SeaFoam Spray: How To De-Gunk Almost Any Motor

There exists, in your local auto parts store, a plan white can containing a surprisingly fun, one step solution to cleaning an old motor. I'm not talking about scrubbing the externals, I mean scrubbing the carbon and gunk from the internals; primarily the combustion chambers. That can contains SeaFoam Spray. Not only do I swear old cars run smoother after this process, I think it's worth the show alone... more on that later.

1. First thing you'll need to do is of course buy a can of Seafoam Spray. What does this can look like?

Plain! You probably walked right by it.

Not fancy, but trust me there is magic in that bottle. Cheap magic too, as you should only expect to pay about $10 for the bottle. All you'll need is that can, a friend and a screwdriver. Don't have friends? You have bigger issues than a dirty motor to attend to.

2. Warm up your motor. Shouldn't be an issue, as you just drove to the store to buy a bottle of your sweet new motor-restoring friend SeaFoam Spray! If you bought the spray and failed to read on at the time, now's when you go back and let your car run until it reaches full operating temps.

3. Shut your car back off!

4. Open your hood, and take a look at that motor. I hope it's something worth staring at, though if it needs a cleaning that may not be the case. Either way, knock it off and locate your intake assembly. Trace this hose back to your throttle body and you'll find a band clamp of some sort, with a flat or Philips head fastener. Loosen this band and pull the hose away from the throttle body.

An example of how this fitting will look,

the square metallic component is the throttle body, black hose is the intake assembly.

5. Here's about the trickiest part. You now want to attach the supplied plastic hose to the nozzle of the SeaFoam Spray can. Take this hose and fit it within the opening you created with the tip facing toward the throttle body. Ensure this placement does not interfere with any moving parts, such as the throttle plate itself. SeaFoam has provided a handy diagram to illustrate this placement:

6. Replace the intake hose. Ensure the hose fits snugly over the plastic tube and throttle body, in its original location, though no need to tighten the band again at this time.

7. Have your friend start your car, and manipulate the throttle to hold engine speed at about 1000RPM. While the motor is running at this speed, depress the nozzle and spray a continuous mist of SeaFoam until the can is empty. Your finger might get sore, hand may cramp up, stop whining about it and keep that nozzle depressed.

8. Once can is empty, shut your car back off. Now you need to let the car sit, I recommend 15 minutes. Use this time to remove the plastic tube and reinstall your intake assembly, now tightening the band clamp.

9. Has it been 15 minutes? No? Go make some coffee and wait the full 15.

10. All set, 15 minutes later, the fun part. Start your car up and go for a drive. This isn't just any drive, you want to really floor the car when you can; I mean run it hard. The idea here is to now burn off all the buildup the spray just loosened up. Oh, and be warned, this burn off does make smoke... a lot of smoke.

How much smoke?

Your neighbors will love you!

11. Drive for about 10 minutes, by which point the smoke will have stopped. Voila! That's the whole process, and you've now blasted whatever manner of black crud has built up in that motor right out your tail pipe. I recommend performing an oil change at this time as well if at all necessary, as a fully clean motor simply runs smoother.

Enjoy what should now be a cleaner, better idling, and possibly faster car thanks to one can and a few easy steps. I have found this process to be safe on just about any type of traditional gasoline powered motor, but be sure to do a little research for your specific application to be on the safe side. Oh, and try to get video of the smoke show, it's always a lot of fun.


See you on the road,

Alexander