Write-Up: Seafoam to restore lost horsepower

For those that are interested, Seafoam is multipurpose, 100% petroleum product you can pick up at any local auto store (Napa, Advance, AutoZone, etc). It is used to clean carbon buildup from your engine, clean your injectors, and a whole lot more.

Uses of Seafoam

I would first like to state for the record that Seafoam does not add horsepower. All Seafoam does is clean out the gunk inside your engine and injectors. This will do nothing more than restore any horsepower/fuel economy you have lost due to years of dirt and grime inside your engine. Any power you pick up along the way is because it has just been suppressed by the filthy engine and is now free again.

How To Seafoam Your Car:

Part One: Injector Cleaning

This is the easiest part of the process. I waited until my tank was almost empty and added eight to ten gallons of 91+ octane gasoline as usual. Take 1 can of Seafoam and pour directly into your gas tank. The Seafoam will do a thorough job of cleaning your injectors. Try and run this tank pretty low before filling up so you don't dilute the mixture with more gasoline. This way, you get the maximum cleaning power of Seafoam.

Part Two: Cleaning Your Oil System

Seafoam is to be added directly into your crankcase in order to cleanse the oil. Yes, you heard me, you're pouring a foreign mixture directly into your engine oil. This can be scary, but never fear, Seafoam is 100% petroleum. It is as harmful to your engine as water is to your skin. The correct measurement for Seafoam is 1.5 ounces per quart of oil in your crankcase. A can of Seafoam is 16 ounces, so for simplicity's sake, we'll add half a can directly into the ENGINE OIL spout. NOTE: I recommend pouring the Seafoam into your oil when the car is cold. I would not recommend pouring a room temperature liquid into 200+ degree oil after the car is hot.

Run the Seafoam in your oil for NO MORE THAN 250 miles! Seafoam is very aggressive. Your next oil change will be black and likely thicker than usual. I would not recommend running this oil very long in the car as your oil filter is going to have quite the time on its hands and the oil won't be in the best of shape afterwards. I’ll say it again. Change your oil less than 250 miles after you put Seafoam in your crankcase! I personally recommend running it 100 miles, then changing your oil. That should be plenty for the Seafoam to get most of the gunk out.

Part Three: Top End Cleaning

Here comes the fun part: cleaning the engine internals! NOTE: park your car in a VERY WELL VENTILATED area (OUTSIDE) for this step as high amounts of toxic fumes will be pouring out of your car.
As you recall, we have half a can of Seafoam left. This half a can will be used to clean out your cylinder banks. In order to do this, we need to locate a vacuum line to directly feed the Seafoam into the engine. The best vacuum line for this job is the brake booster line.

In case you don’t know, the brake booster is the big, black saucer shaped object behind the brake fluid holder against the driver's side firewall.

You will be sucking the Seafoam into the brake booster hose. (note: some people prefer to suck the Seafoam in through the PCV line. this is also acceptable, although I have never done it.)

First thing you want to do is start the car and wait for the engine to warm up to normal operating temperatures. After the engine is nice and warm, turn the engine off. Now you are going to disengage the brake booster line. The easiest way is to pull the valve that the hose is attached to from the brake booster.

Once the hose is off, pour the half can of Seafoam into a short cup or glass. I do not recommend simply jamming the hose into the Seafoam can and letting the engine suck it up. This makes it very hard to control the amount being sucked up and could flood the engine far too fast causing it to prematurely stall out.

Now start the car. You’ll notice your rpm's will be high because your brake booster hose is disconnected and is causing a massive vacuum leak. You’ll be able to feel the engine sucking air through the hose.

With the container (glass) of Seafoam (one half can) SLOWLY lower the hose into the container and let the engine pull the Seafoam out of the glass. The engine will start to sputter and choke as the engine absorbs the Seafoam. You DO NOT want your engine to stall out. Go as slowly as possible so the engine does not die. Do this for the first two thirds of container. With the final third of the Seafoam, quickly let the engine pull it up. The idea here is to stall out the motor, suspending the remaining gulp of Seafoam in the cylinder banks (don't be alarmed if your engine bay is smoking the entire time this is happening). If your car does not stall, quickly run and turn off the key.

Do not start the car for at least 10 minutes. You want the Seafoam to soak in the motor to get all that nasty carbon out of the engine.

Reconnect the brake booster hose, and anything else you may have disturbed during the Seafoaming of your car.

Now that a least 10 minutes have passed, it's time to start your ride back up. This may be a challenge. The engine is flooded with liquid so it may be a lot harder to start than usual. This is completely normal. Once your car is started, let it idle for a good 5-10 minutes. Your car is likely to smoke profusely. NO...I MEAN SMOKE PROFUSELY! If it doesn't smoke too badly, it's because your engine just wasn't that dirty.

After the car has been idling for 5-10 minutes, take the car out for a spirited drive. The key word here is spirited. You want to rev your car nice and high and get all that Seafoam into all the valleys of the engine. This is the perfect excuse to completely run the balls off your car. If you look behind you, you will likely see a long trail of blue smoke dusting out the entire highway. Say good-bye to the culprit carbon buildup killing your power and gas mileage.

Congratulations! You have successfully Seafoamed your car. You will be AMAZED as your car revs faster with no hesitations, your gas needle moves slower and your idle is smoother.

NOTE: Seafoam is O2 sensor safe and will not damage your spark plugs or catalytic converters with responsible use. This means as long as you're not Seafoaming your car constantly and using far above the recommended dosages, you should be fine. It’s probably good to do this process every 10,000 miles to keep your car in top shape.

Nice job! I don't know if I would want to use it in the oil, but that is just me. This stuff works really well.

quote: "...as high amounts of toxic fumes will be pouring out of your car."

This alone makes me want to try this procedure, lol.

its soo much fun driving around the block durring the middle of the day with enough smoke to think it's a war zone. i almost got pulled over for doing that once, either too much smoke or WOT in a neighborhood to clear out the carbon (btw i dont condone speeding), the cop was sitting at a light and saw me coming up form behind, he put his lights on and begain stepping out of his car, i just turned down the next road and slowly crep around the block and into my garage. luckily the smokeing had mostly stoped or i would have been really easy to track down. im also lucky my drivway wraps around the back of my house so you cant see in my garage. i was paranoid the rest of the day about driving anywhere

Nice write up. I will try steps 2 and 3 soon, maybe when it is not 15*F and snowing outside.

When you put it in the oil do you just put it in the spout where you put the oil?

ive used it quite a few times, but im going to try it as a top end cleaner on my cobalt since it just his 10K. i usually use BG 44K for the fuel system

i use quality gas, a new fuel filter and WOT daily to keep my lines clean

I've used it in other cars and I've noticed improvements so it's just a cheap way to ensure everything is cleaned out.

WOT is key as well.

Pretty soon here I am going to do some seafoam cleaning. Here is my plans, I want to know if I have it all straight and if it is safe to do all seafoam maintenence at one time.

1. I will buy a can and put it in the gas tank

2. I will use a whole can and do the top engine clean procedure

3 I will use a can to put in the oil. 1.5 ounces for every quart of oil (how many quarts do we have again?)

4. In about 200miles I will get an oil change and put in the larger filter

Does this sound right? I will do step one soon, but the rest of the steps I will do when it gets warm and I am closer to an oil change. Is it cool to do seafoam in the oil and the top engine clean together AND get the oil changed in 200 miles? I will not change plugs either.

I did mine all at once last month. But, I used 1 can in the gas and half can through brake booster vac line and the other half can in the oil. That was the first time I seafoamed with 127K miles on the car. I noticed a BIG difference in throttle response!

Thank you Jack

On my roomates ZR2 forum they say to do it exactly like you did. But going by the Riv links to other 3800 sites (club GP etc) they say to use 1 whole can in the middle vac line on the throttle body. Now I believe that which vac line you use is unimportant. But my real question is that the GP site says to change your oil after a top engine clean, but I want to put some in the oil at this time also, so it is alright to not change your oil for 250 miles then?

BTW I will probably dump a whole can in when doing the top engine clean because I am sure its never been done.

i usually dump a whole can into about 1/3 tank of gas. since you have the 96' you have a 19.6 gal tank so mix it into about 6 gallons of 93. you may want to eventually invest and change out your fuel filter if you have never added anything to the gas before, or if you have never changed the filter. (about $15 and pretty easy to change).

i dont add anyhting to the crankcase b/c i change the oil regularly and keep the good stuff in it. if you have notice the oil is really black after 3k miles then you may want to add some.

i would use the whole can in the top clean, maybe save 1/3 of it to let soak, per instructions. that is what makes the bigest difference in how the car runs. and so does removing the TB and cleaning behind that. (but you need a new gasket)

i wouldn't do 250 miles with sea foam in the oil b/c it thins out the oil so much and if it picks up alot of sludge and dirt then your filter will get really full within a very short amount of time. but that all depends on how you drive it. 250 is probably ok for a highway car but maybe do 150 miles if its all city. of course you can also go by how the oil looks. check it every 50k or so to make sure its not dark as night
good luck,
Matthew

I agree w/ Matthew. I wouldn't go 250. 100 or so should be plenty. As far as the fuel, I only had about eight gallons of gas in the tank w/ a can of seafoam.

the black hose coming off of the black saucer, is that what you feed it to? I disconnect it from the saucer and feed it in that end? and this is just a vaccum line correct, not a brake fluid line?

alright, I read the write up on it, i'm set

I'm guessing you're talking about the brake booster line. Don't be afraid to stall it when you dump the last of it in.

Did you put any in the crankcase/gas tank?

pwmin wrote:

ive used it quite a few times, but im going to try it as a top end cleaner on my cobalt since it just his 10K. i usually use BG 44K for the fuel system

BG is some good stuff..for cleaning the fuel system...an you can buy it on ebay if you dont know a BG dealer... beats the crap outta the typical stuff at autozone,and such.

Whether this is true or not I cannot verify, but when I had a sticking gas gauge (where the dash gauge would only go to 1/2 and never lower) the dealership service department's first question was whether I used fuel cleaners? They warned that some can be damaging to the sending unit.

Doesn't the dealer recommed injector cleaner?

yea their's if you use anything but GM stuff your engine will blow up
(that might actualy apply to s/c oil)

Just did the seafoam yesterday. Thanks for the write-up! Seems like its responding a little better now. I'll let you know in a week if my 17 mpg went up

Can someone help me out with taking the TB off? That whole area doesnt seem very inviting to me...

The Riv FAQ is your friend:
http://www.geocities.com/rivieraresource/intakecleaning.html

When I put it in my fuel tank am I supposed to change the fuel filter afterwards?

I did that last week just wondering if I should be changing the fuel filter soon.

Imo No !! That would be waist of money.