I have a question for all you additive enthusiasts out there. Is there any drawback to, or possible benefit from, seafoaming a car with low miles? The vehicle in question is my mother's '02 T-Bird. It has low miles and oil changes once a year or more. I would like to do a little seafoam on the top end and maybe some throttle body cleaner to see if it's even dirty. It can't hurt as PM right?
Seafoam Too Soon?
- Thread starter Aurora09
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I wouldn't classify Seafoam as a preventative maintenance item. It's a very aggressive product, in my opinion.
I feel like the first step would be to clean the throttle body and then if it looks very dirty I will proceed to seafoam the engine via the brake booster.
Originally Posted By: Aurora09
I have a question for all you additive enthusiasts out there. Is there any drawback to, or possible benefit from, seafoaming a car with low miles? The vehicle in question is my mother's '02 T-Bird. It has low miles and oil changes once a year or more. I would like to do a little seafoam on the top end and maybe some throttle body cleaner to see if it's even dirty. It can't hurt as PM right?
Your mother's eleventh gen T-bird should have a Jaguar AJ30 engine - a very nice power plant! Does it have electronic throttle control? I'm just curious. I see that listed as a MY 2003 AJ35 feature.
The AJ30 is a premium fuel only engine. Has the driver been using premium fuel? If so, there should be little carbon and therefore little to clean up. A Seafoam treatment won't hurt. A lot of users swear by the stuff. Drawbacks? It's a bit of work. Benefits? It will clean out the crud plus any carbon build-up. Depending on exactly how you do it, it might smoke out the neighborhood.
An 'Italian tune-up' wouldn't hurt, either, and it should be a lot of fun.
You could also remove some of the intake ducting and clean the throttle body with aerosol Gum-out or something similar.
I have a question for all you additive enthusiasts out there. Is there any drawback to, or possible benefit from, seafoaming a car with low miles? The vehicle in question is my mother's '02 T-Bird. It has low miles and oil changes once a year or more. I would like to do a little seafoam on the top end and maybe some throttle body cleaner to see if it's even dirty. It can't hurt as PM right?
Your mother's eleventh gen T-bird should have a Jaguar AJ30 engine - a very nice power plant! Does it have electronic throttle control? I'm just curious. I see that listed as a MY 2003 AJ35 feature.
The AJ30 is a premium fuel only engine. Has the driver been using premium fuel? If so, there should be little carbon and therefore little to clean up. A Seafoam treatment won't hurt. A lot of users swear by the stuff. Drawbacks? It's a bit of work. Benefits? It will clean out the crud plus any carbon build-up. Depending on exactly how you do it, it might smoke out the neighborhood.
An 'Italian tune-up' wouldn't hurt, either, and it should be a lot of fun.
You could also remove some of the intake ducting and clean the throttle body with aerosol Gum-out or something similar.
I don't know what it has. The throttle moves while the gas pedal is applied as the engine is turned off. That doesn't sound "electronic" to me. Not sure.
To be honest with you I think Midgrade fuel may have been used a good portion of the time, following the "logic" that if you can't hear anything "wrong" it must be OK, which I do not agree with.
At this point I've already been putting in Techron, MMO, Seafoam or Lucas fuel treatment. Whatever I had once in a while. Never all at once, but there's nothing rough about it. I just want a little smoke show. Maybe that's seafoam abuse.......
The only time I ever noticed Seafoam actually do anything was in an old John Deere LX188 riding mower that was stalling out when the mower deck was engaged. I put about half a cup in a spray bottle, took the air filter off and misted it through the intake. It ran very smoothly after that.
Originally Posted By: Aurora09
To be honest with you I think Midgrade fuel may have been used a good portion of the time, following the "logic" that if you can't hear anything "wrong" it must be OK, which I do not agree with.
Ahhhh, if the throttle moves, then you had mechanical linkage - not drive by wire. That's the AJ30 engine.
If the vehicle was run on other than premium fuel, then a Seafoam treatment would be very much in order. You might search the Jaguar/T-bird forums on the best way to do this. At least for Foresters, a partial can is fed into the engine just before the throttle body. Then the vehicle is allowed to sit and cook. When it is restarted, you can smoke out the neighbors - it smokes until the carbon burns off - perhaps 5-10 minutes. The rest of the Seafoam can goes in the gas. Your engine is twice as large, so buy two cans.
To be honest with you I think Midgrade fuel may have been used a good portion of the time, following the "logic" that if you can't hear anything "wrong" it must be OK, which I do not agree with.
Ahhhh, if the throttle moves, then you had mechanical linkage - not drive by wire. That's the AJ30 engine.
If the vehicle was run on other than premium fuel, then a Seafoam treatment would be very much in order. You might search the Jaguar/T-bird forums on the best way to do this. At least for Foresters, a partial can is fed into the engine just before the throttle body. Then the vehicle is allowed to sit and cook. When it is restarted, you can smoke out the neighbors - it smokes until the carbon burns off - perhaps 5-10 minutes. The rest of the Seafoam can goes in the gas. Your engine is twice as large, so buy two cans.
I'll put off the seafoam induction until spring, since I just changed the oil. But it's gonna be fun.
I have been using Seafoam for a while, as I (still, actually have) a Camry with the notorious sludge monster they call the 5SFE I4... '00 w 298k miles on it and it has never had to have more than regular maintenance (engine and gears are uuntouched aside from pkugs/VCG).
I got it in the early 00's w 49k miles, and it was supposed to just be a means of getting places and then selling it but it is so darn reliable I can't get rid of it.
Anyway, Seafoam has been critical to keeping the immense amount of blow by (the PCV system is poorly designed, so the TB and IM get covered in oil fast) to a minimum.
The first time I gazed into that black void, I knew it would be a perpetual issue, and Toyotanation member recommended SF for manually cleaning the throttle plate.
I have been using it for the vast majority of the long life of the vehicle, and it has only been beneficial.
What I do is, since I run short OCI's due to it being the car used when short trips are in order (3k, now 4.5k w syn; switch around between Rotella T6, RP 0w30, RL 0W30, PP 5w30, and a few very high cleanliness dinosaur juices), is the following:
- 1/4 to 1/2 bottle SI-1 and/or appropriate amount of Stabil Marine per fill up depending on the use it'll see
- Full bottle SI-1 or Techron a tank before the last tank prior to the oil change
- I add about 1/3rd the bottle of Seafoam to the crank about 500mi prior to change, and then 1/3rd to an empty tank immediately before filling up (get about 460 before light comes on), and then drive normally. Once the gas light comes on again, I dilute down the remainder of what's in the tank by adding 2 gal or so of gas 2-4x.
- When ready to change oil, I use the Deep Creep to manually clean the TB, PCV valve (which is replaced every 15k or so but this actually keeps the lines from sludging), and use my judgement regarding the condition of the parts as to whether or not to do the next part.
- if they're bad (more than light varnish), I make sure that the oil is fully up to temp, immediately shut off the car, and with the help of another person (sitting in the driver seat to start and stop the car), I let the engine suck about 1/3rd a can of Seafoam through the brake booster line as quickly as possible without stalling out (I also spray it through the throttle body throat at the same time, getting the entire intake tract covered), and the car is shut off immediately before it's all in. I have borrowed a friend's digital scope, and it's clear that this distributes the stuff very well and very evenly.
- Wait 30-120min, and then start the car (everything reassembled). I take it out for the literal clouds of smoke to dissipate (well, hasn't been terrible in a long time), and get the oil hot and then run the car hard to burn off anything sticking around and especially off the cats.
- Come back, wait the 3min it takes to get the car on my lift, and drain the oil hot (the lift allows me to angle the car, about 8 degrees, in any direction, which helps ensure everything is out).
- Once it hasn't dripped for 5min, the engine is empty and also cool, so I just finish the change.
Car has never burnt so much as a mm on the dipstick worth of oil, and there iszero asludge as determined when the VCG was replaced a second time just this summer (also dropped the pan), and all seals are in excellent condition.
I love the stuff, and it does work semi-preventatively for cases like mine. However, I would not be pouring it into my M cars' cranks (I do use it in the gas and to manually clean intake manifold and TB's).
MOST IMPORTANT THING is that you have an extremely Stout oil in there, and it has to be changed well before you would even begin to think about additive wear out or loss of TBN, making oils like RP (PAO), the insanely additive packed Rotella T6, and especially the ester based RL (holds its TBN insanely well, and I have used RL alone to clean sludgy Bimmers due to the strong reaction of the ester base stock), ideal.
Anyway, that's gotten me this far on that car, and I bet it will hit half a million without a hint of drama.
I got it in the early 00's w 49k miles, and it was supposed to just be a means of getting places and then selling it but it is so darn reliable I can't get rid of it.
Anyway, Seafoam has been critical to keeping the immense amount of blow by (the PCV system is poorly designed, so the TB and IM get covered in oil fast) to a minimum.
The first time I gazed into that black void, I knew it would be a perpetual issue, and Toyotanation member recommended SF for manually cleaning the throttle plate.
I have been using it for the vast majority of the long life of the vehicle, and it has only been beneficial.
What I do is, since I run short OCI's due to it being the car used when short trips are in order (3k, now 4.5k w syn; switch around between Rotella T6, RP 0w30, RL 0W30, PP 5w30, and a few very high cleanliness dinosaur juices), is the following:
- 1/4 to 1/2 bottle SI-1 and/or appropriate amount of Stabil Marine per fill up depending on the use it'll see
- Full bottle SI-1 or Techron a tank before the last tank prior to the oil change
- I add about 1/3rd the bottle of Seafoam to the crank about 500mi prior to change, and then 1/3rd to an empty tank immediately before filling up (get about 460 before light comes on), and then drive normally. Once the gas light comes on again, I dilute down the remainder of what's in the tank by adding 2 gal or so of gas 2-4x.
- When ready to change oil, I use the Deep Creep to manually clean the TB, PCV valve (which is replaced every 15k or so but this actually keeps the lines from sludging), and use my judgement regarding the condition of the parts as to whether or not to do the next part.
- if they're bad (more than light varnish), I make sure that the oil is fully up to temp, immediately shut off the car, and with the help of another person (sitting in the driver seat to start and stop the car), I let the engine suck about 1/3rd a can of Seafoam through the brake booster line as quickly as possible without stalling out (I also spray it through the throttle body throat at the same time, getting the entire intake tract covered), and the car is shut off immediately before it's all in. I have borrowed a friend's digital scope, and it's clear that this distributes the stuff very well and very evenly.
- Wait 30-120min, and then start the car (everything reassembled). I take it out for the literal clouds of smoke to dissipate (well, hasn't been terrible in a long time), and get the oil hot and then run the car hard to burn off anything sticking around and especially off the cats.
- Come back, wait the 3min it takes to get the car on my lift, and drain the oil hot (the lift allows me to angle the car, about 8 degrees, in any direction, which helps ensure everything is out).
- Once it hasn't dripped for 5min, the engine is empty and also cool, so I just finish the change.
Car has never burnt so much as a mm on the dipstick worth of oil, and there iszero asludge as determined when the VCG was replaced a second time just this summer (also dropped the pan), and all seals are in excellent condition.
I love the stuff, and it does work semi-preventatively for cases like mine. However, I would not be pouring it into my M cars' cranks (I do use it in the gas and to manually clean intake manifold and TB's).
MOST IMPORTANT THING is that you have an extremely Stout oil in there, and it has to be changed well before you would even begin to think about additive wear out or loss of TBN, making oils like RP (PAO), the insanely additive packed Rotella T6, and especially the ester based RL (holds its TBN insanely well, and I have used RL alone to clean sludgy Bimmers due to the strong reaction of the ester base stock), ideal.
Anyway, that's gotten me this far on that car, and I bet it will hit half a million without a hint of drama.
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