Dodgy SeaFoam Treatment.

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:03 pm

I know we've had some posts about SeaFoam before, but I've never heard it used like this before. Apparently, some people will disconnect a vacuum hose from the intake manifold, and slowly pour in about a 1/2 pint of SeaFoam into the hose so that the stuff gets sucked into the car, then they will let the car sit for 5 minutes waiting for the SeaFoam to remove all of the carbon buildup. After they turn the car on, smoke billows from the exhaust, and then they recommend taking the car for a spirited run at higher RPM to get all the excess carbon out.

It seems really sketch, pouring liquid into your engine's intake, but SeaFoam's website suggests this! Some guys swear by it!

They claim that the smoke coming out of the exhaust are the dissolved carbon deposits, but SeaFoam is petroleum based, so it makes sense that it would smoke. Also, how much cleaning can something do over a period of 5 minutes?

My old Lanos has some pretty high miles, and I was thinking of trying this. Does it seem reliable? Has anyone else done this?

kinkyllama · Post by **kinkyllama** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:49 pm

DOO IT! It's amazing. I've done this on at least 6 cars by now and most of them run better after. What I do is slowly let the vacuum hose suck up little by little (dip the hose in and out of the bottle) while someone sits in the car revving it just enough so it doesn't stall. I do probably 1/3rd of a bottle like this. I let it run until it's running normal again. Then I dip the vacuum hose in and out again not letting it stall until a decent amount of the seamfoam is sucked up, at which point I dunk the vacuum hose in the seafoam. Before the car starts struggling I kill the engine and let it sit like this for awhile before starting it back up again. I don't always take it for a drive afterwards and if I do I always wait until the smoke isn’t nearly as thick because with my Lacetti it would smoke out the roads. I recommend doing this is a very well ventilated area, close your house doors or garage doors too. My Lacetti smokes so bad I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought our house was on fire.

This is probably a good thread to bring this up in. I’ve used 3.5 seafoam cans on my Lacetti like this. Even after the last ½ can my 82k mile Lacetti smoked more than just one can on my 125k mile expedition. My Lacetti even smoked more than my friends 177k mile altima and 160k mile bronco. My car has been running slightly rich for awhile and for a couple weeks extremely rich but this still seams a bit excessive. Should I be worried? I plan on running several more bottles through it until the smoke isn’t so excessive

kinkyllama · Post by **kinkyllama** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:51 pm

Btw I've left it in as long as an hour...not sure if that’s a good thing but it does seam to work better. I definitely wouldn't do it that long with the first bottle, it'll get so much crap out after sitting for only 5mins I wouldn't even want to know what would happen if the first bottle you used sat for 30mins.

TheRiseIsTheFall · Post by **TheRiseIsTheFall** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:46 pm

Done this to my leganza and my moms car several times works like a charm, I normally just pour into the throttle body, I'll try inducing it into the engine via the vacuum hose next time though.

Pir0 · Post by **Pir0** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:32 pm

TheRiseIsTheFall wrote:Done this to my leganza and my moms car several times works like a charm, I normally just pour into the throttle body, I'll try inducing it into the engine via the vacuum hose next time though.

Haha, seems a bit rash just pouring it in XD

TheRiseIsTheFall · Post by **TheRiseIsTheFall** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:35 pm

Lol, It still work'd great, and cleaned up my throttle body.

daewoomofo · Post by **daewoomofo** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:20 am

i did it on my truck (193k) it works. but i think the smoke is just the seafoam burning off, not carbon burning. disconnect the brake booster vaccume line at the booster and pour about 1.2 the can in there. let it sit for about 5 min and drive her. i smoked the hell out of my moms drive way and neighborhood. i should do it on the woo...i wonder if i still have the 1/2 can laying around?

MMamdouh · Post by **MMamdouh** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:06 am

in here we do it in a different way... first off we don't have seafoam product so we have to improvise

we usualy remove the TB and clean it separatly to get the dirt out... you can't imagen how much crap is in their... at this point the intake is very accessable and viewable so we get a carb cleaner product and spray the hell out of the intake which is usally fully loaded with crap as well

in some extreme cases we had to pour 0.25 to 0.5 liters of gas into the intake to remove the dirt and stuff... usualy this does the trick and the intake ends up crystal clean... but we end up with a problem

you end up with intake piping that is full with carb cleaner + gas that is totally contaminated... we simply remove all 4 spark plugs, remove coil pack plug and fuel pump relay and crank the engine... pistons will squirt the dirty fluids out of the spark plug holes and clean itself... neet huh?

this might be a probelm for the guys with DOHC engines as the plug holes are poining upwards and all the fluids will be squirted right into the hood... for the guys with SOHC engines the spark plug holes are pointing to the front and thus the dirt goes right into the person standing in front of the car LOL.

MMamdouh

kinkyllama · Post by **kinkyllama** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:10 am

daewoomofo wrote: but i think the smoke is just the seafoam burning off, not carbon burning.

It's not the seafoam because in all the cars I've done other than my Lacetti we used it untill there was little or no smoke.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:22 am

In the old days they use to pour in transmission fluid into the carburetor of race cars in between race heats to clean out the combustion chamber.

Same kind of deal..... pour it in as a very thin stream as you keep the throttle up......then let it choke the engine.... leave it for 10 minutes and start it back up (which can be hard sometimes)

It will create massive amounts of smoke.... but it works quite well.

This trick was given to me by an ex-cascar (canadian nascar) pit guy

Personally I've only tried it once..... I made so much smoke it filled a city block (which is the reason I didn't try it again).... but it worked wonders for my old 83 Chev.

The point is that all kinds of things will burn in the combustion chamber..... personally I don't know anything about Seafoam.... but if tranny fluid works.... then perhaps these other methods do as well.

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:40 am

I would assume that SeaFoam would smoke way less because it is inherently thinner than transmission fluid and therefore there is a lower mass to burn. I can imagine smoking a whole city block... I once had a leaky Valve Cover Gasket and when I went to change the spark plugs...maybe 2 table spoons of oil got into the combustion chamber and smoked like CRAZY. It was on a very humid day so the smoke hung in the trees for a solid 20 minutes.

I'm thinking of taking my car do a deserted area in the middle of the night to do this. I know that if I did this in my neighborhood I would get the cops called on me. I could use a shop vac to suck up the smoke, but then I'd ruin that!