Porqupine82
New member
To everyone using this season foam, I've got some real nice beachfront property I need to sell..... you'd look real good there.
Snake oil.
Snake oil.
Seafoam? Just do it
- Thread starter MidwestT4R
- Start date
I just watched a youtube video of a guy doing this. Ill see if I can find it again. But in the video it did clean off quite a bit of buildup on the top of the piston.
Found it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6UeJXkzDW8
MidwestT4R
Member
I drove 45 miles on the tank in town and then 335 miles on the highway to our destination and didn't fill up on the way. The low gas light turned on at 365 miles and when we arrived the range showed 8 miles left. It actually became a game with my kids to see if we could make it all the way up without stopping for gas. As in watching the range on the computer and the trip odometer to see if we could. This was the first tank after the seafoam treatment and I was curious on any effect.
I did reset the MPG calculator on the computer and when we showed up it indicated just over 20 mpg for the trip. I know this thing is not accurate, but my recollection is that I filled it up with 4 miles left and the car took just over 21 gallons on the fill up. That is a typical fill up when the range shows close to zero on the computer. That is also roughly 18 mpg on midrange fuel.
Certainly not a gas sipper but better than I have ever run with my truck on the highway at the speeds we were driving.
I should note that I did also do some other maintenance on my truck before leaving. I cleaned and lubed the brakes front and rear (the rear pads were tight and I had to wire brush the pad holders pretty hard before putting the stainless shims back in), put in a new air filter, checked tire pressures and so on. Did this help with mileage? Probably. But my previous mpg performance has been lower for a long time. Lower than when I first bought the trick 6 years ago and I have done similar maintenance in the past with no noticeable effect on mpg. That is what finally pushed me to try the Seafoam.
I did not realize this topic is so polarizing. For now, the seafoam appears to have had a positive effect on my engine performance and mileage. We shall see if it continues.
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geurillawarfare
New member
Any time you bring up dumping something other than fuel, oil, or coolant into a hole in your engine, the opinions come flying out
Someone else posted a youtube link. I'll have to watch this in detail. I've always been a bit skeptical about top end cleaning but I know that some OEM's recommend it. Heck, on some engines (The DI 5.2L V10 in the Audi S6's and S8's), if you don't clean the thing, it will choke on its own carbon snot to the point of constant stalling and misfire.
LTDSC
New member
you also think Synthetic is snake oil as well dont you?
Porqupine82
New member
Nope. Synthetic makes sense. That video someone posted of pistons before and after shows that it is ineffective. The Pistons had a very minimal amount of carbon removed. It was done on a 4 cylinder car and between all 4 cylinders, I'd say about 3 micrograms of carbon were removed.
The can is like $6... so by my calculations that would take about 290,000 miles to pay for itself in fuel savings. (My scientific estimation)
LTDSC
New member
if you're that hard up for $6 then i cant help you. But you seemingly care too much over $6.
Porqupine82
New member
No need to patronize me over a difference in opinion. I haven't been rude to anyone while giving my opinion.
Spend your money how you see fit.
LTDSC
New member
so i should come up with some extravagant estimation to validate my bogus claim? Cool you dont believe in it, many do and have had good success with it. Blatantly calling it snake oil based off opinion is ignorant.
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Porqupine82
New member
geurillawarfare
New member
Interesting video.
Notice that the majority of the carbon buildup is not touched - Most of what changed was the surfaces that were mostly clean, but "stained" a little dark... To me, it doesn't look like enough difference to matter. Any carbon buildup on a piston can result in a hot spot which can result in detonation which will result in retarded spark timing.
I think the biggest problem here might be the combustion itself. You are burning half of the seafoam that you spray in there. If the goal is to clean the top of the pistons, I suspect that a better way would be:
1 - Remove spark plugs and fog the cylinder, making sure that top of pistons is coated but not so soaked that you have seafoam running down your cylinder walls.
2 - Let sit for a day and soak in. Repeat.
3 - Fog the hell out of the cylinder with fogging oil and turn it over by hand a few times to make sure you still have some decent lube on the cylinder walls.
4 - Start it up and load it down as soon as oil pressure has stabilized and initial smoke plume has started to dissipate.
It seem that this would likely remove a lot more carbon from the pistons, if that is the goal.
In general, I have never had a problem with severe spark retardation due to detonation issues. This might be due to the sunoco down the street having 91 octane 100% gasoline which I run in all my cars. Maybe if I switched to some ethanol-bearing 87 octane I would see a problem... I don't know.
Regardless, interesting video, and I wonder what a longer/more thorough treatment would result in.
MidwestT4R
Member
I wondered about the same thing. The boring academic paper I linked earlier did have a couple interesting sections in it.
Petroleum Fuels
Petroleum fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel contain a complex mixture of hundreds of hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons vary by class—paraffins, olefins, and aromatics, depending on the nature of chemical bonding between the carbon atoms in hydrocarbon molecules. These fuels also contain additives designed for specific purposes. The molecular composition of fuels determines their physical properties, engine performance, and thermal stability characteristics.
Then later on
Deposit formation in gasoline engines appears to depend strongly on the chemical composition of high-boiling components of gasoline that have high deposition tendencies. Charlisle et al. (8) studied the effect of fuel composition on air-assisted direct injection spark ignition research engine and concluded that the aromatic hydrocarbon content of the fuel has a significant effect on deposit formation, higher the aromatics content more extensive was the deposit formation. The fuel olefin content, however, showed a less significant effect on deposit formation.
I couldn't help but wonder if the types of gas available regionally and seasonally have some effect on carbon formation. For example, here in the upper midwest we have a summer blend and a winter blend. We also have ethanol in our gas.
That doesn't even get into the differences in additives that likely exist between the premium brands and the cheap no name guy down the street.
I guess my point here is that we may be seeing some differences in carbon build up due to the variety of fuel types available around the country. Your local all gas 91 octane might actually work well in preventing carbon build up while the choices I have might provide a more mixed result. We can all claim that we baby our 4runners and only feed them the best but when it is zero degrees out and you are on empty you buy what is convenient. And in my high tax state the difference between 87 octane and midrange can run 40-50 cents per gallon. Forget about premium.
Additionally, the article talks a lot about achieving the right temps in the engine for the gas mixes to perform well. I spend 3-4 months each year in truly cold weather so my engine takes longer to warm up. As I drive around town a lot more than on the highway I may not always achieve an optimum temp in the engine. Does this affect carbon build up? The article seems to imply that it would. See below
Guthrie (6), on the other hand, found that the surface temperature was the most important factor in the formation of deposits. Similarly, Kinoshita et al. (7) suggested that the best solution for deposit control was to use an insulating material on the areas of the injector exposed to the combustion chamber so as to raise the surface temperature to levels high enough to prevent deposit formation, i.e., 350 ̊C, through oxidation/gasification of deposits, or deposit precursors
I have been carefully listening to my truck as before I did the seafoam I was getting some knocking under acceleration. And I only noticed this in the last year or so. Putting a higher octane gas in fixed it. But the article does talk about the fact that if you get enough carbon around the piston and valves you increase compression which leads to knocking and a need for higher octane fuel. My latest tank is 87 octane regular and I cannot hear any knocking at all anymore. Yes, I get it that this is anecdotal, but I as I try to drive my cars until they are truly dead I am pretty picky about listening for any signs of an issue so I can deal with it before it turns into something serious/expensive.
Latest tank trending towards 320 miles or so before the fuel light goes on. All in town stop and go driving. Nothing spectacular, but better than I have been getting by about 30 miles.
I suspect that this is a topic that will never find common ground. I cannot imagine how the scientists who study this stuff don't rip their hair out reading papers like the one I referenced. Just look at this conclusion
Conclusions
The long-term automotive and aircraft related technological benefits can be derived from fundamental understanding of fuel thermal stability issues such as, free radical autoxidation mechanism, establishing a global chemistry model, understanding of fuel-metal surface interactions, and developing additive packages to increase the thermal stability of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels. Research and development efforts in these areas will help eliminate the operational problems associated with carbon deposit accumulation on various components of fuel delivery and combustion systems in internal combustion engines.
Sixteen other papers cited to end up with the conclusion that more research is required. This debate will never end.
geurillawarfare
New member
Fascinating paper! I'll have to read through this. I think that with the availability of these little USB cameras, it would be cool to start a sticky thread and have people post when they change their spark plugs: Picture of each cylinder, engine mileage, area of the country, typical fuel they use, driving habits, etc - Maybe with enough data points, we could learn a lot more about this, at least as it relates to the Toyota SUV engine series.
wadle5
New member
Oh resorted to a video. . .NOW I believe him. :jaw:
hobosapien
New member
I barely get 300 in mine, wtf? Even when I didn't have the added weight from sound insulation, tires, and bumper it was just a little over 300. I call BS.
Bluesky 07
Senior Member
So I asked my mechanic and he said Seafoam is a waste. He recommended a fuel additive but I don't recall the name at the moment (had a crazy day). I'll post it once I find out.
RedSled
New member
Was it BG 44?
