How to Seafoam my 97 Grand am?

[championvette]

I've had a little knocking in my engine, kinda rough idleing and I heard about Seafoam. Supposed to clean out the carbon in your engine. The problem I run into is i dont know what hose to use, becuase your supposed to suck a third of the seafoam out of the can through a vacuume line that leads to your engine. I looked at some videos on youtube and saw that a lot of people used their "brake booster" or something. I compard the hose to my car and I think I have the right one. Anybody know if this is the right hose, or should I be using something else? Here are some pics...

http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...=enginenew.jpg
wide view

http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...nt=closeup.jpg
where i would unhook the hose and use this end to suck the seafoam out

http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...t=sideview.jpg
where the hose leads to.

[xeroinfinity]

Welcome to AF.

Check your PM!

and heres a pic for anyone else, yello circle .

[championvette]

Could you take off the air intake tube from your air filter and put it in the throttle body through there? And how long do you have to keep your car running? From the videos i've seen, it seems like the smoke never stops!

[xeroinfinity]

It wouldnt suck it into the intake very well through the air intake(TB).
The reason those videos smoke so much is because they sucked it into the PCV line.

If you want to clean your TB its best to use TB cleaner(spray), and or remove it and clean it. Cleaning your IAC port is always a good idea too.

[championvette]

Ok, thx alot. Yellow circle, i found it and its just like a little tab that pops off. so shouldnt be too hard. ill see what happens.

[J-Ri]

It'll smoke a TON if you have a very dirty engine and you use the whole bottle. I used it in my truck right after I bought it, and I couldn't see anything outside the garage because of all the smoke... that's a slightly larger engine though

Xeroinfinity, what's wrong with using the brake booster vacuum? That's what I've done with no problems.

[xeroinfinity]

several reasons why I dont recomend using the brake booster line.
One being that elbow that goes into the booster can crack/break easily. Plus you dont want any sea foam running back into the booster.
When it sucks into the intake through that vacum line most of it does not get atomised to spread through the entire intake because of the volume of the larger vac. line...

and I have no idea what sea foam would do to the inside of a rubber hose...

[championvette]

Yea, thats what I figured. So has the seafoam made any improvement to your car? well, I'm gonna try it tomorrow. That yellow circle is im guessing that little tab your talking about. I popped it off, came off pretty easy, and its just a little opening. Dont know what its for, but its positioned horizontally so ill get a straw so it can suck it out of the can.

[xeroinfinity]

Yes a small rubber hose works best for that vacum port, its a test port I believe.

It's improved my fuel economy, and it does clean the carbon out of the intake/valve train. I use it once a month in the tank too, to keep the injectors and fuel lines cleaner.

[Gir-_-]

yea, that spot (yellow circle) Ive never even though about using before... guess its good for a direct way... I usually go the PCV route, and never brake booster.. doesnt even sound right

running the seafoam works pretty nicely... Ive heard that using it will thin the oil out a little bit, But Im not exactly sure... either way, I usually do it before an oil change... I have high milage, my engine's internals are pretty clean, and I aim to keep it that way....

Dumping some into the gas tank also does help, I usually use the rest of the seafoam in there plus 2 bottles of lucas injector cleaner with 1/4th tank 93OCT Shell Gas, some may say overkill, but I havent had any problems yet

[championvette]

Ok I did it! I hooked up a rubber hose at the end of the little opening and sucked a third of the can out. Waited 10 - 15 minutes and started it up. There wasnt as much smoke as I thought there was gonna be. Maybe about half as much as on the youtube videos. But it was a success and thanks for all your help! I'll be sure to tell my friends and family about Automotive Forums.

[J-Ri]

Originally Posted by xeroinfinity

several reasons why I dont recomend using the brake booster line.
One being that elbow that goes into the booster can crack/break easily. Plus you dont want any sea foam running back into the booster.
When it sucks into the intake through that vacum line most of it does not get atomised to spread through the entire intake because of the volume of the larger vac. line...

and I have no idea what sea foam would do to the inside of a rubber hose...

That makes sense now... I was still thinking about my truck, not a G/A, the original brake booster hose cracked so I replaced it with the only hose I had at home - fuel hose, since seafoam is mostly just alcohol, I didn't give it a second thought, plus on the truck the brake booster is quite a bit higher than the carburetor. Sucking it in through a small line on my truck didn't work very well because all the seafoam just burned off as soon as it was sucked in, and the brake booster hose goes into the center of the carb. Letting it sit for 15 minutes seems to be the most important part, and I couldn't get any to build up with the small hose.

[Gir-_-]

Originally Posted by championvette

Ok I did it! I hooked up a rubber hose at the end of the little opening and sucked a third of the can out. Waited 10 - 15 minutes and started it up. There wasnt as much smoke as I thought there was gonna be. Maybe about half as much as on the youtube videos. But it was a success and thanks for all your help! I'll be sure to tell my friends and family about Automotive Forums.

hmm.. not sure how that tiny valve would effect the smoke/carb cleaning output.... I'd do both. PCV valve and the one you did...

as the PCV is part of the emissions, doing that line would boost gas milage I would think

just my , give it a try if you'd like... same method as before, run it while the engine is on till its done, let it sit, then start the engine up..