HELP! Seafoam in RX7 now it runs like crap
 

I just put sea foam in my RX-7, ran through 2 gas tanks of 1 bottle of seafoam the past week, nothing seemed to happen.

So I added around 1/3 bottle into the crank case and then poured the rest of the bottle into one of the vacume lines.

Now it runs like crap, sputters and dies on itself, I took it for a drive around the block and it feels like i have 30HP total. driving up a slight hill in 1st gear around 20mph, flooring it and the engine can hardly take it and starts to decelerate.

did I add the sea foam to the correct vacum tube? did a screw up my engine?

I added it to the circled tube, which leads to the intake manifold in picture #2

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http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...10_53_full.jpg

oh lord sea foam huh??? I have a honda passport and some people swear by it on those forums but on a rotary it's usually a rule of thumb not to put any sort of snake juice in your engine. We sometimes use mmo in the gas and some of us even put it in the leading spark plug holes for a little while (actually I retract that sometimes we put it in the oil filler tube and soon after 1 to 2 miles after change the oil) but I don't know man I would have stayed away from seafoam. Also you have to make sure that that is a vac source because with those nipples there only a couple of them are vac and the other ones are not.

edit even if it is a vac source I don't know if I would have poured it in there. I would probably clean my sparkplugs after that.

when my roomate gets up, I'm going to have him bring me to the auto store so I can buy new plugs and also get oil so I can change it. Hopefully that'll work

When I ran the car, it felt like I was driving an inline 4 running on 3 cylinders. Not certain how that would translate to a rotary though.

you can probably just take the plugs out and clean them but yeah buying new ones is always a good idea. I'm not quite sure on n/a's but maybe someone else that knows more about n/a's can tell you what line that is and if its a vac source.

I seafoam supposed to be in your crank case??? I thought it was strictky a intake thing.

Also, I have been noticing that many of the intake manifold cleaners specifily say that you should not use in diesels and Rotarys... double check that it is safe.

Does the car run okay when cold... or is it bad cold and warm???

usually you can put it in your crank case and it will be fine on piston engines and actually it helped reduce the noise levels of one of my valve lifters on my honda that has been taping for a while but I still wouldn't trust it in a rotary.

Seafoam can be used on anything, so the label says, 2-stroke 4-stroke, diesels, gas.

it does not say 'no rotarys'

engine craps out cold or warm.

well I changed the oil and spark plugs, still runs like crap though. Any other ideas?

Nothing from the check engine light?

Any other symptoms as far as engine damage like smoke, coolant leaks or anything?

I'm not recommending this, but if it was me I'd run water through the same tube... see what happens. ;P lol

--Gary

Change the fuel filter if you put it in your
gastank.

the car idles fine, but it has no power, like I have maybe 30HP. The engine had 138k miles on it, what I'm thinking is maybe the carbon buildup on the seals was the only thing keeping the engine running, after I seafoamed it, knocked off the carbon, now I have a leaking seal... I brought it to a shop to get someone to look at it.

you might just need to let it run for a long time to get all that stuff out. i've dumped lots of mmo and carb cleaner in the car before and never had any problems like what youve described. even the atf trick the car runs fine just smokes alot.

I use sea foam in all of my vehicles and it does wonders. It is a carbon dissolving agent that has many other benefits. I am a mechanical engineer and though I have not looked at the chemical properties of it there are many automotive experts who swear by it. I have personally used it in outboard motors. N/A rotaries 87 & 90. My 91 turbo rotary. Honda cars. Honda bikes both two and 4cycle. My suzuki samurai and my 2003 Toyota Tundra. All with good results. Especially in my RX-7s and my suzuki.

IT CANNOT HURT ANYTHING IN YOUR ENGINE!!!!! It is absoulutly harmless stuff!!!!! There is no voodoo in a rotary engine that could be harmed by this stuff.

In your oil fill tube it should be put in (about 1/3 to a half a bottle) about a week before an oil change. It cleans the OMP and other oil pasages including the oil pump.

In the gas tank it is basically a fuel injector cleaner.

In the intake it cleans the inside of the engine out (much more effectivly than the water or god forbid the ATF trick)

I have used it in my 90 GTU a couple of times in all of thoes ways.

THE CAR WILL RUN LIKE SHIT WHEN YOU LET A VACUUM HOSE SUCK IT UP!!!! And it will smoke mad.

1. This is the way it should be it is cleaning everything out.

2. The car should be running and warmed all the way to operating temp before doing the vacuum line use.

3. Have a friend hold the RPMs between 3500-4000 and once it's all gone have that person take it near redline a few times to really clean everything out. Then go drive it, HARD!!!

If you have a cat that is original it may have sped up an already failing cat converter by pluging it with disolved carbon from the engine!! My N/A does not have a cat. The symptoms you describe sound like a plugged cat. Sea Foam did not "cause" this. Your cat was already past its service life. Sea Foam sped up the process of making it a noticable problem by taking all the buildup in your engine and displacing it to your cat. That is my guess. My Turbo has a cat and I did this trick to it, it ran a ton better afterwords

Best way to tell (if the cat is plugged) would be to take it for a longer drive and when you get back, look underneath the car, see if it is making lots of noise or glowing.

Be assured that if this is the case your engine is likely fine and also very clean. When you replace or remove the CAT it will probably run like new!!!

SEA FOAM IS NOT A ZMAX snake oil product!!!! It is a proven carbon cleaning and lubing agent. It cleans carbon and lubes everything (mostly valves but we dont have thoes). I use it on everything.
Sea foam in my experience is much more effective than any other intake cleaner or MMO. I only use MMO on air tools now cause sea foam works better. BUT, sea foam is not a premix oil.

interesting!

yea... in my opinion, since the car runs like crap right now anyways, id drive it slowly for a bit, then work the revs up and up. when i used carb cleaner on my motor, it ran like crap for about 30 miles then it got much much better.

When you used that vacume line, you held the throttle at 3k+ right?? If you dint you probably have a whole bunch shit still in there. I would also check for vacume leaks, clean the plugs, and mabey even try a compression test.

Double post

Too add to my guess. Sea foam should not contribute to a plugged cat, IF, the cat is in good health otherwise (read less than 75k miles or so) through out it's life stuff builds up in catalytic converters. That coupled with an engine having 130k+ miles of carbon buildup could likely cause a cat to go south.

Course you could make me look like a total moron by typing a two word response. Something like...."no cat".

Also the ONLY way you might cause this is by dirrect injection via a vaccume hose. This could not happen by way of putting it in the gas tank. Also a half a can in the oil pan would not likely cause any problem like this either. Sea foam is a lube too...

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I use a different hose (actually hoses) when I do it to my S5 N/A but I doubt that is your problem....I would take a pic but the car is in storage.

you didn't do something silly like forgot to put all the vac hoses back right? :)

maybe dumping it in your gas tank has loosened enough buildup to clog your fuel filter or injectors.

snake oil, i won't touch the stuff. if i want to clean out my engine i use H2O (tap water....). i have been a mechanic for 11 years and i have seen the good and the bad of this stuff, i won't risk the bad for the good.

Engineer for 10 years(the kind that actually work on stuff and test). Water dosn't do squat. Steam only works at VERY high pressures, volumes, and temperatures in excess of boiling point, niether of which you will get by letting a vac hose suck it up (water at room temp). Zmax, slick50, motorup, etc. = snake oil. Sea foam is a proven product that does no more and no less than advertized. Cleans carbon and other types of buildup, lubes mechanical parts.

Sea foam would'nt affect anything upstream of the injectors. It flows just like fuel at normal temps. It acutally breaks down buildup in fuel lines so that it can flow to the motor and get burned off.

I have all OEM equipment on the car. It's my beater car I use for daily driving.

When I put the sea foam into the vaccum tube it was at idle. Did it really slowly though or else the engine would bog down and die.

The vac hose is back on. I've already replaced the spark plugs and changed the oil.

Tomorrow I'll see what the shop finds and if she's able to be brought back to life.

Thats your problem. Was the car alteast warmed up to normal operating temp?

Heres a simple little test- Go start the car, take it for a drive, and look under it at the cat. I bet you it will be glowing red. Chances are since you dint have the car running at 3k+ when you fed it in, it dint combust the liquid completly until it hit the cat while carrying all the carbon and crap it just cleaned out and probably melted and clogged it pretty good.