Sea Foam! Magic in a Bottle (or can as it were)

You ever see those "intake cleaning" advertisements on TV or on the wall at your dealer?  They claim to improve fuel economy, increase and restore lost power, do everything you ever wanted and more... all for a hundred or so bucks.  Well, it turns out, they can back it up.  The good news is I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to cost $100+ bucks.  Go to Advance Auto or Walmart and buy a can of Sea Foam motor treatment.  You can do the same thing for about 8 dollars.  If you have a brand new car, this process won't do anything for you. if you have a car like mine with 191000 miles on it, it really is a miracle worker.

So, you bought some Sea Foam and you are wondering what the heck to do with it to bring your car back to life?  It's decently easy.  First, put 1/3 of the can into the gas tank.  This will clean out your injectors/carb jets and is much like a normal pour in engine cleaner. 

Second, open your crank case and pour 1/3 into your oil.  This step cleans up the valve train/cam/whatever is in there.  Do this ONLY if you plan on changing your oil the same day!  You should not allow Sea Foam to sit in your engine block long term.  Some people skip this step all together.

Next, and this is where the good stuff starts, you will put 1/3 of the can into your intake manifold directly while the car is running!  Yup you read that correctly.  For my civic, there is a vacuum line that goes from the intake manifold to the brake booster.  I took it off a the brake booster and poured the Sea Foam through a funnel into the line.  Make sure you have a friend with you to give it a bit of gas to keep the car running if necessary.  When you've put the full 1/3 into the motor, turn the car off and wait 10 minutes.  When you come back, turn it on and let it idle for a second.  Then rev it up to about 3-4 k and hold it for a few seconds.  Do this at varying rpms for 4 or 5 times then take the car for a drive.

If you did not skip step 2 then go ahead and change your oil and oil filter now.  That's it!  You are done.

I was looking for some pics of when I did this to my car.  I couldn't find them but picture my car totally covered in white smoke.  Don't worry... the smoke is normal.  This just means its burning out all the carbon deposits etc.  Now, if you are wondering if this really works let me tell you this, I have a 15 year old car that still gets 38 miles per gallon and 40 mpg when I'm being good.  That's average of city and highway!  I believe that the Sea Foam treatment is well worth the 8 bucks!