So I decided to see how effective some of these fuel treatments are.
I’ve done a bunch of research and found it’s a lot of people saying things work with no backup. I bought a boroscopic camera and decided to do some before and after views. I’ve seen a few videos online from project farm and Chris fix and decided to do some comparisons. I will note the caliber of their videos and pics is a lot better. I hate editing videos.
I have several notes:
1. 4.7L 2013 with ~40,000 kms. Or 25,000 miles. It has an oil catch can installed around 30,000 kms. I have a 100L tank or 26 Gal.
2. I looked in cylinder 1 originally and added cylinder 3.
3. I didn’t look in all cylinders because it’s a huge PITA.
4. I took video which I will hope to put on YouTube but it is very hard to film and make it look nice. I will post a link once that’s done.
5. With limited time, tools, I noticed I didn’t always get the best views of the pistons.
6. Ideally, one would take out both sets of plugs, injectors, and even tear the motor apart. I didn’t do this because of cost and time.
7. I’ve used these products in the past and am no way paid by them. In fact, I would stop using them if I found they didn’t work.
8. I use Costco top tier fuel in the vehicle only.
Assumptions:
1. There are a variety of factors that could alter effectiveness including:
-Humidity - -~ 20-30%
-Temperature- 15-25 degreees Celsius.
-Engine wearing characteristics - unknown
-Carbon build up and hardness- unknown
-Injector spray pattern- example- does injector 1 spray straight at the intake valve whereas injector 2 sprays at the intake manifold resulting in different spray patterns, etc.
-Dilution of the cleaner.
-These are some of the factors and honestly, there are so many more.
Please take this with a grain of salt.
These cleaners can only do so much. I believe one must consider this.
I used Seafoam with the intake sprayer and amsoil PI.
1. Seafoam
This stuff is petroleum based.
This is the one with the little sprayer into the intake.
Note: The company calls for adding the liquid stuff into your fuel as well. I didn’t do that to see the effectiveness of the upstream cleaning. I followed their directions using most of the can and let it heat soak for about an 1hr and 15 minutes.
Then I drove the snot out of it. I found when I looked into the intake through the throttle body, it made the intake carbon wet and goooy. It didn’t clean it to any degree. This is not posted as it was a video.
The following is a before of cylinder 1.
The next picture is the after doing Seafoam. Again, I apologize for the angles. It was really hard to move the camera and couldn’t get the crank to manually move it.
You can see a bit of cleaning and appears that Seafoam does work. To an extent that you’re happy with? I can’t say.
2. Amsoil PI
This stuff is composed of PEA. See footnote 1.
The following is a picture of cylinder 3 before amsoil.
When I added the PI I added it to an empty tank. I poured in about 45 liters or 11.89 US gallons.
My reasoning to over concentrate the additive was if it doesn’t work when it’s concentrated it’s not going to work at full dilution.
I did a variety of driving from coasting to highway to city driving but every chance I got I did a lot of full throttle acceleration. I drove the vehicle hard. When the low fuel light came on I parked the truck and let it sit for 8 hours.
The next picture is what I noticed and had seen on one of Chrisfix videos. The cylinder 3 looked wet and sticky with carbon.
A couple days later I decided to take another before Seafoam and see if it could rectify the mess. This is what I had seen.
It appeared as though it needed some time for that soft carbon to get cleaned up and maybe after those couple days Of combustion it burnt it off. I did not run Seafoam as I pondered my results.
The next picture is cylinder 1 after Amsoil PI.
There appears to be more polishing of the piston.
The build up at the bottom appears to be remaining. However, this could be attributed to the injector spray angle, etc.
Perhaps a limitation of the cleaning agents is the design of the motor itself?
I do apologize for the quality of the photos.
Any tips on how to be able to manually crank the engine would be greatly appreciated as there is little room.
Please use this as a guide and make your own opinion.
The plan is to try a couple more of these cleaners. If there is interest I’ll post the results.
I hope you guys found it useful.
I forgot to add about the wet carbon picture. I thought that perhaps the additive cleaned upstream (intake, valves, injectors) resulting in dirtying up the piston. Maybe it’s a bit of that and softening of the piston carbon.
Footnotes
1. https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2000-01-2020/
The next picture is the after doing Seafoam. Again, I apologize for the angles. It was really hard to move the camera and couldn’t get the crank to manually move it.
You can see a bit of cleaning and appears that Seafoam does work. To an extent that you’re happy with? I can’t say.
2. Amsoil PI
This stuff is composed of PEA. See footnote 1.
The following is a picture of cylinder 3 before amsoil.
When I added the PI I added it to an empty tank. I poured in about 45 liters or 11.89 US gallons.
My reasoning to over concentrate the additive was if it doesn’t work when it’s concentrated it’s not going to work at full dilution.
I did a variety of driving from coasting to highway to city driving but every chance I got I did a lot of full throttle acceleration. I drove the vehicle hard. When the low fuel light came on I parked the truck and let it sit for 8 hours.
The next picture is what I noticed and had seen on one of Chrisfix videos. The cylinder 3 looked wet and sticky with carbon.
A couple days later I decided to take another before Seafoam and see if it could rectify the mess. This is what I had seen.
It appeared as though it needed some time for that soft carbon to get cleaned up and maybe after those couple days Of combustion it burnt it off. I did not run Seafoam as I pondered my results.
The next picture is cylinder 1 after Amsoil PI.
There appears to be more polishing of the piston.
The build up at the bottom appears to be remaining. However, this could be attributed to the injector spray angle, etc.
Perhaps a limitation of the cleaning agents is the design of the motor itself?
I do apologize for the quality of the photos.
Any tips on how to be able to manually crank the engine would be greatly appreciated as there is little room.
Please use this as a guide and make your own opinion.
The plan is to try a couple more of these cleaners. If there is interest I’ll post the results.
I hope you guys found it useful.
I forgot to add about the wet carbon picture. I thought that perhaps the additive cleaned upstream (intake, valves, injectors) resulting in dirtying up the piston. Maybe it’s a bit of that and softening of the piston carbon.
Footnotes
1. https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2000-01-2020/
