Well that was kinda scary

[infinity5]

I just tried the old seafoam in the vaccum line trick.

I got someone to hold the RPMs up a little over 2,000 to start out. I would have gone higher, but I have an automatic and I was afraid of revving it too much in park.

I used the FPR vaccum line and started letting it suck in seafoam. Nothing happened at first.. then still nothing.. then I got impatient and let it suck solid liquid in. After about 4 seconds of that the idle went all to hell. The person in the car said they couldn't keep the idle up at all any longer and I went ahead and stopped at that point. I wasn't planning on letting it stall out like others had.

The idle was still horrible, and at no point had i seen any smoke.

I put the line back on the FPR and jumped in the car. As I started to back out I realized I had almost no power. It took half throttle just to get it out of the driveway. Then the smoke came. I fogged my entire street as I headed out onto the open road. After a few more seconds the smoke stopped but the throttle response still wasn't there. I gave it lots of gas and drove hard for about 10minutes. Throttle is back to normal (I think) and the idle is back to silky smooth.

I might get the balls up again to idle it at 3,000 and let it suck up 'foam until it dies and then let it soak. For now though I think I'll just dump the rest of the bottle in the gas tank and hope I didn't break anything :)

I'll post an update later if i notice a big difference or i do it again. Right now the radiator hoses are on their last legs and i've not been driving it.

[CheapCheap1]

You the man...!!! :D
Pls keep us updated. If it's making a big different (& I can collect my guts), I will follow you soon.
Cheers,
CC1

[epj3]

So what's the problem? Every car i've done it to this is how it was done :-)

[RobPatt]

did the ingestion half bottle, let sit few minutes then finish bottle. got great results, was happy, BUT...
... someone on the board older and wiser than I (no names) schooled me a bit... while you get instant gratification from better idle, acceleration, less pinging, etc, you're killing lubrication in your engine, flushing oil around the rings, washing the cylinder walls of the same, getting the stuff down past the rings into your oil sump.. all bad. So my word is if you're gonna do it, at least be aware of these other negative side-effects. No silver bullet :-)
cheers, Rob.

[Bimminator]

What about doing a couple of oil changes in a row to clean things out and relube the engine with some clean stuff. Another trick I've used on my Volvo 740 with major K's was to put about half a litre of tranny fluid in the crank case a couple of days before an oil change. I found this cleaned things out pretty good. Not to seem to stupid but what is this seafoam trick? What product do you use.

[632 Regal]

"shakes head"

this whole thread makes me nauseous.

[infinity5]

yeah, i knew it was "supposed" to do that.. i'm just paranoid about my car :)

Yeah i was aware that the FPR vaccume line is probably unevenly distributing the fluid to the cylinders, but i didn't put much, and i wasn't planning to put much, so i'm not too worried. the oil thats in there now is a good weight and its getting changed sunday.

Interestingly enough i discovered seafoam doesn't evaporate almost at all. sitting in the heat for 36 hours had no effect on a puddles volume. Its also very slick, and clingly (reminds me of pure antifreeze.. or thin armor-all).

If you've got a mind to do something like this go over to bobistheoilguy.com forums and search the topic. its what i did before i started this and i learned a lot. if i haddn't had the seafoam on hand i would have gone with a different product and method entirely.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

how it should go.

Warm up.

Suck down some Seafoam.

Let it sit a while.

Start up.

Fumigate the neighborhood.

Crispy clean intake.

But don't do it every oil change.
This is an aggressive cleaning and should be used only periodically.

[Paul in NZ]

i dont understand what you are trying to aheive and what this seafoam stuff is.....surely a can of injector cleaner a good state of tune and regular maintenance is all we need...this stuff sounds scary!

[Mobius]

It's used in this method as a decarbonizer, a top engine cleaner. The application procedures for Seafoam are no different than any top engine cleaner: Allow enough in to saturate, allow to soak into deposits for an period of time, then restart to blow the soggy carbon crud out. This accomplishes something no injector or fuel system cleaner can do, because it saturates and soaks carbon deposits that would otherwise have to be removed manually.

Sure it's not fantastic for your engine, but neither are carbon deposits.

[Paul in NZ]

thanks mobius had never heard of this kind of procedure till i came on this forum.....

[DanH]

Also it works to pour it in the throttle body while the engine is running, depending on how easy it is to access on your specific engine. I've done it a couple times on my truck and the last time I did it, the check engine light cleared itself the next day. Its probably easier to use the vacuum lines on an m30 engine.

[ryan roopnarine]

ive done this with water twice (within the same week), despite mr. rickard's objections to the procedure, as i thought i had a severe carbon buildup (wasn't really, in hindsight). i have to admit, though, that my sister who knew nothing about cars, drove it about a month afterward and said "helga keeps yelling FLOOR ME (cookie monster voice). yeah, it does give you a wee bit of power. the smoke bit from the seafoam means nothing is being done, however. if you do it with water, you'll notice no smoke production, the seafoam smoke is from the cleaner being burned off. the real telltale is in whether you can smell carbon coming out of the tailpipe.

that being said.
i don't do this anymore. i prefer to put two or three bottles of berryman's b12 in my gas tank right on e, and drive to the brink of running out of gas. the "induction" cleaning plateaus eventually, and my practice of using the berryman's accomplishes the same result as the water.

I prefer the saturn piston soak now.....it doesn't remove carbon on the very top of the head, but it does get crap out, and doesn't require the motor to be running to do (a good thing :D ). you basically pour cleaner into your spark plug holes, let it sit, and blow all the $hit out using your starter or an air compressor. if it don't clean anything (HIGHLY doubtful), it certainly will bring your oil consumption down some (original intent of the procedure by saturn), as letting it soak unsticks your piston rings at the same time. i gets a wee bit of power back as well as keeping my oil in line (uses .75-1 quart per 7000 miles)...

with either of the aforementioned, its VERY necessary to change your oil out afterward.

[Mobius]

Also it works to pour it in the throttle body while the engine is running, depending on how easy it is to access on your specific engine. I've done it a couple times on my truck and the last time I did it, the check engine light cleared itself the next day. Its probably easier to use the vacuum lines on an m30 engine.Given the horizontally mounted throttle body, yeah - kind hard to pour.

Be CAREFUL if you do pour it in, though. If you go too fast you very much risk hydrolocking the engine.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

feeding it through the fuel regulator line.

Try doing through another location off of the brake booster, you won't interfer with the air/fuel mixture as much and it should run easier during the feed.