Seafoam! Cheap James Bond smoke screen!

[Z Draci]

I don't know if non-Americans on this forum are familar with Seafoam. It is a steel bottle of petroleum solvents that is designed to burn away carbon buildup in engines. It can be added to the petrol tank, to the engine oil, or directly into the intake vacuum.

When you suck it into the intake vacuum, you are supposed to let the solvent sit inside the engine for an hour or so. Afterwards, you start up the engine and rev the hell out of it to blow off all the carbon flakes.

I've done it before without much smoke. This time along in my Nissan 280ZX turbo, it was pure madness!!! After I started the car, the white smoke was so heavy that it completely covered my whole street! I didn't want to startle anybody so I quickly drove out to the main road. What a mistake! The smoke was still so thick that I could see nothing but white behind me. I was leaving a trail of white smoke that was blinding every car on the road. Embarassed, I quickly took a back road and burned the rest off. Surprisingly, I took 2 full miles for the heavy smoking to subside.

I just thought it was a very unusual occurance. I was giggling the whole time but I'm sure others thought my engine had blown up.

My engine is running smooth as silk after that thorough cleaning. I recommend it to anybody who can get their hands on Seafoam. It's available at Autozone and Car Quest . . . in the US and Canada only I believe. ATF also works well too.

[Militant-Grunt]

I have heard about it, and heard about the wonders it does to land rovers. I would reccomend that to all.

[VUK]

is that like redex?
if you head of that...

[mrcheapyasui]

yeah ive heard it works great sometimes, but ive also heard people having serious problems with it, so i dont know if i would use it

[Leppy]

hahaha Thats awesome.... I'm gonna go looking for it here.... purely for the smoke screen

[aqualung]

For a 24/7 smoke screen on demand, go for a diesel with mixture problems
My dad's Audi A4 2.5 V6 TDI was tuned to around 210 hp 450 Nm, and worked fine, until...

The free-flowing cone air filter let some rubbish through that whacked the MAF (mass airflow sensor) and caused it to give too big airflow figures to the ECU (usually they show too little when broken, but sometimes they can do this), resulting in huge lumps of diesel being thrusted into the engine when at full throttle.
The result was a magnificent burst of power breaking the quattro's grip even in 3rd gear, and creating a thick volume of dark grey smoke behind the car.

Before the MAF was replaced, it was huge fun to dump piles of stinking smoke in the faces of people driving too close behind the metallic javagrün Audi and escape in the burst of torque.
It was just like James Bond

I suspect the same effect can be archieved in any potent diesel with an Evry mod employing a big enough resistor. I don't take responsibility for any broken engines, though...

[jayjaya29]

What is this seafoam made of?

Would work wonders on the Volvo 240.

[Z Draci]

I would try it on any car with high mileage. The difference is HUGE.
I've heard people with problems, but only if they didn't follow instructions.

For American chemistists, CAS numbers for the ingredients are:
64742-89-8 (aliphatic petrolium)
64742-52-5 (hydrotreated Naphtenic)
67-63-0 (2- Propanol)

For me, this treatment cured the rough idle I had and added more top end grunt.

TDI's are notorious for smoke screens! I saw this Bora TDI at a track once and it got black flagged for having smoke thick enough for airplane shows! I would love to have a button for smoke for people following too close behind. My defense is my lack of catalytic converters. I just annoy them with the heavy smell of unburn fuel from my tailpipe. (Don't worry, I legally don't have any once since my car did not come with them.)

I know there are several other similar products out there. I just know that Seafoam is the cheapest one that actually works well. Since I know the ingredients, maybe I should steal some from the lab tomorrow and make my own!

[Raven18940]

yeah ive heard it works great sometimes, but ive also heard people having serious problems with it, so i dont know if i would use it

I remember one guy who used it on an RX-7. You know how seafoam breaks up carbon deposits........and the apex seals on an old RX-7 are made of carbon.

[jayjaya29]

Hmm, if its cheap I may get it. The volvo is so slow and idles so rough. Maybe this stuff will help.

[Z Draci]

$5 at your local auto parts store!
Just make sure you are in an open area away from people. They might call the firetrucks on you.

[jayjaya29]

$5 at your local auto parts store!
Just make sure you are in an open area away from people. They might call the firetrucks on you.

Yeah, I'm going to pick up some as soon as I get the chance, I have no idea where to go when I do it without getting the firetrucks all over. I guess I can just ride around my neighborhood and get everybody all scared.

[bahnstormer]

there was a loooooong discussionon the pros and cons and
in the end its better/safer to just stretch your engines legs
regularly, aka rev it to redline that will burn off and help avoiid
carbon buildup in the future

[jayjaya29]

Hehehe, my Volvo doesn't go that fast. I'm hoping the seafoam smoothes out idle, becuase right now it is really rough.

[petergun]

I would try it on any car with high mileage. The difference is HUGE.
I've heard people with problems, but only if they didn't follow instructions.

For American chemistists, CAS numbers for the ingredients are:
64742-89-8 (aliphatic petrolium)
64742-52-5 (hydrotreated Naphtenic)
67-63-0 (2- Propanol)

For me, this treatment cured the rough idle I had and added more top end grunt.

TDI's are notorious for smoke screens! I saw this Bora TDI at a track once and it got black flagged for having smoke thick enough for airplane shows! I would love to have a button for smoke for people following too close behind. My defense is my lack of catalytic converters. I just annoy them with the heavy smell of unburn fuel from my tailpipe. (Don't worry, I legally don't have any once since my car did not come with them.)

I know there are several other similar products out there. I just know that Seafoam is the cheapest one that actually works well. Since I know the ingredients, maybe I should steal some from the lab tomorrow and make my own!

Wow ... you must be *really* unpopular with the Hug-a-Tree-Green-as-Peace crowd in Cali !

LOL

[gthree]

Automatic trannie fluid is supposed to do the same thing. Only a capfull is necessary but as a joke, you can down a whole bunch is someone's car. It will make so much smoke that they will think there car is going to explode or something. I've tried that in my old Camaro long ago but never noticed much difference. It does make a lot of smoke, though.

[Z Draci]

Wow ... you must be *really* unpopular with the Hug-a-Tree-Green-as-Peace crowd in Cali !

LOL

My friends often compare me to Eric Cartman when it comes to those liberals. (j/k)

Unless they properly engineer roads so that traffic is moved in a logical way to reduce emissions, I have no guilt to drive a smog exempt car with a straight pipe. Whenever a traffic light turns green here, the next one down is already turning yellow . . . how's that supposed to help the environment? An engine releases the most pollution when accelerating from a stand still! The more acceleration you do, the more smog. And the politicians here are blaming the cars more than they do with their incompetent road engineers.

Oldtimers used to use ATF for the same purpose. People still recommend it because it has some powerful cleansers in there.

[bone]

not so long ago, we had a HUUUUUGGGGGEEEE smokescreen

the turbo on a car was broken, and oil was dripping into the exhaust. when the turbo was replaced, we needed to get the oil out of the exhaust. we just drove like 100m, and it started smoking, we've let it in idle, and it continued to blow out smoke for at least 20 mins

it realy didn't look healty and we were so affraid someone would call the cops or sth. luckily no one did 8)