. I personally don't think Seafoam is a miracle product. I don't expect my engine to be spotless if I use it from day one, but I think it can help after long periods of use. Honestly, I probably wouldn't use it more than a few times during the lifespan of my car. I think that you could even go as much as 50,000 miles between uses to take care of the build up once there actually starts to be a build up. I think every 3000 miles with your oil would be a waste, but to each his own right?

The little vacuum line on the bottom right in this picture, just below the IAC (not the bigger line plugging into the IAC):



You can do either way really, just as long as it gets int there. I used a small funnel stuck into the vacuum line above then poured into it, using my finger as a stopper if I needed to until I got the third of the can in that I wanted in.

ORIGINAL: TeddyKGB

Perhaps a horribly dumb question but you really only wind up with a bunch of smoke when putting it via a vacumm tube right? Putting a can in your gas won't cause any billowing smoke will it?