kroysc

Has anyone ever used the Seafoam treatment?


Its pretty simple. Warm up the engine, remove the brake booster, spray it in with the straw attachment untill you see smoke out of the exhaust, shut off the engine, let it sit overnite, let it warm up for 15 minutes in the morning and its done.

I'm wondering about the long term results. I've done this right before each oil change, about 30 times and the engine runs great. One of my clients is Rayhal/Letterman racing and one of their older technicians went on a 10 minute rant one day about how its the greatest thing since sliced bread. So I decided to try it out. Its gonna be several years before I get to rip the head off to see the results (hopefully). I want to know if anyone has seen the longterm effects?

prawdigy

I used this once. It made the engine a lot smoother after. Actually what my cousin and I did was we had it vacuumed in as you said and when the bottle was empty, we drove around until all the smoke was gone. Great product... too bad not many know about it though.

streetglower

iTrader: (13)

now here is my question for the ones who have used that or GM top end cleaner, did you unbolt the cat or leave it on? I heard from several people that you have to unbolt the cat as to not clog it, others say that the products break the carbon buildup into small bits that the CAT can burn.

Jrfish007

iTrader: (3)

your cat won't burn carbon... well a little bit, but not that much. Carbon is bad for your cat.

civic02ex

iTrader: (1)

That picture above is the wrong Sea Foam bottle. That is a multi-use lubricant. The correct bottle of Sea Foam has no black colors.

Anyhow, I use it on Civic, and was introduced to this product by my boyfriend who I believe started the first thread about Sea Foam on this site after he got through using it on his Civic (yeah I made up the car before so I'm editing). His car website loves this stuff. After much testing, they perfected the method of pouring Sea Foam into your car:

1. Take off your PCV hose & PCV.
2. Check to make sure your PCV is still good
3. Clean PCV & install
4. Use a fuel funnel to pour the Sea Foam
5. With the car running, slowly pour the Sea Foam through the PCV hose
6. Pour 1/3 of the bottle
7. Let engine idle for a few minutes
8. Cut off engine, and wait 30 minutes
9. Connect everything back and start up engine
10. Drive to nearest highway, and floor it.
11. I noticed no improvement due to my car being clean from everything else my boyfriend did to my Civic......a little smoke came out, but nothing like his car! It's a brand new car the way it drives.

You can use Sea Foam in your oil, up to the last 100 miles before your next oil change. You can also use it in your gas tank to eliminate moisture. I also use MMO, and noticed a slight improvement when adding it to my oil.

Since I run Mobil 1, I don't like adding anything but LC20. But yes this Sea Foam does work if applied correctly through your PCV hose. Some like the cruise control line as well.

Jrfish007

iTrader: (3)

I don't know about mixing this stuff with the LC20 and FP60.

civic02ex

iTrader: (1)

No I wouldn't recommend mixing Sea Foam with LubeControl products. I looked back at my previous post to revise anything unclear in my statement, but theres nothing to assume I mixed the two products together.

Before I ever heard of LubeControl, I was using Sea Foam & MMO in the oil/gas tank. Now I only use LubeControl products. But the Sea Foam can still be sucked by the PCV hose periodically.

streetglower

iTrader: (13)

so your saying it a better idea to unbolt the cat when doing this? I ask because say you have lots of carbon buildup on your piston heads, and when adding this it is supposed to break up that carbon into little bits thus bringing it out the exhaust. I have seen techs at my old work use GM top end cleaner on the cars and not removing the cat, but was still unsure.

Jrfish007

iTrader: (3)

I would. If you pass a large amount of carbopn through your cat, it will clog it. If you're lucky you can give it some gas and blow the carbon out of the cat. If you're not lucky, the cat will clog and either i) break up, hence ruining your cat, or ii) cuase such a high pressure drop that your car will loose power or maybe not even run right. In any case you will drop the flow of the cat such that you will loose a little power. I would also remove the O2 sensor, as major amounts of carbon can block air flow to it.

PunkingCivic

iTrader: (3)

when I hit 100,000 miles I try this stuff.

http://www.seafoamsales.com

dariusld

Ive used top down on my truck 2 or 3 times and have removed my cat to inspect it and my cat looks perfect. I didn't remove the cat because I was worried about the carbon build-up, I just did. I can't say if you should remove the cat or not, I didn't.

dariusld

Your directions are a little confusing There are directions on the can that are simply. 1 through 4 seem unnecessary. Maybe I'm confused. Any vaccum line off the intake will do, the bigger the better. The brake booster comes to mind. In the first post you use the word " pour" than in your second post you use "sucked", "sucked" is the correct term. And why do use only a 1/3 of the can?

streetglower

iTrader: (13)

sooo you did remove it or didnt? kinda confused about what you said.

I figured it would be a good idea to remove it. I didnt think any particles of carbon would fly through the cat. But thanks for the info. I was going to use GM top end cleaner because I have heard it is really good stuff. I know I have some carbon buildup because when I last inspected my plugs, I used a light to see down there and noticed alot built up.

dariusld

I thought it was confusing too, but I finished with I did not remove it to put the cleaner in. But I removed my exhaust a later time, for another reason and checked the cat while it was off. Did I make it clearer this time? Sorry about the first time.

civic02ex

iTrader: (1)

Sludge/oil can be found inside the PCV...........when you take off the hose, you pour the Sea Foam into the hose where it sucks up the Sea Foam, though you do it very slowly. If you allow the hose to suck up too much Sea Foam, the engine will cut off. A brake booster/cruise control is fine, but the PCV is the way to get the most out of the Sea Foam.......takes out the carbon. If you pour half a can, it's way too much. But if you pour less than 1/3 then your not getting the most out of it. But if your engine is clean like mine, then pouring less than a 1/3 is probably recommended......but you got to try it to find out. Pouring 1/3 of the bottle makes sense to clean out out all the carbon buildup, plus clean that PCV. You ever wonder why PCV's need to be changed out?

kroysc

There are 2 types of seafoam. The can and the spray. I perfer the spray cuz its a lot harder to mess it up, that and for some reason where I am the can is harder to find. They both work the same.

I would use the PCV method but I don't have a pcv system. I have a catch can with a breather on it.

legend921

iTrader: (4)

Hey, I've done something similar before but it's with Honda's Top Engine Cleaner stuff. The bottle costs around ten bucks or so but I get the service done for free at Honda. But yeah the stuff is great and I did it on my car at around 10,000 miles and there was a good amount of smoke but nothing bad since it's just cleaning of the carbon. You should do it on your car if you have high mileage.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i'll stick with lubecontrol. they've been around for a long time now.

PiNoYxRaCeRxRH

iTrader: (1)

what is this? Carb Cleaner Spray? It Isn't A Engine Sluge Remover Right?

PiNoYxRaCeRxRH

iTrader: (1)

i see it's a carb choke cleaner and cleans other stuff too.i'm familiar with the aerosol spray where you spray it in your throttle body and all the carbon comes out but i didn't know theres 1 where you can pour it in and where you can pour it in the oil or gas tank.BTW you don't have to take your CAT CO off.

dariusld

Seafoam and GMs top engine cleaner do the same thing. Some say they are the same thing. They clean your intake manifold, intake runners , valves and the top of your pistons. Its applied through your intake manifold. The initial post was talking about this application, not in your gas tank and not to your oil. I love when threads start going all over the place. It gets to confusing when we start talking about different things in one thread.

dariusld

I take the brake booster line off the brake booster( source of vacumm). The car is started and warmed up. I dip the hose in the can, I don't pour(pouring is not the easy way). When the car starts to stall, I pull the hose out of the can, then reinsert it, maintaining idle. Can you see how this is easier than "pouring" and using a funnel? Were you actually around or did someone just tell you about it.
The can gives you detailed instructions. Those instructions involve using the entire can.
I have had two other Hondas, with 200k on each of them, and never had to clean or replace a pvc valve. I'm not saying they don't fail,just not often.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

what good will that do in a plastic IM?

dariusld

I mainly use it for the carbon build-up on the pistons. I'm assuming thats where the cleaning is concentrating anyways.

southpasdena

ok so where and what is the pcv valve. I have a clue but dont know for sure

Storm897

#4 is the PCV Valve.

streetglower

iTrader: (13)

the PCV valve is the positive crankcase ventilation valve. Used to put route unburned crankcase blowby gases back into the intake manifold where they can be burned. it basically prevents blow-by gasses from escaping into the atmosphere. It is a emissions device.

MR. CIVIC

i make that stuff where i work at but never cared to use it

southpasdena

i know what the pcv does, just not sure which it is. I believe i have seen people not running the vacum line, but rather attatching a filter to it. Would that be the pcv? I am such a newb, i can tell you the mechanics of every damn thing, but as i have never actually had first hand experience, i am nervous about what to do.

dariusld

Is this what your talking about? The white filter and the hose. This is not what you want. You want a vacumm source from the intake manifold.