At the last meeting out at the Jackson Outlet Mall I met up with "killerfox" and we had a long discussion about the use of Seafoam for cleaning the carbon out of our Minis. His input was that it is a fantasic product and he recommends cleaning out the carbon on a regular basis.

I decided to do a search here on NAM as surely this product would be hailed as a cureall for the common Mini cold if it were worth its salt. Sure nuff, one of the first threads that came up in my search was....
Maintenance :: How-To do Seafoam Treatment R55/R56

Last night there was nothing worth watching on TV so I went out to the above thread and read EVERY post starting with the first one on Nov 17, 2009. LOTs of good info out there, lots of pix, lots of video. After all the reading I decided that if this stuff had any adverse side effects, surely by now somewhere in that thread there would be a post that would have said..."DON'T use it or your engine will blow up and all your hair will fall out". There were no such posts. So this evening Dorothy and I drove over to Wal-Mart and purchased two cans of the golden elixer, a small glass measuring cup and a 8 foot roll of fish tank clear plastic hose and treked back home.

Everything went exactly as outlined in all the posts. The induction of the Seafoam was totally uneventful...no expolsions...no hydrolocking of the engine...and best of all, the head is still attached to the block. After I allowed the engine to suck up 5 oz of the Seafoam, I went in the car and shut it off. And now I sit here for the next hour while the Seafoam is doing its magical "scrubbing bubbles" thingy typing this post. I have 15 minutes left before I restart the car and drive around the neighborhood killing all the local mosquitoes with the blast of smoke that is supposed to come out the exhaust.

So what say NJ Mini owners...anyone else been down this road?

 

Not here Ed, let me know what you think of this stuff. I might look into it.
Mike

 

Ed. I did it in my MINI and my daughters pickup truck. It sure is a blast when you take it out and BUNCH the accelerator. It's like having a smoke machine.

But I think your only suppose to let it sit for 20-30 minutes.

Tell us how you do.

 

Ed, make sure before you go for a drive you punch the gas and rev car to around 5k a few times.

It's kind of like getting on the highway and winding out the car to really clean it out. unfortunatly we can't go fast enough on the highway or there is to much traffic to do the job right. That's were I think seafoam comes in.

 

Well, I think I heard all the neighbor's smoke detectors going off. When I pulled out of my driveway and started out of the development I couldn't see anything behind me. It WAS just like those mosquito trucks that lay down the mist of oil fog in the swampy areas. I read the posts and I was ready for smoke to come out, but I wasn't expecting that much smoke. It is about 2 miles from my house to #571 and I drove that distance in 1st & 2nd gear keeping the engine up around 5K. When I got out on #571 there was no traffic so I was able to get up to just under the red line in 2nd gear and hold it there for quite some time. After about 5-7 minutes of 5K and above the smoke finally started to diminish.

So now having said all of this, I have to tell you that all of the posts that I read out in that thread that I originally posted about were talking about doing this clean out process with 15,000-25,000 mile on their odom. I've got 72,000 on mine and I've NEVER done any kind of clean out. Of course I don't know if Princeton Mini may have done something when I used to take the car to them for my regular maintenance.

Getting back to my drive, its kind of hard to say just how the engine is performing, but I can say that during the time that I held it up above 5000 RPM it was running very smooth and had LOTS of pull between 5K & 6K. Tomorrow on my way to work I'll pay a lot more attention to the low end pull and the smoothness of the engine throughout its range. Based on what happened on this application of the Seafoam and also what I read in the thread, I'm definitely going to do it at least 2 more times before the weekend is out. I'll post tomorrow about my trip in to and back from work as that is a run that I am very familiar with.

 

wow, sounds like it worked. I would definetly do it a few more times to make sure it really gets cleaned out if you were smoking that much. Also make sure you put some in the gas tank.

 

Fred, I saw all sorts of posts regarding the length of "sit time", but it seemed to me that the general feeling was that somewhere between 30-60 minutes was considered to be optimal and some gurus were saying "the longer-the better". I decided to wait the 60 minute period and let the wet Seafoam do its thing to the carbon buildup. Based upon the amount of smoke, It apparently did its thing to a good percentage of the buildup material.

I saw some who posted saying that the smoke was not being caused by the removed carbon, but was the components used in the Seafoam. I don't think that this is completely true for the following reason. I spent close to 4 minutes slowly letting the manifold vacuum aspirate the Seafoam into the manifold and surely during that time a good quantity of the Seafoam had to be making its way into the combustion chambers. I didn't see any smoke at all during this period of time. If there was any, it was too small to be noticed. But after I waited the 60 minutes, there was no question about the amount of smoke coming out the exhaust...IT WAS SCAREY!!

Oh yes, and just like everyone else my Mini threw a CEL. They all said that it will go away, so I'm not going to worry about it. And when I first started it, it ran like it only had 2 cyclinders on line, but after I reved it up a little it started to smooth out pretty fast. It's a little disconcerting at first as it all flies against what we consider normal...The CEL comes on...loads of white smoke all over the neighborhood...rough running engine...Oh my God, what have I done! But it all goes away in a little while and then its running better!

 

And thank you "killerfox" for setting me on to this. Yes, I will do it again at least 2 more times before the weekend is out. I wish I had a camera to document what came out of the exhause pipe. By the way, maybe its only me, but my exhaust seems a little bit louder and deeper now.

 

I let us know how it run now..

 

I see a "SEA-FOAM" party at Fred's or Ed's on a Sunday sometime.

 

Ed

I wondered what that smoke was out west of me. Thought we had another forest fire

Glad to hear it worked well for you.

 

Lorin, was it "Slow-Faster" or "Faster-Slow" I forget!

 

Hi,

Honestly, I have not read too much about the sea foam, but I have heard several recommendation to do an oil and oil filter change after applying it. So perhaps something to think about when you are finished your additional applications.

 

you really only need to do oil change if you put seafom in your oil like the bottle suggest, 1/3rd in gas, 1/3rd in oil, and 1/3rd in vaccum line. You do not need to put it in your oil since we are just using to clean out carbon buildup.

 

One treatment for the oil is to added it to the oil before you change it. Run it at an idle for a couple of minutes and then change your oil. It's suppose to help get the sludge and other contaminates out. I haven't tried that yet but the next oil change I will give it a try.

 

In the posts that I read on the subject forum there were several who posted that if you do put the Seafoam in your oil, you should change the oil within 500 miles. I'm not sure where this number came from however...

 

Just a little follow-up to my posts on the "Killer Mosquito" process that I put my Mini through...My butt dyno says that first of all....
1. The car runs noticeably smoother after the Seafoam cleaning.
2. After just one trip in to work and back home, the Instantaneous MPG is NOTICEABLY higher. (I watch my MGP like a hawk and the instnataneous readings were definitely higher), however I'm a stong believer in making my final decisions based on the average MPG which will take at least another week or two to gather.
3. My butt dyno says that the engine has a noticeable amount more pull getting off the "start line" when the light goes green.
4. The car no longer has any of the hesitation or lurching that it had before the Seafoam cleaning. This effect had become quite noticeable by the time I did the cleaning (72,000 miles).
5. There are far fewer (live) mosquitoes around my house since I did the cleaning.

 

We could Sea Foam our MINIs the next time we go to Jackson. The when we leave everbody will know!!

 

here is info directly from the seafoam web site about using it in your oil:

1. As a pre service cleaner for old oil residue, sticky rings or valve train noise, pour 1 ½ ounces of Sea Foam Motor Treatment into the engine oil crankcase for EACH quart of oil capacity, including filter. Drive a MINIMUM of 30 minutes/miles, MAXIMUM 100 miles, and then do your oil change service – Lube, Oil & Filter (LOF). This begins the process of safely/slowly re liquefying the old oil residue so contaminants may flow and be filtered. This also makes your old oil dirtier, quickly, so a LOF service is necessary when the oil gets dirty. Great for Turbocharged & Supercharged applications where oils deteriorate so quickly due to heat, and leave those residues that NEED CLEANING.
2. As an after service additive into fresh oil, nearly fresh oil, or oil (used condition) that is NOT ready to be changed (based on mileage since last oil change), put the same amount of Sea Foam Motor Treatment into the crankcase as described above, and then regularly monitor your oil for color and clarity. Set a predetermined schedule for checking the oil condition on a mileage, timed, or event basis (like every time you add fuel, etc.) to determine when an oil service is necessary. Monitoring of the oil for color and clarity will tell you when it is time to do an oil change service. NOTE: Do not exceed 3,000 miles without changing the oil.

 

Liquid.

Let us know how the MPG is next week. I'd be curious.

My mini isn't losing much MPG at the moment (29k miles) however I am noticing some hesitation during initial acceleration so Seafoam might be on the menu.

 

Ed, how about the "CEL"? Is it gone now?

 

I'm still working off the first full tank of gas since I did the Seafoam treatment, but my instantaneous MPG is definitely higher than it was before the treatment. My average MPG was fairly consistent at approx. 38 MPG. This number represents warm weather and a 16 mile one way run into work on #571 from Manchester to Millstone Twp using Sunoco 93 Octane. The numbers were obtained using manual calculations. Over a fairly long period of time this 38 MPG had dropped to approx. 36.5 MPG. Unfortunately this 36.5 MPG does represent some winter driving as well. Like you, I am anxiously waiting for my first full tank calculation. I will tell you that the Average MPG indicator that Mini supplies with their package of electronic display calculations is indicating 38.5 MPG right now, but I've found this display value to vary wildly both above and below my manual calculations. I always reset it with each full tank of gas. As for the hesitation, as I mentioned in a previous post above, that condition had become quite noticeable (and annoying) and was only apparent in the morning when I first started the car up to go to work (maybe the car is like me and doesn't like going to work....). As I would pull away from my driveway one of the characteristics I would observe was when I pushed on the accelerator the car would buck and slow down and I would have to take my foot off the pedal and then start up slow again. This condition would go away by the time I reached #571 which is about a 2 mile distance.

Yes, the CEL is gone. It took about 4 days for it to go out.

 

thanks Ed for the update.

 

Hey Ed,

The Seafoam is like a product we used to use called carbon-clean and we had a machine that hooked up to the fuel rail and would pump the mixture of fuel and CC threw the engine and clean all the carbon out. There are a few places still around that do this. We used the seafoam on older cars too to bring some life back to them. You should see them smoke! Usually it is not much good on engine with over 100,000 unless it has been used regularly. If you put it in the fuel I would replace the fuel filter after the tank empties.

As a regular PM I used B&G 44K which is a great FI cleaner to use every other tank.

I'll talk to you more about it on Friday.

Cheers
Mr. Jim

 

I know it's been quite some time since I updated the MPG improvement as I said I would, but as strange as it may sound (coming from a MINI owner who loves to drive), I haven't been able to put enough miles on the car to force me into a gas station....don't you just love to be able to say that to your friends with their big suburbans! Anyway due to some extended company traveling, I was back home this past week and today the red light lit up on the gas gauge. So here are the results with a little pre history thrown in to boot......

04/30/2010 36.49 MPG Mostly @ 50 MPH on Route 571
05/09/2010 37.44 MPG Same as above w/one quarter of the miles being after Seafoam
06/04/2010 39.88 MPG This was first full tank after the Seafoam.

When I'm driving for mileage, I try to keep my speed below 55 MPH and I turn off the cruise control. When I come to an uphill grade I try hard to keep my foot at the same place on the accelerator pedal. This permits the car to slow down somewhat during the upgrade climbs and depending upon the amount of traffic behind me, I will sometimes back off slightly in an attempt to keep the instantaneous MPG indicator as high as possible. Once I level off or reach a downhill slope I then Slowly increase pressure on the accelerator pedal and allow the car to build up speed to my top speed. One of the nice things about Rt571 is that it is loaded with residents from senior citizen developments which are in abundance in my area, so you always end up eventually getting behind someone that is doing 45-50 and then the MPG really climbs.
The hardest thing associated with maintaining this type of driving protocol is when you drive under an overpass and have to resist the temptation to press down on the accelerator to listen to the sweet note coming from the Super Sprint CAT back