Sea Foam?

[nando]

the worst? you could suck too much water in and the engine would die.. if you're sucking it in through that tiny little hose though, it shouldn't do anything like hydrolock the engine. just keep one hand on the throttle so it doesn't quit, and don't put too much in.

honestly, it probably won't do much at all.. I didn't notice anything after running seafoam through my car, of course I can't see inside the combustion chamber so who knows.

[jog5000]

Hmmm. Its a 50/50 question now....... should I or shouldnt I?
Any other opinions/ideas?

[hotghias]

http://www.dsm.org/archives/1996/04/19960404.txt/18.html

[a3ternus]

Any chance I can find this stuff in Europe?

[ryan_george]

Looks like its time to get some foam! :D

[PanamaE30]

jeeez.. I could use some of this stuff.. god knows what's in my engine..

any of you guys feel like mailing a couple of cans my way? I'll pay for em and the shipping :P

[reelizmpro]

I used it on my CRX and it worked great. $4.99 makes it one of the cheapest internal engine cleaners out there and you can use it in the crankcase, gastank or intake depending on what you want to clean out. MSDS says it's mostly isopropyl alcohol, ester oil and naptha if i remember correctly. You're supposed to use it every 10K miles or something like that to keep the internals clean. If you think you might not pass smog, try Sea Foam in the intake before you go to the station. You'll notice better throttle response and clouds of smoke coming out of the tailpipe directly after but that's just crud burning off. The guy at Napa, told me shops buy the stuff by the case to flush out customers cars. I've also seen the same type of thing done at a Chevy dealership with a machine.

[unreel]

oil

This may be a really dumb question but I'd rather be safe then sorry. How does this effect synthetic motor oils?

[hotghias]

bringin' it back up...

for my 87 eta, there appears to be no good vac line to suck it through. the line to the fpr is situated pretty far off to the side, so it appears that sucking the seafoam through that would only feed one cylinder. so it'd be an uneven cleaning, and greater possibility of hydrolocking it.

right now i'm lookin at the throttle body. there's a port behind the large breather hose, that looks like it goes to some kind of a vacuum container, or a charcoal filter for gas tank ventilation. but it's been a biatch to get to. if that doesnt work i'll try just pouring it in in front of the T.B (by removing the boot and running a tube, and duct taping it in so it seals and runs), but there's no vacuum at that point, so that's also a problem.

anybody seafoam'ed an eta?

[mcgrath]

anybody seafoam'ed an eta?

I have done mine twice since I swaped the engine into my 318. I just unhooked the brake booster vaccum line from the intake maifold and hooked up a clean 3/8" peice of fuel line to the manifold and sucked it in with that. if the engine deisel's it will blow nasty seafoam allover the place so you better be ready to yank the coil wire to kill the engine if your like me and have an automatic. If you have a 5 speed then hop in put it in 1st, dump the clutch, and hold the brake to kill the engine.

[mcgrath]

oh and the first time it desieled on me it did it for about 15-20 seconds and it blew seafoam back up into all of my vaccum lines and killed my ICV so kill the engine as soon as possible if the seafoam doesnt kill it for you.

[hotghias]

do you think all cylinders were fed about equally the way you did it?

my review:

i was afraid to use the brake booster line b/c it looks like it would only feed that one cylinder. after a few hours of screwing around (yeah, it was an ungodly ammt of time) with the vac line to the charcoal canister, i gave up and put the hose between the TB and intake boot, and duct taped all around it to maintain a seal. i had to use two hands to hold my funnel/tube, and squeeze the tube to prevent the seafoam from going in too quick, as well as my bare foot to give it some throttle. some seafoam ended up making its way back down the air boot (and a bit trickled thru the afm onto my filter because i let it drain in to fast or didn't give it enough throttle

it didn't diesel on me, so maybe i didn't get enough in there, but it did make quite a bit of white smoke. i put 1/3 can in the crankcase, 2/3 can in the fuel tank with about 5 gallons of fuel, and sucked 1/3 can in the intake, let it sit, started it up for about 3 minutes, sucked another 1/3 can, waited 10 minutes, and drove the crap out of it.

all in all, i think my engine is maybe a little smoother or quieter now, but it could be placebo.

[nexus]

This is the miracle jiuice for olld outboard motors. In fact, that is how I know about it. Amazing how it just eliminates the carbon. Best to empty your tank, pour a can in your tank, put like a 1/4 tank in and then go for a nice long highway drive. If you really have a lot of carbon up in there, it's gonna smoke a lot. Not the sort of thing you want your neighbors to see :)

Give it some time to work through the engine.

Here's the lowest price I've been able to find online. For what it's worth iboats.com has awesome customer service. As in an actual human answers the phone.

http://iboats.com/mall/index.cgi?prod_id=37968&current_category=sea%20foam&session_id=815013176&cart_id=776578715

[325beast]

do you think all cylinders were fed about equally the way you did it?

my review:

i was afraid to use the brake booster line b/c it looks like it would only feed that one cylinder. after a few hours of screwing around (yeah, it was an ungodly ammt of time) with the vac line to the charcoal canister, i gave up and put the hose between the TB and intake boot, and duct taped all around it to maintain a seal. i had to use two hands to hold my funnel/tube, and squeeze the tube to prevent the seafoam from going in too quick, as well as my bare foot to give it some throttle. some seafoam ended up making its way back down the air boot (and a bit trickled thru the afm onto my filter because i let it drain in to fast or didn't give it enough throttle

it didn't diesel on me, so maybe i didn't get enough in there, but it did make quite a bit of white smoke. i put 1/3 can in the crankcase, 2/3 can in the fuel tank with about 5 gallons of fuel, and sucked 1/3 can in the intake, let it sit, started it up for about 3 minutes, sucked another 1/3 can, waited 10 minutes, and drove the crap out of it.

all in all, i think my engine is maybe a little smoother or quieter now, but it could be placebo.

Next time just pull the hose the the FPR and use that to suck it up. BTW, if this shit puddles too long it can damage certain types of rubber it contacts.

[catalyst.]

So when i do this next weekend what procedure should i follow?

Im thinking..

1. A can into the tank
2. 1/4 of a can into the crank case
3. and about 1/2 of a can into the engine any other way i can..

Should i let the car die? to let it soak in and clean all the carbon out or what? whats the possibility of hydrolocking if i do this?

And any m50 guys have any tips about other ways to get it into the engine?