^ I'm also interested by that I just put new plugs in.

Would you guys consider seafoam preventive maintenance, or should only be used if your having issues?

Great little write-up.. Rep power for ya!

Here's the response received from SeaFoam from their ASE Certified, Technical Sales Director, as follows:

"Sea Foam is a petroleum based product and contains no harsh chemical additives. Sea Foam is used daily in injection cleaning equipment and used at a 50/50 ratio with fuel to clean injectors on the car. Sea Foam is safe at any ration and will not harm your engine of fuel system."

Perfect, that's what I needed! Time for the super seafoam treatment!

Thanks for the write up, i did this on my Taco a few years back and used the brake booster (1/3) and gas tank (2/3)

Just did one bottle in the new 4runner (135k) i put probably 2/5 into motor, 2/5 into pcv hose and the last 1/5 into gas tank
Will dump bottle two completely into gas tank when its time

Too bad its going to take like 3 weeks to run out a full tank of gas, maybe have to do a road trip to run it through really quick

Thread resurrection for question. I just did this and didn't get thick smoke. I definitely got smoke, but it wasn't super thick white like I see in youtube vids. Also, the thread says the smoke continues for 5-10 minutes. Mine lasted for 2 minutes max. Did I do it right? Or should I try it again?

I bought 2 bottles. Used 1/2 bottle in gas tank (with gas needle at 1/4 tank), 1/2 in oil fill. Used 1/3 through PCV and slowly sucked it in...waited 10 minutes as stated on here and fired her up. Please advise...thanks!

It probably wasn't that dirty to begin with. The smoke comes from loosened deposits being burned in the combustion chambers, and if there wasn't a lot of gunk there won't be a lot of smoke. If you wanna be sure, suck another batch through the PVC hose, let the truck stall out, then let it cook overnight.

Is it pretty much necessary to swap plugs and O2 sensor after this? I'll look in the crankcase for sludge, but my Runner was super clean when I bought it. I may not even need to do it, but if I did, I guess I should look into a full tuneup shortly thereafter...

No. Not Necessary at all.

If your engine is filthy, then there's more of a chance that it's going to foul upo your O2 sensors.

As for your plugs, there really isnt anything that's going to affect them, because they burn and get really freaking hot.

But, it couldn't hurt to change them.

Question: Just did the same thing. Followed the directions for a basic sea foam treatment and got some smoke but not much. Should i wait a certain amount of time before attempting the super soak method?

I don't know why.

so where do i buy this stuff? i've heard of it but never used nor seen it.

Walmart. Was the cheapest in my area at $8.99. O'Reilly's was $10.99.

ok. i bought some and introduced it as recommended, no problem. didn't get any smoke though. i either didn't put enough or the engine is clean. any thoughts? it only has 98k, so it should have had some.

Last night I did the seafoam, my truck has 151k. I put 8oz through the PCV line, 8oz in the crank, and another 8oz in 1/4 of a tank (I have 8oz remaining).

I yielded noticeable results. Smoother idle, smoother reving, way more pep which obviously translates to more torque, faster acceleration, and hopefully better gas mileage?


A side note, I notice people questioning what Seafoam "is", and how it works and everything. I took some Organic Chemistry classes in college and here is how Seafoam basically works:

First a background. In chemistry we should be familiar with the idea that "likes dissolve likes", meaning oils dissolve oils (because they're non-polar). There are 3 types of "likes" based on how polar a compound or chemical is: polar, semi-polar, and non-polar. This is why oil and water separate, because they don't mesh at all. Light oils float, heavy oils will sink (all depends on how dense the compound is) when mixed with water. Dissolving polar/semi-polar/non-polar compounds is why we use acetone to clean up some types of things and water for other things or oil for others. The closer the polarity of the solvent to the compound your dissolving, the better it will dissolve.

This is how Seafoam works. It is a petroleum (non-polar) compound that dissolves the specific non-polar compound that is carbon residue. This is important because the polarity carbon junk is different than octane, which is also different from oil lubricants, yet they are all close enough to be considered into the category of non-polar. So Seafoam should have polarity that very close to the carbon residue while far enough away from oils and octane to not break them down. To be honest it probably took a lot of engineering to make the solvent.

Last bit, things dissolve easier when you heat them up like water and sugar, or water and salt. This is why you have to warm up your car before you put in the Seafoam, the product would probably dissolve a bit, but not be as effective otherwise.