If I seafoam the upper portion of my engine will I need to change the oil after? Someone said that some of it would leak down into the oil pan and what not. Before I actually try to clean out the top I want to make sure of if I have to change the oil after because of this. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

By upper portion, are you referring to the intake track, through the valves and combustion chambers?

 

yeah

 

In that case, no need to touch the oil. BTW, even though some do, i would NEVER put seafoam in the oil. Perfectly fin in the intake. Beware of the enormous white smoke cloud that will soon follow.

 

This is wrong. If you are dumping anything into the intake in any kind of volume, it will make it's way past the rings. Safe bet is an oil change afterward.

I'm skeptical of the whole 'seafoam in the intake' deal anyhow. Don't see how it's going to clean the intake out.

 

Please allow me to clarify my "wrongness" since I NEVER said to "dump" anything into the intake.

This is the way I did it on my old motor. I took the SMALL rubber hose that draws air out of the opti and dipped it in the seafoam can for about a second then pulled it out. I repeated the process till the can was about half empty.

As far as the seafoam getting past the rings, may be so but it would be minuscule amounts that clearly would not be the equivilant to "dumping" the stuff in the oil supply which again I would NEVER advocate because of the potential of it wiping the bearings and causing failure.

I do know this. When I took the old motor apart, the intake valves were of course black in color but had no carbon build up of any kind. The exhaust valves were orange/brown in color and had no buildup and the piston tops were remarkably clean with no buildup either. The combustion chambers even showed areas (although darkened) the natural silver color for the most.

I dont think the Seafoam does much for cleaning the junk out of the intake, I would not advocate that. I think it has the biggest impact on cleaning the combustion chambers and the valves which is the reason GM used a simialr product (GM Top Engine Cleaner) for a countless amount of years.

Just do the Seafoam before an oil change and you will be golden.

 

Seafoam is an oil based product. It will *not* vaporize upon entering the intake, unless you find a way to 'fog' it into the throttle body with the engine running.

'Sucking' it into the motor with any of the vacuum hoses will *not* distribute it evenly into the intake runners of the motor. On top of that, it will not be on the valves long enough to clean anything, especially if the engine is running.

Now, I have seen GM's Combustion chamber cleaner used to unstick rings in a really dirty engine, but that entailed spraying some into the cylinder directly through the spark plug holes, and letting it sit overnight to soften up the varnish, then cranking the engine over with the plugs out to 'purge' it from the cylinder before installing the plugs and starting it up. That required an oil change.

As far as the 'magical' properties of sucking seafoam into the intake... Here are pics of the intake valves on my '94 Z28. The long block is stone stock and had about 78k on it when I had to re-seal the intake manifold due to the infamous LT1 intake oil leak:





The only thing that ever went into the motor for 'cleaning' as an additive was a bottle of Chevron Techron fuel injection cleaner at each oil change (Once I got the car, that is). If you are getting any significant buildup on your intake valves, you must either have bad valve seals or use extremely poor quality gas.

 

they make like a seafoam deep clean which is in a spray can that can be used for the intake

 

All additives are a snake oil of sorts..... Some work, maybe??, and some don't..... Guess its up to the individual to decide....

http://www.seafoamsales.com/motor-treatment/index.html