Dwight, any chance you could post some more information on how you accomplished this? I am hoping to do the same setup as soon as my boost tap arrives in the mail ...

 

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...7-post274.html
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...0-post282.html

 

Here's the scoop and a pic of that high tech Seafoam application apparatus, LoL. With your BSH boost tap you'll get 2 plastic fittings. Push the straight one onto one end of the aquarium tube and put the little bead with the hole in the other end. With engine off, but fully warmed up, remove one of the port plugs and finger tighten the fitting into it. Put 5oz of Seafoam in the cup, start the engine, set the timer for at LEAST 5min. and start dipping the tube in the solvent. If you time it right, you'll run out of Seafoam when the timer goes off. If it takes longer, no problem. As soon as it's gone shut the car off and let sit for at LEAST 1hr.

Before starting up, I'd strongly suggest you move the car outside and pray for strong winds and that nobody's home for about 7 blocks downwind. When the fog bank clears enuf to see, take it for a brisk drive till all the smoke clears. An easy/cheap way to tell if you need to do another treatment is to use a mechanic's stethoscope ($6 @ HF). At idle put the probe on the cam cover by each spark plug. If you hear any kind of clatter, you'll need to do another treatment. At 30K I needed to do it 3 times before I heard nothing but a steady, soft clicking thru the scope on all cylinders. Have fun!

 

There are so many threads about carbon buildup, seafoam, etc., that I completely forgot to point people in here over to my experimentations with seafoam this past weekend.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...seafoam-2.html

In my tests, I followed the seafoam-recommended wait period of at least 5 minutes. Some carbon appeared to be removed, but there was still a ton left -- hardly noticeable difference, in fact. I have a cold and my ears are all plugged up, so I don't trust my senses to tell me if the car runs better post-treatment. But I'm waiting a few more days to scan the ECU for a 'superknock' code to see if the treatments helped with that.

I may run another bottle through (in 3 stages, probably), waiting 30-60 minutes instead of 5-10, then crack my intake open again for a final peek. Curious if that would make a bigger dent in the buildup. Wishing I had a boost tap just for the simple procedure, but $60 is a bit much to spend for a one-off test like this.

 

How do you know there's a lot of carbon left, are you running a camera down there?

 

yes.
I provided a link.

 

Ok, new update.

 

And, yet another update.

 

FYI, I found a supplier on Amazon selling cases of 12 of Sea Foam that works out to about $7 a bottle after shipping. Since this seems like one of those things we'll need for the life of our cars, not a bad idea to stock up.

 

i'm gonna do it tomorrow... car sounds like poop

 

I did this on my 2008 MCS a little while back with 19k on the clock as a preventative measure, using a spray bottle.

For future applications, I am either going to go with the CarFood.net drip feeder or one of those pressurized foggers if I can find one cheap enough. Some googling turned up that Harbor Freight used to have one for cheap, so it looks like time for a trip to my local HF to see if they have anything useful.

 

Ok I did it. Twice.

Situation - 2007 Mini Cooper with about 30,000 miles on it. I used a STP fuel injector and check enginer light came on. I was gonna take it in but wanted to try this out.

I SEafoamed once at lunch and used abuot 1/4 of a bottle and let it sit for abuot 10 minutes. Not much smoke came out so I wasn't expecting much.

Round two. I used most of the bottle and let it sit for 1 hour and half.

I was in my apartment parking lot and huge cloud of smoke... way bigger than any of the ones in the videos came out. I think it was the size of 4 or five mini coopers.

I mean a ridiculous amount of smoke. I had to drive off out and let it run somewhere else. It smoked really for like 10 minutes.

Anyhow, it was nuts. check engine light came on and the car didn't drive well yesterday. however this morning the light is off and driving better.

I'm thinking there's a timed computer calibration and maybe it reset over night.

Thoughts?

Great thread. I'm going to go to advanced and get the code checked. If this is out of my league I'm going to mechanic.

 

OK - one more success story (if anyone is still reading this thread)...

I just did my 2010 JCW Clubman. 10,900mi

I didn't have any performance problems that I had noticed, but there was a tick I could hear at Idle. Nothing worrisome.

Anyway - followed the directions on this thread. Poured 1/3 of a bottle in slowly via a measuring cup. If the engine ever started to become too rough - I would plug the tube for a bit. Took about 2 to 2 1/2 min to pour it in. Reconnected the PVC and shut the car off (was starting to smoke just a bit).

Strange thing - I noticed some oily spatter on my garage floor under the Right Side tail-pipe. I went to wipe it up and found that it was actually like sand. I don't know if this came from the valves - but I figured any sand size carbon that is no longer in they system is good. (Turns out there was a minute amount under the left side as well - couldn't see it until I ran a paper towel over the area).

One hour later - started up no problem.
No CEL
Lots of smoke (though I know this is the seafoam itself). Reved & Idled until smoke had mostly abated... This time there was a streak of carbonate matter (sand size again) on the floor behind both tail-pipes. Stretched out about 2 to 3 feet. Again - less on the left, but still there. (All told: less than 1/8 tsp of stuff - but definitely noticeable.)

Spirited run.
Tick is gone
Gotta be a good thing

 

Zeph, Was it actually hard as sand or sand-grain sized material? Winter sand collected in the pipes?

 

We haven't had to sand the roads around here for quite some time; and I have done plenty of spirited driving (if anything were popped up into the tail-pipe - it wouln't stay long )

The stuff I wiped up was crunchy and black as coal. I didn't try to break any pieces - just noticed as I swept a paper towel accross the garage floor - there was stuff localized behind the tail-pipes only (so not random dirt either). Again - the give-away was the jet-black color of the particles.

I'm going to do another treatment tonight... We'll see if I get any more.

 

Third Treatment this evening.
Almost nothing out the tail-pipes this time.
Clearly this stuff has an affect.

 

Just completed my first seafoam treatment on my 08 R56S with 39,000 miles. At first i thought this seafoam was snake oil. I am a skeptic and did not buy it. Then, I started to notice my MCS would hesitating on take off. This was a couple of weeks ago. I was at the auto parts store today (auto zone) buying some octane booster. At the register was a seafoam display. It was on sale for $6.95. I figured what the hell it can't hurt. I poured a little more then a third of the can into the vacuum line. I let it sit for about 45 minutes. I started the Mini and it smoked for about 30 seconds. I was surprised and expected it to smoke a lot more and longer. I took her for a spin and I immediately noticed the hesitation was gone. Needless to say I am very pleased. Definitely worth the $7.00!

 

Now do two more treatments and that will clean it up nicely. Well worth the money!

 

I did my second treatment today. I poured in half the bottle and let it sit for an hour. Holy Cr-p! Talk about smoke screen! I do the third treatment tomorrow with the rest of the bottle.

 

Did a treatment this morning, when I started it up a huge clould of smoke came out of the tailpipe. Took it for a long trip, as I was leaving out noticed a trail of smoke from the exhaust for a few miles. The car was more responsive when I jumped on the gas.

 

I have a few questions for the OP or anyone who can provide info: how do you prep the car? Do you start with a full tank of gas or should it be mostly empty?

After the seafoam, are you supposed to run the fuel as low as you can and then gas it up or is it okay to fill up the tank after putting seafoam in the tank?

When you take the car out, are you supposed to drive normally or should you do a few hard sprints? How long should you drive so that the car has thoroughly digested all the seafoam?

I have the 6-speed manual so should I run the engine high into the 5,000 range before shifting or go to 3-4,000?

 

This thread's primarily for the turbo cars, the seafoam is not being added to the tank at all as the problem is with buildup on the intake valves. The direct injection engines squirt fuel directly into the combustion chambers and not into the intake runners, thus the reason for needing to feed the seafoam into the intake via the breather system.

 

anybody figured out how to do this seafoam treatment in the new models, 2011??

it appears there is no pcv hose, the one on the passenger side!!! it has a different configuration...or at least i cant find it...

 

just did the seafoam treatment today. didn't run into a single problem...just proves reading all 10 pages of this thread paid off. i've got an 07 MC with just over 22k miles on it and got a huuuuge cloud of smoke upon startup.

 

is there a limit to how long i can let it soak for? i was thinking an overnighter