seafoam works, I can confirm it

[ST1100Y]

Seafoam is a cleaner with a little lubricant, MMO is a lubricant with a little cleaner...
They can be used together.
I use a 5hr energy bottle (2oz) and dump it in the tank at every fill up.
The MMO is used more, as it keeps the fuel injectors clean, lubricates the fuel pump and keeps everything working as it should.
These are two pistons out of my TW200's, one used MMO (mine) and the wife's (just gas) at approximately 6000 miles when I did a cylinder base gasket recall.
You can see the difference for yourself.

Not avail over here... import via eBay charges for not less then 60,-... for the 16oz bottle...
Using Liqui Moly fuel stabilizers, can't tell if they're actually working or not, especially since I'm filling premium with only 5% ethanol to begin with...
Frequent use of the vehicle seems more effective, ICE's don't like sitting around...

 

[Ned in Utah]

When I had my 1000cc Concours, Every year, even if I put stabilizer in the fuel, it would not run on one or two cylinders when I fired it up in the spring. Some SeaFoam in the tank and a short ride would clean it out and it would run fine. I swear by the stuff.

 

[Larry Fine]

When I had my 1000cc Concours, Every year, even if I put stabilizer in the fuel, it would not run on one or two cylinders when I fired it up in the spring. Some SeaFoam in the tank and a short ride would clean it out and it would run fine. I swear by the stuff.

Why not try the Seafoam as your stabilizer?

 

[DannoXYZ]

Why not try the Seafoam as your stabilizer?

Don’t do that. It has large amount of isopropyl alcohol in it (30-40%). Which is similar to ethanol in modern petrol that absorbs moisture from the air and causes separation. This water layer results in all sorts of corrosion issues in fuel system.

Better to use something designed for fuel-storage such as Stabil-360 Marine formulae. No alcohols. Has stuff to prevent separation and to bind with water if it does happen to show up.

 

[Donk]

That is an impressive difference in those pistons. Think maybe I'll run some MMO in the '14 FJR I just brought home.

 

[drbuzzard]

seafoam as a stablizer- i've been using seafoam for a long time now and don't think i've ever measured how much i put in with gas in any tank or container. i broke my foot about 5yrs ago now and my snowblowers hadn't been used in that time. a few months back i had to use one of them , i decideded to used the 1986 Toro 521. i was fully expecting to have a starting issue as well as a running issue. happy to report that it fired up like it had never been sitting and ran as good as it always has, vertigo was triggered by the vibration was the biggest problem. as for the bikes i've used seafoam in my wing since around '07 and the carbs have never been serviced. it has better throttle response after a seafoam treatment

 

[RaYzerman]

For any of these fuel conditioners or cleaners, just look up the MSDS and see what's in them. Most contain a good percentage of naptha (aka petroleum distillate hydrotreated light, a light slow acting solvent that dissolves gums) and acts like a stabilizer, and may contain harsher chemicals like benzine, acetone, etc. if they are an injector cleaner. You can look up the CAS numbers if quoted, some dumb down the MSDS so not to reveal their "secret formula", but there's not a whole lot of magic to it. They'd like you to think there is..... PET (polyetheramine) is an injector cleaner, and carbon remover, you'll remember it as part of Techron by Chevron. Anything with PET in it is an injector cleaner.

Seafoam is ~70% naptha and ~30% isopropanol. The isopropanol will take care of any water in the fuel from ethanol separation. MMO is naptha and has benzine, a harsher cleaner. Berryman's B12 has even harsher solvents and PET.

If you're old enough, an old mechanics trick was to mist water into your carbs/throttle bodies, this would act like steam to lift off carbon, since water and carbon don't mix. Lots of steam out the exhaust pipe.... way before my time, there was water injection in old cars. Anyway, misting Seafoam or an injector cleaner won't likely hurt much, and may produce a steam effect... why not mix in some water with it........ Not sure what I'd use in carbs if they have diaphrams, small engines have them as fuel pumps.... naptha won't hurt much of anything, will keep gums from forming and again is rather slow-acting. Lighter fluid and WD 40 are naptha products.

 

[rwthomas1]

Have used Seafoam myself with good result but don't go nuts with too much. How much is too much? Small Honda inverter generators have small fuel tanks. Small fuel tanks are hard to dose correctly, easy to put in too much. The result is you THINK you have a carb issue from surging, which goes away when high-dose Seafoam is removed and fresh fuel poured in. For the record, in recommended doses, never had a problem.

Used MMO off and on for years. Those pics from Larry made me a regular user. I do the same thing with the 5 Hour Energy bottles. They are exactly the right size for a motorcycle dose. I have friends that may, or may not, have added MMO to their avgas. They may or may not have noticed much reduced "lead-ing" in the combustion chambers and valves, and the top end stays cleaner.

In the hotrod days, the way to clean carbon out was to drill a 1/8" hole in a 2 liter bottle, fill it with water and hang over the open carb of the engine. Run engine at 2000+ rpm until the water is gone. Seemed to work pretty well. Water/methanol injection has been used for a long time to suppress detonation.

 

[Sadlsor]

OK, so now we've seen the 5-hour Energy bottle reference twice... are we talking about for the ST1300 7.6 / 7.7gal fuel tank?

Just to be clear... thanks.

 

[Obo]

OK, so now we've seen the 5-hour Energy bottle reference twice... are we talking about for the ST1300 7.6 / 7.7gal fuel tank?
Just to be clear... thanks.

Just to be clear, if you use a 5hr energy bottle, cover up or remove the wrapper on it.
Marvel mystery oil won't do your insides any good if you mess the bottles up, and that amount of caffeine & sugar wouldn't be good for your fuel system.
I think the takeaway is find something that can easily measure out 2oz per tankful of fuel on the ST.

 

[Sunday Rider]

Just to be clear, if you use a 5hr energy bottle, cover up or remove the wrapper on it.
Marvel mystery oil won't do your insides any good if you mess the bottles up, and that amount of caffeine & sugar wouldn't be good for your fuel system.
I think the takeaway is find something that can easily measure out 2oz per tankful of fuel on the ST.

A mouthful should do it.......

 

[OldMcClelland]

just a splash!

 

[OldMcClelland]

two shots of vodka (GLUGG - GLUGG)...

 

[Sunday Rider]

Okay seriously back to the topic and a twist. I found along with the Seafoam Spray (man that stuff doubled in price since I bought it a couple of years ago), I blame Alberto for this, I found an engine flush by Seafoam. Any one use this? You are supposed to put in the crankcase a bit before and oil change. I have a coworker that this in his car and swears everything seems quieter and smoother.

 

[RaYzerman]

Dump some naptha in your oil and it will do the same thing... however, no need on a bike, your engine is not dirty if you've done regular oil changes. In the old days on cars with ticking hydraulic lifters, we'd dump in a quart of automatic transmission fluid. Excellent detergent, and lifter ticking would often go away as it cleaned the dirt out of them.

 

[RaYzerman]

Have any of you tried this???

 

[Sunday Rider]

Seafoam is a cleaner with a little lubricant, MMO is a lubricant with a little cleaner...
They can be used together.
I use a 5hr energy bottle (2oz) and dump it in the tank at every fill up.
The MMO is used more, as it keeps the fuel injectors clean, lubricates the fuel pump and keeps everything working as it should.
These are two pistons out of my TW200's, one used MMO (mine) and the wife's (just gas) at approximately 6000 miles when I did a cylinder base gasket recall.
You can see the difference for yourself.

Would you attribute running your engine at higher RPMs would also help here? Reason I mention this, is I have a manual car and when the wife is driving, she shifts up at much lower RPMs than me.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

They'd like you to think there is..... PET (polyetheramine) is an injector cleaner, and carbon remover, you'll remember it as part of Techron by Chevron. Anything with PET in it is an injector cleaner.

Over time I have noticed that you often comment rather authoritatively about matters related to chemicals and chemistry. This leads to believe that you have a background in the chemical industry. I have a question for you. I know that there are a couple of other guys on this forum who also have a background in the chemical industry. Hopefully you guys will set me straight.

I have a question for you guys but didn't want to ask it her, so I started another thread- see below.
Isopropyl Alcohol vs Methyl Hydrate Alcohol

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Would you attribute running your engine at higher RPMs would also help here?

High RPM/heavy load will decarbonize the engine to some extent and will make it run better if it was badly carbonized. It is not a substitute for a real decarbonization process however.

As a side-not, when I worked as a mechanic we would see this problem regularly. We would get the typical little old lady come in complaining about her car not running well. The engine was all carboned up from all of the very low speed driving that they would do without ever going out on to the highway and running at highway speeds. We would take the car out on the highway and floor the accelerator to force a high RPM kick-down and watch the cloud of smoke belch out the exhaust. We did this a couple of times and gave it back to her running fine. It was a recipe that we called add one foot and mix hard. We never charged them for this. They were happy and it was an easy fix for us. We knew that no matter how much we told them that they had to take their car out on the highway and run it once in a while they were not going to do so. It was easier to do it for them and make them happy.

 

[Alberto]

Any one use this?

Sorry for ruining engine additives market ) I personally believe that pouring washing additive into crankcase won't give any significant help if change oil regularly. I'm sure that in my case it helped because I had engine disbalance caused by the carbon deposits built up on pistons and after cleaning disbalance almost gone with vibrations. Going to continue to pour a mouthful of seafoam to fuel at each refueling, will see how it help)