Sea Foam

[Michael S]

I was thinking of using Sea Foam in the distant future, however I saw cars on You Tube smoking and making lot of noise coming from their cars, is this stuff save or will it cause damage to my truck.

Topic

[Pat Calhoun]

I only use Sea Foam to clean carbs/fuel lines in my mowers and generator. For fuel injected cars I use Chevron Tekron and it seems to work well for me. If that isn’t available I’ve also used Gumout with good results.

[Rick]

I’ve used seafoam through the intake on several cars with bad pinging. It cleared that up perfectly and I never had any problems from it. Techron is a great product too and I use that for mainenance

[Jeff Ketchem]

Seafoam is good stuff, so is Techron. I use Lucas at work and home, I’m in love with it. I promote that as a preventative and somewhat of a cure. We use it by the gallon at work and save lots of money by measuring it out to single doses. It also comes in quart containers that you can do the same with. Just make sure you’re buying the fuel cleaner not the oil treatment lol. I would just about bet the videos you saw were from an overtreatment. Some people think if the regular dose on the bottle is good, twice as much should be amazing. Bad idea lol

[dan]

pardon the late reply but id like too put in my input, i think when it comes too sea foam it must be used as directed too be used safely… i have heard bad stories about it breaking about sludge in older engines and having it getting caught in the oil pump pickup, and also with older engines for cleaning out intakes i have heard of issues where carbon deposits break off and clog up the catalytic converter or carbon deposits sort of mess up the 02 sensor…

i have used it plenty of times and have had no issues with it really. but i havent used it in my oil, nor have i used it in my intake.

[Bill]

I have disassembled engines after a seafoam treatment and it usually appears as if it was a waste of money and time. Damn snake oil. The only product I have seen work is BG. It’s misted into the throttle body and it’s not perfect either. It’s only available for professional use anyway.

[zero]

I used a similar “de-carbon” foam from wynns at work and it made a difference. I definitely idled alot smoother. For the last few months we’ve been doing it on cars that need it, and it does work. There’s been a couple of cars even a newer truck (long story) that ran better than ever before.

Yes do use any product for your car per the manufacturers instructions, being aware of any warnings.

The most important things are to make sure the engine is at operating temperature when you start. Let is soak in, it should sit for a few minutes (5) between applications, afterwards take the vehicle out for a good boot to blow all the crap out. Both to literally blow crap out and 2 because it stinks. Most importantly, if you can avoid it don’t do it inside.

If you’re blowing out enough crap to bugger something up, you should have starting worrying about maintenance many miles ago.

[dan]

i mean don’t expect a miracle clean from seafoam, it may clean just enough too stop knocking or missing, but your engine will not be spotless and squeaky clean inside, i bet you could dump pure liquid sea foam on top of a bowled piston that has carbon on it and i bet it would not clean off the carbon without some serious scrubbing. i do not expect any product you dump in your gas tank too work miracles at all, even if you run it through the intake you may brake loose any loose carbon but that may cause issues if you have lots of it. you may have the same effect buy spraying throttle body cleaner in a vacuum line… i have heard of this stuff called barrymens combustion chamber cleaner or something like that, not sure that may work who knows but i doubt it, all it may do is break loose a little thick caked on carbon, but it will still be dirty.

i myself can attest too this, i used seafoam on my 3100 SFI in the fuel tank just too try it out, it seemed too clean up the injectors a little and make the engine run a little smoother, but it didnt clean up the intake valves or intake ports, did the lower intake manifold gasket and there was still PLENTY of carbon on the intake runners and valves.

[Pat61]

Sea Foam is good stuff. It’s about the only thing that won’t eat the sealer off a cork float in an old carburetor. It helps with injector stiction on 7.3L too.

[Jamie]

Know lots of guys who use it, but I’ve never actually seen it do anything other than make white smoke. As far as cleaning additives go I really only like using Liqimoly stuff. Their in tank fuel system cleaner and injector cleaner works well. The valve cleaner does a really nice job of clearing up carbon, oil, and cleaning the injection system too. And their oil system cleaner works really well.

All that being said, no additive or cleaner can perform magic. If your stuff has never been taken care of or cleaned up you will have to do it the hard way to do it right.

After thought. You can use water through a drip can into the brake booster port on the manifold to clean a lot of crap up. If I remember correctly that’s how you get Seafoam into the manifold isn’t it? Very similar to removing carbon from old carburetor engines. Does a nice job of keeping valves and ports clean, but wont remove things that have been there for decades.

[dan]

this all being said, the best way too keep your engine clean is too change the oil regularly, a good way too clean fuel injectors is with a proper fuel injector cleaning kit, and too me too clean combustion chambers, i have heard good things about using water CAREFULLY! as it sort of “steam cleans.” and they used too use the method on WWII airplanes like the P-51 Mustang, high octane fuels with lots of lead, plugs and combustion chambers and valves would just get fouled, they would swear buy slowly feeding water into the engine.

[Jamie]

Perhaps next time I get an engine in that I know is going to have carbon build up in it Ill borrow my pals scope and take some pics before and after with using water. Like I said on light stuff it works good. The thicker junk that’s been there a while is not coming off without a scraper or a scotch brite pad.

[Author]

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