Seafoam suggestions?

[sapper12b]

I am about to seafoam my 1G this weekend. Any last minute suggestions.

 

[screamingdemon]

Make sure you change your spark plugs after. It will foul them out pretty good, at least it did on the Jeep. I ran it a couple hundred miles in the crank case and changed the oil. Oil was so black I couldn't see through it.

 

[uummm]

My testament for seafoam. I had a 91 blazer that I changed the intake manifold on. The lifter valley was pretty crusty so I scraped some of the crud off (found out in short order that it was a bad idea) and the crud ended up plugging up my oil pickup. I put a can of seafoam in the oil and let it sit for a couple weeks and it had better oil pressure than it had ever had since I owned it.

 

[ForsakenLash]

Seafoam will also clean off any gunk from your sensors in your throttle body, such as MAP (if your car doesnt have a MAF) and IAC. Its good for allowing the proper amount of air into the motor and letting all the sensors read properly. I generally just suck a cap full into the vacuum line just before the throttle body, and pour half a can into the gas tank (recommended amount.)

However if you are going to pour it into the gas be careful because if nothing has ever been poured into the tank to clean it, it can clog your pump, filter, and injectors. If you want to be safe pull off the tank and check it for gunk. If its clean then your good, if not then drain it, use soap and warm water and rinse it out really good. Then hook it back up, put fresh gas in it, then seafoam it to clean out the pump, filter, and injectors.


Heres a personal example of why not to put it in the gas if its never had anything put in it. I had a 94 Ford Mustang V6 I bought to fix up and use as a DD. I was having an issue with not getting enough fuel so I decided to pour some seafoam into the tank and try to clean up the fuel system... 2 days laterI wasnt getting any fuel at all.. my pump had clogged up and burnt out and my filter was filled with sludge. I replaced them both, cleaned out the tank, and got it all put back together... 3 days later no fuel again... my injectors were completely clogged.

 

[sapper12b]

Good call on the tank, didnt think about that, i wasnt actually planning on putting it in the tank but thats probably not a bad idea. Thanks

 

[Bobster66]

Carbon buildup ?
You guys like to run your systems rich or something?

A proper tune with correct temp plugs (you want tan to white porcelain around the electrodes and not any soot black) and with the right A/F ratios should prevent such buildup since you don't drive slow and lug the motor down at slow speeds in high gear...

+1

When this Seafoam craze started a number of years ago, I read the accounts and watched the videos of Talons spewing smoke when using the stuff. Since I live in the downtown core of a large city and didn't want to attract attention I drove up north to a side road to use my can of Seafoam in my Laser. Boy, was I disappointed when my car didn't smoke at all! My car is driven hard on the highway 5 days a week. With proper maintenance and tune Seafoam shouldn't be required.

 

[Bud92gsx]

Carbon buildup,Man you should have seen my egr before I deleted it.100k miles of crud.

 

[ForsakenLash]

+1

When this Seafoam craze started a number of years ago, I read the accounts and watched the videos of Talons spewing smoke when using the stuff. Since I live in the downtown core of a large city and didn't want to attract attention I drove up north to a side road to use my can of Seafoam in my Laser. Boy, was I disappointed when my car didn't smoke at all! My car is driven hard on the highway 5 days a week. With proper maintenance and tune Seafoam shouldn't be required.

Again that goes back to buying it after someone had it who didnt take care of the car and do the regular maintenance.

 

[DSM1G90]

I have a slight miss in my idle, could be due to dirty throttle body which i am cleaning 1st, and the infamous hot start crap.

Spray can of carb cleaner does this trick nicely when you take off the hose and shoot some of this stuff in the bore during high idle.

Hot start .. either spells the check valve in the fuel pump has died on you causing the fuel to pour back into the tank, fuel line vapor lock due to the fuel line from filter to rail is getting on the hot side, or spells the ECU is on it's way out.

I had the latter and had the ECU replaced which cured the hot start issue...and I still have the check valve issue in the fuel pump for I know I lose pressure in the fuel line when I turn off the key making me have slightly long cranks until pressure builds up then the motor catches.

And my EGR valve: took some starter fluid and sprayed this stuff in the EGR to flush out all the carbon that has built up inside this unit.

 

[sapper12b]

UPDATE: I pulled the gas tank and inspected it. Looks pretty clean but I went ahead and cleaned it up anyways and put it back on. I pulled the throttle body and to my suprise it was missing 2 nuts......HMMMMM......the throttle body was nasty, covered in carbon on the intake manifold side. I cleaned it up really well, put it back on, installed the missing nuts, and fired her up. It doesn't have a bad miss like it used to, and the idle surge seems to be gone. I went ahead and filled the tank up with gas and put a little seafoam in the tank. So far, the cars running much better. My one concern is the intake manifold.....it was covered with carbon build up on the inside. Should i be concerned about this? This weekend I am pulling my intercooler and cleaning it, doing a boost leak test, and then compression test again to see how shes holding up. Thanks for all the insight.

 

[DSM1G90]

. My one concern is the intake manifold.....it was covered with carbon build up on the inside. Should i be concerned about this

You can thank the EGR valve for this buildup in the manifold.

 

[Dsmkauai]

You can pull it off and soak it in seafoam over night to loosen all the crap off it. Also works good on the piston tops to remove build up. Dump alittle down the spark plug hole let sit over night then vac the crap off and you'll be all good.

 

[sapper12b]

Pull the manifold off or the EGR valve???

 

[phillytalon]

I used seafoam on most my cars but after research found that bp makes much better product and have used them since