How to treat your engine with Seafoam

Thanks for reading. Look up Seafoam if you haven't heard of it. I think its a great product. I just created this tutorial video regarding how to treat your engine with Seafoam. I know there are haters that don't believe in it and swear by other products but I love the stuff. It can be used on any engine (gas or diesel), and I've noticed an improvement in performance.

Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-UIg5djOmU

 

Personally, I believe that if a manufacturer wanted such stuff run through the engine, it would be a regular maintenance requirement and they would be selling their preferred formulation of same..

As far as "improvement in performance" there is a thing known as "the placebo effect." I saw several here posting that they had removed that internal charcoal on their 4.0. One claimed that he could now drive at the same speed with the tach showing 200 RPM less! Ditto for spark plugs and most everything else. If you WANT it to work, it will seem like it does. I think the only benefit of pouring seafoam into the engine is that it improves Seafoam's bottom line. I use it all the time (the deep creep) variety to help loosen fasteners. But I'd really think long and hard before allowing these motors to suck in stuff that doesn't burn very well, and at the very least won't do more than add a little carbon to the combustion chamber and spark plugs. And I suspect the cats are not very happy about it either.

Just my $.02 of course.

 

Thanks for the input Rob, I agree the placebo effect is a pretty strong one. I think my truck drove better after I washed it and upgraded the speakers.

With that said, a 2 mpg increase is hard to argue with. I agree that Toyota wouldn't recommend it, they wouldn't recommend anything that doesn't pad their pockets (i.e.: recommended dealership maintenance & OEM parts). By my calculations, if I can keep my 19 combined MPG from dropping back to 17 mpg, every $7 bottle of seafoam pays for itself 4x over (I use it 2x a year, I got the 2mpg jump after doing it the first time after I bought it @75k miles).

 

I sea foamed my truck a while ago, lots of smoke, helped my high flow car finally kick the bucket but it did bring my idle down by about 400 rpms. Also made my throttle a lot more responsive. I do it about once a year now

 

While you do make a valid point, some manufacturers actually do this treatment as a maintenance item. I used to work at an Infiniti dealer and I saw it done several times. It is particularly effective on direct injected engines, because in normal operation the fuel (and its cleansing additives) never come into contact with the intake valves, so they tend to get gunked up. The intake manifold intself also gets gunk in it over the years and the only way to clean it without disassembly is to use a chemical like sea foam. Though I do imagine you're right about it not being particularly good for the catalytic converters...

 

My only criticism of the above is that I have disassembled my fair share of injected engines, and I have not seen ANY "gunk build-up" on the stem side at all. Where would it come from. The fuel is sprayed into the intake just below the valve opening into the combustion chamber. Any "gunk" there would primarily be the fuel with its cleaning additives. My son bought a 2000 4.6 mustang with about 60K miles on it. A little work, a few trips to the drag strip and one night he missed third. Had to pull heads and replace three valve guides that were broken when valves floated and contacted piston tops and bent. There was no gunk of any kind on any of the valves, intake or exhaust.

These are not direct-injection engines that spray fuel into the combustion chamber... not that there is much "gunk" in fuel to leave behind if it flashes to vapor when it contacts the back of the intake valve. But if we did (and apparently 2016 3.5 will be 1/2 direct injection, where does this "gunk" on the back of the valve come from when there's not much gunk coming in?

I really do believe that this is one of many such products that are created to address what sounds like a perfectly valid problem, but the problem is really not there. If the butterfly in the TB is sticking, seafoam might loosen it up a bit, but so will a good TB cleaner sprayed directly on the problem area without having to go all the way through the engine and out the exhaust.

BTW I have seen LOTS of dealers do all sorts of things. NEVER for free, either. It is a pretty easy $100 bill to make that takes less than 5 minutes of time and 5 bucks for the seafoam.

 

There are a few videos like this, I see some difference but I don't have an experienced eye for it. I wouldn't expect to see much build up on a vehicle taken to redline often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6UeJXkzDW8&spfreload=10

 

I rarely take my 2.7L above 2500 rpm and I continue to get great mpg after 10 years. No need for seafoam here.

 

I've been putting Seafoam in my oil and gas for a couple of years now. I think I will try the spray in a couple of weeks.

 

Good stuff I have used it before and got good results. The only problem I saw in the OP video is that he poured it into the vacuum line. It's best to use a clear tube with a tapered end and let the vacuum itself slowly suck the seafoam in a little at a time.

 

I'm hoping you mean in the fuel, which is bad enough, but NOT in the oil? Seafoam is not much of a lubricant compared to a good synthetic oil. It would appear to me you are just tanking the oil viscosity for no good reason. As well as lowering its heat tolerance since seafoam will flash away quickly at high temp.