I am curious about Sea Foam, but the Toyota master technician who usually services my vehicle has made me hesitant.

My understanding of Sea Foam is the largest gains from it are when it is sucked in through the intake (a vacuum line typically) and it cleans the crap stuck to the back of the intake valves that restricts fuel & air flow.

My question to you guys is does anyone know of, or have pictures of someone who has inspected the intake valvles before, and after a treatment (Yes I know it's a bit of work to take apart, deal with, etc, but for curiousities sake) to actually physically and visually check for the effectiveness of this product?

Also I was told by Sea Foam CS via email recently that NAPA in Canada WILL be carrying Sea Foam products by Late September.

 

Damn good question, I don't remember reading of any1 doing a "before and after open comparasion. And Ive come across a good number of Sea Foam threads on different sites over the last year or so......but I also heard from a volkswagon tech that you can achieve the same results w/ water...... But like I said, he's a 'olkswagon wrench......

 

You can acheive the same result with water, but it's a royal PITA with an inected engine.
[story]I wanted to see if it was true, because tha guy that told me about was, although the head mechanic where I worked, also a known pathological liar. So I pulled the plugs on my p/u, and shined a light into each cylinder with the piston up, so I could get a visual idea of the carbon buildup in there. I was surprised that it wasn't all that bad, but almost all my mileage was highway, and I use Chevron exclusively. Any who, there was some build up in there. So I fired it up, got it good and warm, then took the top off the air cleaner, and, using a small spray bottle available at any grocery store, I started misting water lightly above the carb throats, keepint the RPM up manually. It didn't seem to care for the whole proceedure, but I kept at it for a while, as it sputtered, and coughed, and complained most vociferously. I guess about 10 minutes. I was surprised at how low the engine temp was when I finally shut it down. After it cooled off, I pulled the plugs and looked again, and most, not all but a goodly percentage, say 70-80% of the carbon was gone. Plugs were nice and clean, too. This was before the advent of inexpensive digital cameras, say aroud 92 or so, so no pics, and the observations were strictly subjective.[/story]
So, there ya go, take it for what it's worth. A lot easier with the carbed engines, because most injected engines don't run real well with the air cleaner off.

 

Right on, thats good to know....now I gotta go detail my buddy's "ricer"....I hate losing a bet...lol

 

Aw, crud, I'm sorry!

I didn't know you had THAT riding on this or I'd have kept quiet.

 

Sorry, are we talking in the same topic here? I'm talking about removing the heads and checking the intake valve for built up crud. Then reinstalling head. Spraying SEA FOAM into it as per SEA FOAM's instructions like everyone has described and raved about, then re-removing the head and checking the results. Does it really do what is described IE cleaning the intake valve, system, etc. ?

 

I was just giving my experience with using water as a carbon remover, and how limited my visual inspection was. That was the only thing I was trying to get across, as drkgypsy mentioned that he'd been told that perhaps water was equivalent in carbon removal capabilities as Sea Foam.
Yes, I think it would be very interesting indeed to see a before/after comparison of the functionality of SeaFoam, but given the amount of effort involved, I doubt anyone will do it as a casual thing. It's not like taking the valve cover off...
So, no we're NOT talking about the same thing, but something that was, perhaps, similar, if not equivalent, and much less expensive, if more difficult to do on an EFI engine.

 

I had a water injection setup on my Eclipse so it was like steam cleaning my valves when I used it and it showed when I had the head off so anything else except a bottle of BG's 44K wasn't needed.

 

I have used tranny fluid to clean the inside of gummed up motors, it works the same as water. Another one out there is Casite. That will really do a great job on cleaning carbon build up out of the motor on valve and such. Though it is getting harder to find. It is an old timers methods that I picked up years ago. But with the newer gas and gas products out there, I think it is becoming a moot point to worry about carbon build in motors nowadays.

 

So....back on topic.

Has anyone considered inspecting the results of Sea Foam? The reason I ask is for the guys who do NOT want to remove their heads to clean their intake valves, etc.. Hence they don't want to use water, or transmisison fluid, or any other noted miracle cures because again, their heads won't be off. If we all took our heads off and cleaned our intakes with the above mentioned techniques, we woudln't be talking about Sea foam now would we? That is the GOAL - to find out the results of Sea Foam, before, and AFTER it is used by inspecting the valves with the heads of, before, and after.

Pardon my sarcasm but this is the second time I've intervened in the topic that I started to bring it back on topic.

 

Our apologies for not responding precisely as you required. We'll all try to stay dead on topic henceforth.

 

I doubt anyone has...seems like alot of work just for curiosities sake. I can't find the pic from when I tore my motor apart but I had seafoamed it about 3k miles before and everything was still pretty clean aside from the cylinder with the burnt valve. I'm not saying there wasn't carbon on the parts just they were pretty clean for being how old they were.

 

Well it IS a lot of work - perhaps SEA Foam themselves, might want to intervene and pay someone for their labour to do this and we can post the results in pics? This might end any hesitation on the parts of the guys who are somewhat hesitant like myself in going forth with a sea foam treatment. It might also be good advertising for Sea Foam on their website.

Should I send out a well written email?

Is there anyone else like me who would like to try it but might be hesitant until you see some results such as a visual inspection?

 

Why dont YOU do it? Apparently noone here has done it.

 

Adam - If I was NEAR a rebuild both money and mechanical wise, I WOULD do it. But my engine still has lots of life left in it. That way If I was near a rebuild I wouldn't have an issue in the event something went wrong as it would be taken apart and fixed anyways.

 

I used it back in the late 80s on a free care a nurse gave me- said I could tow it away. I was in early 20s, no $, in college, etc. and so to make a long story short, I got the car, determined the valves were frozen, so I poured a can down the throat of the carb, let in sit 30 minutes, then when I turned the key, it cranked. Now the interesting part, if started spitting our chenkc of carbon out the tail pipe that ultimately stacked 3" tall on the ground. That is no BS! 3" of carbon spit out of the tail pipe! The car ran great thereafter, and I sold if for $1k.

I used it recently in my '99Runner 3.4L, and can't say I got dramatic results, but wonder if the carbon can get caught in the honeycomb inside of the cats? Any ideas fellas? I've changed everything I can think of, but cant get better than 16-18 mpg. I used to get 22, or 21 driving hard. Best mileage I ever got was 23.7MPG. I have 94K miles and the mileage has been decreasing since the last year. I sometimes only get 14mpg.
I'm also new here to this forum!
Steve

 

new plugs? clean throttle body? clean mass air flow sensor? if yes to all that, then it's more than likely the front O2 sensor beginning to give up the ghost. it happened to me and one tank i could get 17/18 and then next two would be 14/15 then it would jump up to 18, etc... i finally just changed the front O2 sensor and it jumped back to 17/18 and stayed there.

 

Does anyone know how the price of tea in China is doing? Oh, whoops not on topic. My bad!

You are going to be hard pressed to find anyone with the time to burn to do the SeaFoam treatment then take the head off. Its just not gonna happen.

 

not only that, but they'd have to FIRST take the heads off to inspect and take pics, then reassemble and seafoam, then disassemble again for inspection.

that's just not feasable and NOT going to happen.

 

weLLLL Bamachem, I think you should know better.... There was actually a guy that posted in Bamachem's super big Seafoam thread that took off the heads. He didn't actually take pics of the top of the valves but did take pics of the cylinders and pistons. I have no idea what page that is on, you'll have to take a day and read it yourself. https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f123/seafoam-injector-intake-cleaner-good-stuff-64836/