Seafoam sucks!!!!!!!!!

[Mr. Rustypwnz]

Ite guys and gals, Yesterday I put new bearings in my busted roller rocker, and got it better than new so I could get the stang on the road, so I button everything up and put a little oil in thur, and half a can of seafoam, so I run it around last night, got on it, feelin good. So today I wake up, get in my car and start her up, and start going down the road, well I passed some old fart going slow, put it down in 2nd thru 4th, then I get to school and some old fart is in front of me again so, I punched it this time in 1st thru 3rd, well this time is starts smoking this white-blue mix, mostly white. So some of my friends come over and said why is the stang smokin, so I say I put seafoam in it, and they all just kind of go, "OH". It starts this crap agin when im coming home, havent even got over 2.5k and it does it, when I got on it hard it stopped. WTF???

does this stuff make your cars smoke??? Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Thanks josh

 

[Swede958]

Well, I personally haven't ever used it, but my buddy says it works great if you pour it into your intake to clean your intake valves. And yes it does smoke like crazy when you do that. I'm not sure whether or not it acts the same as B-12 when you put it 'in' your oil, because if it does it thins out the oil to make it run out faster for an oil change?

Blue smoke is usually oil burning, white coolant. That being said my buddy said his smoked white for a while when he ran it, however, if it thinnned out the oil maybe it got by the head gasket somehow and is mixing with antifreeze, then coolant going back through hole where oil came from. I dunno, sorta just throwing things out. Good luck.

 

[89white50]

i know it;s suppose to smoke like hell if you suck it up with the vacuum hose, i.e. what swede said. But i have no idea why it would be doing that unless you had some serious blowby. my guess is you have warped heads/busted HG/ cracked something.

 

[Mr. Rustypwnz]

no nothings broke, no water into head leakage, im not loosing coolant, so I really dont know.

 

[larrendeuce]

I never used it in with the oil every time, just right before an oil change. When I do that I never drive the car with it in. That said I don't think it could make that much of a problem with burning oil. How much did you put in?

 

[Sicarius428]

I ran some of that stuff in my intake for my corolla and it smoked up my garage pretty good.
Kevin

 

[vristang]

It may be time to change the oil and get that stuff out of the system. If you didn't get smoke before, and are getting it now then the seafoam is causing it somehow (most likely anyway). The only way I can see that happening is if the oil has been thinned to the point where you are loosing your ring seal.
Just a guess on my part though

I would think that seafoam would be much more aggressive than ATF in the oil. The recommendation on ATF is usually to take it around the block a few times, getting it the OIL up to temp (it takes longer for the oil to heat up than it takes the coolant, in most cases), and change it IMMEDIATELY.
It has even been recommended to me that then next oil/filter change should be used as a flush. Just run a few hundred miles and change it again.
If you are using a more aggressive cleaner than ATF, then I would prep for a change pretty soon.

Personally, I will never add any of these "solvent" additives to MY oil.
In the 50's, 60's, 70's, and even early 80's the oil and fuel technology was pretty poor. That is the main reason sludge would build up in the engine. Well, lead in the fuel didn't help either
If you use a "decent" oil (it doesn't have to be full synthetic "high performance" fancy schmancy oil), AND CHANGE IT when your supposed to, you should never see ANY sludge accumulation.

Just my opinion though,
jason

 

[speedytang]

How do these stories start about using SeaFoam. Don't play with all that crap you put in your oil and suck it into your intake. Cars use OIL not whatever that crap is.

 

[88 Fox GT]

I've used Seafoam before and have never had any problems. I don't praise it like it's some kind of magic though, because I've never noticed a difference in anything when using it.

 

[Mr. Rustypwnz]

Well ive checked the oil and everthing and the oil is very thin, it has the proper amount in there, but it is way too thin. My buddy at school today told me that he put it in his 351c and it smoked like crazy. So tomorrow in the moring, the oil is coming out and new 10 w30 is going in with a fl-1a filter, and that should change things abit.

Thanks guys with all the help!!

Josh

 

[bill302]

please post results, ....thanks.

 

[Swede958]

I think that should fix it I think... I always used stuff like that when I got a new car for the first oil change because I had no idea when the previous owner 'really' changed the oil. It thins it out and makes it run like water.

Good oil + filter is Doc Swede's reccomendation as well. Take 5 quarts and call us in the afternoon... it's sat so we're sleeping in.

 

[SMOKEDYA]

Personally, I will never add any of these "solvent" additives to MY oil.
In the 50's, 60's, 70's, and even early 80's the oil and fuel technology was pretty poor. That is the main reason sludge would build up in the engine. Well, lead in the fuel didn't help either
If you use a "decent" oil (it doesn't have to be full synthetic "high performance" fancy schmancy oil), AND CHANGE IT when your supposed to, you should never see ANY sludge accumulation.

Just my opinion though,
jason



Good point jason! peace



john

 

[90mustangGT]

I don't think your suposed to use it as an additive. I belive your suposed to put it in the oil, run it for a little bit (at idle, slightly elevated) and then change the oil afterwards. If you want to run a detergent additive, run Marvel Mystery Oil. I know plenty of experienced auto techs as well as myself have good experience with that stuff.

Just because Seafoam smokes a lot doesn't mean it is really doing anything. It just smokes because it the seafoam that is smoking. Smoke means incomplete combustion, which means residue.

I work for a GM dealership. As we all know, these LS1 based engines run high compression on 87 octane, which they do great until there is some carbon buildup in the combustion chamber and then they knock, sounds like a deisel when you punch the gas, then timing retardes and it just runs with no power. We start by running BG Intake Cleaner through the TB and through the intake to get the induction clean. Then we run the BG Fuel Injector Cleaner. We put an additive in the gas tank called BG 44K, then we pull the spark plugs, pour in GM Topend Engine Cleaner, put the sparkplugs back, next day we pull the plugs, spin the motor over, put the plugs back, let it sit for a little bit more, then fire it up, pure black carbon comes out, not just smoke. It works as well.

Another technique is to get the motor real hot, then get the RPM to at least 2-3K rpm and then pour water in the intake. Cold water hits the hot carbon and breaks it off.

 

[spiff]

Another technique is to get the motor real hot, then get the RPM to at least 2-3K rpm and then pour water in the intake. Cold water hits the hot carbon and breaks it off.

Yeah that works well, but you shouldn't just dump water in there you should mist it, right? Motors with carbon buildup still run better than hydro-locked motors.

I also follow the same suit as SMOKEDYA... Regular manintenance and oil changes with good oil and running good fuel is all I do to keep my car running well. I don't use any of that weird **** like seafoam.. I've never heard a ford tech say "Hey, try this product made by some company to clean up carbon buildup you probably don't even have!"

 

[HISSIN50]

Jason, are there concerns with the top end cleaners and catalytic converters?

 

[90mustangGT]

Jason, are there concerns with the top end cleaners and catalytic converters?

Well, it makes them technically run very rich, because you now have two fuel systems dumping in fuel. If the cats are on their way out, well, that might burry the hatchet. When using the top end cleaner, the engine is cold, and the converters are basically "off" because they need heat to start thier catalyst process. By the time they get hot enough, the cleaners are out. When running the injector cleaner directly through the injectors by turning off the fuel pump, it is not a concern, when running the induction cleaner, the O2's read rich so they lean it out quite a bit, and it doesn't run enough extra "fuel" long enough to really cause damage. Basically, in my experience, I have not had any problems with cleaning induction/fuel systems and having issues with catalyst converters.

Of course, spraying water in, a hydro-lock motor isn't a good thing. Another thing water down the intake will do is steam clean the converters and O2 sensors.

 

[HISSIN50]

Thanks Jason. I was actually wondering about bits of carbon getting stuck in the substrate inside the cat (clogging the cat up).