celica

OK I read all the posts about seafoam and decided to give it a try. Here is my problem - I didn't get huge amounts of smoke. I was really hoping to smoke out my neighbours. the first time I sucked it in through the brake booster line, let it sit for about 45 minutes & fired it up. Had a little smoke but not a lot. so I thought I would try again. same line but this time poured it in realativly fast. Had lots of smoke while pouring. Engine deseiled when I turned it off. I left it overnight. This morning fired it up thinking I would have an awsome smoke screen - not much at all, about the same as last night. The smoke does have a blue tint to it - does this mean it is working? Does the lack of large amounts of smoke mean the motor is fairly clean to begin with? I do drive it pretty hard. Anyone else that has done the seafoam regularly find less smoke since the motor is cleaner? The truck does have 235,000 miles on it so I thought that it would be pretty dirty.

What would be the best next step?

midiwall

Interesting... I would have expected a lot of smoke from the overnight soak.

Sounds like you used the correct vacuum line, and the symptoms match, so... Sounds like you were pretty clean to start with!

AH64ID

I had the same thing happen yesterday. I put about 1/3 can in the intake, I used a P/S line as it was close and long. It smoked a little when applying it. I then let it sit about 25 minutes, and fired it up. No smoke at idle, if I reved it up to 3500 it smoked decent for about 30 seconds, then nothing but a blue tinge. So i did it again, and even less this time after a 45 minute soak.

I wonder if were letting it soak too long, mabye its evaporating and drying out again?

Sure would like to know. I am accelerating smoother from 1K-2K, but I also put a new heavy flywheel in yesteday, could be that too.

midiwall

The power steering line? One side of that line connects to the intake tube, the other side is ??? Was there a strong vaccum there? One way to know that you have "the right tube" is that the vacuum should be strong enough at idle such that when you pull the line, the engine practically stalls.

Did that happen?

AH64ID

I had the correct line, it could have suck started a leaf blower, and it stubled so bad it almost stalled w/out throttle.

The line goes directly into the intake manifold, just in front of the PCV valve, no issues there. Just didnt get the smoke the can and people here talk about.

midiwall

ok... n/m. I panicked for a second.

bob200587

You might want to clean the plenum with a rag too, there's usually a decent amount of loosened stuff. Check the spark plugs too, it'll put alot of deposits on em. Just clean em up and they're fine.

AH64ID

I used some TB cleaner on the plenum, what it would hit. Its dirty in there, but 160K.. Its just weird that I didnt get the "smoke screen" results. I am going to do it again soon, then change my plugs out.

Snorkeldepth

Someone asserted a while back that the smoke was due to the Seafoam itself burning off . . . . . or did they say that it was the solvent in the Seafoam. In any case, if this is true then shouldn't you always get clouds of smoke? I ran two cycles of Seafoam through the brake booster inlet on the plenum. I got smoke each time. Was this ever settled in any of the Seafoam threads?

AH64ID

But how much smoke are we talking? Knight Rider smoke screen??

Tacoma Dude

Here's my pic from my Seafoam and this was after one hour. The 4 hour soak had to have been easily double this amount of smoke:

AH64ID

okay, thats similar to my first screen, but only when I reved it up. How long did it last, I got about 45 seconds. I was thinking much more smoke than that.

midiwall

I don't think it was ever settled, but it might be being settled right now.

I agree that if the smoke was ONLY Seafoam, then you would always have the same amount of smoke, no matter how clean the engine is.

I do NOT think that the smoke is ONLY Seafoam. I'm sure that some is, but definitely not all.


My results are VERY similar.

I last did mine up at Funrunner's place... I had a 4-5 hour soak on mine, maybe a 2 hour soak on hers. Her garage is about the middle of a multi-acre piece of property - we easily FILLED the front half of the property. I belched smoke for about 15 minutes, she went for about 7-10. I had 152k on the truck, maybe 10k since the last time I did a treatment. She had just about 70k on hers and had NEVER done a treatment.

getitdone

We do intake cleaning at my shop all the time. We have a special machine that sprays a presoak into the intake via a long misting sprayer. Then after about 10 min we run a chemical that gets atomized by another mist nozzle. Then after about 10 more min we run hot water with the same nozzle. The smoke is all the built up carbon in the motor. The amount varies from car to car. Little smoke means that it didn't have as much carbon buildup.

tc

Mine hasn't smoked in the two times I've done it, but it still seems to run smoother after.

AH64ID

Good, mine is running smoother, and in addition to the heavy flywheel it is really smooth at idle and takeoff now.

mike_d

that would be my guess. you need the seafoam in there to loosen the crap up and have it make its way out of the engine. if you let it sit so long that the seafoam evaporates, then the crap will just harden up again and not come out. just follow what the instructions on the can says for the amount of time it needs to sit.

Tacoma Dude

I hardly think that's the issue though. I've had mine soak for 6 hours and it smoked like crazy.

If someone is soaking it for less than that and isn't getting any smoke I seriously doubt that it's because the solvent is evaporating. Besides... even if it is, where is it going?

AH64ID

I just did it again, 1/3 can and soaked for about an hour, maybe a bit more... smoked some, but only when I get it up to about 3K, smoked decent for about 2 or 3 minutes. Now I can change my cat and plugs, and be all squeaky clean

JEDI87

After a 10 minute soak in my 91 I started it up and it smoked for about 45 minutes,big white cloud.I did it at my moms house as not to upset my nieghbors but hers ended up getting mad at me.