Beating the Dead Seafoam/CRC Horse with Another Question

[MetalMatty]

I'm sure y'all are sick of seeing posts like this. I did try to search this specific forum but the search function is bad. I search Seafoam and it pulled up posts about LSDs.

Anyway, as I've read and I'm sure y'all have read, the general consensus is that using an intake valve cleaner, specifically Seafoam or CRC will, (somehow according to a random Ford tech on YouTube) cause the turbo to either overheat or get destroyed by giant chunks of carbon.

Those posts generally were also years old from back when the video that has been linked a million times was originally posted.

I'm not necessarily sold on that theory, but this IS my first GDI engine so I could just be wrong.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone here has actually had turbo failure they can absolutely relate to running Seafoam Spray or CRC Cleaner through their throttle body.

My FiST has 64k miles, and it runs good, but I do want to do this cleaning. I don't have the time to pull my intake, and I don't necessarily want to pay a garage $500++ to have it done.

I figure the best bet is to ask here if anyone has actually experienced intake valve cleaning sprays causing turbo failure, and simultaneously asking those who have done it what their experience was. Seafoam and CRC of course say it is fine, their product dissolves buildup and doesn't chunk it off, and they say their testing doesn't show adverse EGTs, but they are also sales people marketing a product. I also don't necessarily believe a man on YouTube.

This is something I only potentially plan on doing once every 10k miles or so, which for me is every few years, and it's more of a preventative thing as opposed to a fix. And yes, I do plan on installing a catch can at some point, just for peace of mind.

 

[agangel]

I wouldn't bother with all that. Is carbon build up really that bad?

 

[Sam4]

ask the white house...

 

[FiestaSTdude]

I'm sure y'all are sick of seeing posts like this. I did try to search this specific forum but the search function is bad. I search Seafoam and it pulled up posts about LSDs.

Anyway, as I've read and I'm sure y'all have read, the general consensus is that using an intake valve cleaner, specifically Seafoam or CRC will, (somehow according to a random Ford tech on YouTube) cause the turbo to either overheat or get destroyed by giant chunks of carbon.

Those posts generally were also years old from back when the video that has been linked a million times was originally posted.

I'm not necessarily sold on that theory, but this IS my first GDI engine so I could just be wrong.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone here has actually had turbo failure they can absolutely relate to running Seafoam Spray or CRC Cleaner through their throttle body.

My FiST has 64k miles, and it runs good, but I do want to do this cleaning. I don't have the time to pull my intake, and I don't necessarily want to pay a garage $500++ to have it done.

I figure the best bet is to ask here if anyone has actually experienced intake valve cleaning sprays causing turbo failure, and simultaneously asking those who have done it what their experience was. Seafoam and CRC of course say it is fine, their product dissolves buildup and doesn't chunk it off, and they say their testing doesn't show adverse EGTs, but they are also sales people marketing a product. I also don't necessarily believe a man on YouTube.

This is something I only potentially plan on doing once every 10k miles or so, which for me is every few years, and it's more of a preventative thing as opposed to a fix. And yes, I do plan on installing a catch can at some point, just for peace of mind.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you want to do, but don't you add seafoam to the gas tank? Since the fist is direct injection, that wouldn't clean the intake valves, right?

 

[dhminer]

Maybe I'm not understanding what you want to do, but don't you add seafoam to the gas tank? Since the fist is direct injection, that wouldn't clean the intake valves, right?

Negative, only air and recirculated shit from the PCV and CCV go in the intake tract unless you have aux fuel (port injection or tbi)

 

[Ford ST]

I used CRC last year I didn't have any problems. I ran it into the intake manifold.
My car probably had about 15,000 miles on it at the time.

Sent from my SM-A526U using Tapatalk

 

[Capri to ST]

I'm sure y'all are sick of seeing posts like this. I did try to search this specific forum but the search function is bad. I search Seafoam and it pulled up posts about LSDs.

Anyway, as I've read and I'm sure y'all have read, the general consensus is that using an intake valve cleaner, specifically Seafoam or CRC will, (somehow according to a random Ford tech on YouTube) cause the turbo to either overheat or get destroyed by giant chunks of carbon.

Those posts generally were also years old from back when the video that has been linked a million times was originally posted.

I'm not necessarily sold on that theory, but this IS my first GDI engine so I could just be wrong.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone here has actually had turbo failure they can absolutely relate to running Seafoam Spray or CRC Cleaner through their throttle body.

My FiST has 64k miles, and it runs good, but I do want to do this cleaning. I don't have the time to pull my intake, and I don't necessarily want to pay a garage $500++ to have it done.

I figure the best bet is to ask here if anyone has actually experienced intake valve cleaning sprays causing turbo failure, and simultaneously asking those who have done it what their experience was. Seafoam and CRC of course say it is fine, their product dissolves buildup and doesn't chunk it off, and they say their testing doesn't show adverse EGTs, but they are also sales people marketing a product. I also don't necessarily believe a man on YouTube.

This is something I only potentially plan on doing once every 10k miles or so, which for me is every few years, and it's more of a preventative thing as opposed to a fix. And yes, I do plan on installing a catch can at some point, just for peace of mind.

Just a tip on searching for topics on here, because I agree the search function on the site is not good.
What you do is do a search on Google for whatever you're interested in and at the end of your search query add site Fiesta ST forum, that will help you get better results.
As an example, I put in this for a Google search-
seafoam intake valve cleaning site Fiesta ST forum
And I got this and other results that seemed on point-
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/seafoam-enigne-when-and-how.11498/
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/seafoam.16458/

 

[MetalMatty]

Maybe I'm not understanding what you want to do, but don't you add seafoam to the gas tank? Since the fist is direct injection, that wouldn't clean the intake valves, right?

Seafoam and CRC both make a product designed with a hose that goes into the intake boot right near the throttle body. Basically you take the boot off at the body, put the hose in, reattach the boot and with someone keeping the car around 2k RPM, you slowly spray the product in. It follows the same track as the air and because of that, hits the intake valves. The cleaner then supposedly absorbs into the carbon and seemingly melts it away.

Awhile back a random "Ford tech" posted a video to YouTube stating doing this to specifically an Ecoboost will cause it to either suck in carbon chunks and destroy turbo fins or somehow get the turbo so hot it melts them.

 

[MetalMatty]

Just a tip on searching for topics on here, because I agree the search function on the site is not good.
What you do is do a search on Google for whatever you're interested in and at the end of your search query add site Fiesta ST forum, that will help you get better results.
As an example, I put in this for a Google search-
seafoam intake valve cleaning site Fiesta ST forum
And I got this and other results that seemed on point-
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/seafoam-enigne-when-and-how.11498/
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/seafoam.16458/

Good tip, thank you.

I did find both of those threads via Google just randomly searching before, and they both came out years ago, so I thought a newer post might be ideal since the video heard round the world came out roughly around that time.

 

[MetalMatty]

ask the white house...

I'm not sure I follow.

 

[MetalMatty]

I wouldn't bother with all that. Is carbon build up really that bad?

It's a known problem on all Direct Injection engines without additional Port Injection, which the 1.6T does not have unfortunately.

 

[Capri to ST]

Good tip, thank you.

I did find both of those threads via Google just randomly searching before, and they both came out years ago, so I thought a newer post might be ideal since the video heard round the world came out roughly around that time.

I'm glad it was helpful, and I'm glad you found those threads anyway.Obviously you're right to be careful about this,if there's even a chance of a product damaging your turbo you don't want to use it.I probably wouldn't use Seafoam, but if I was thinking about it I would do what you're doing, which is to try to get a good comfort level that it is safe.

 

[SteveS]

The Seafoam you use for intake valve cleaning is not the same stuff that goes in the gas tank. It's an aerosol made specifically for GDI engines. https://seafoamworks.com/product/sea-foam-spray-intake-valve-top-engine-cleaner/

 

[SteveS]

I'm not sure I follow.

It was a joke about carbon buildup (in the atmosphere)

 

[Capri to ST]

I did a lot of research on the issue of carbon buildup on the intake valves when I first got the car, because it was my first DI engine.It appeared that Ford had done some good work with the ignition timing calibration to mitigate the issue, and that because of that and other factors that carbon buildup in our engines was probably going to be a lot less of an issue than on some other DI cars, like VWs of the past.
The other things that I found would help were using only top tier premium gas, regular oil changes with a high quality full synthetic, driving the car hard sometimes (the so-called Italian tune-up), avoiding lots of short trips where the car doesn't get to fully warm up, and giving it a good long run of at least 30 minutes or so at a decent speed around once a week so it can have a chance to burn off some deposits that may have built up in the engine.
Some people feel that a catch can is helpful, some don't, there are good opinions on both sides of this subject. I haven't felt the need for one.

 

[Sam4]

I'm not sure I follow.

sorry...."carbon build up". sadly nobody gets my sly wit and political commentary.....

 

[Mycooking]

I used the GDI spray cleaner from seafoam into the intake manifold tract after the turbo and intercooler. Comes with a thinstraw to slip in between the pipe and manifold...gotta be a bit of a contortionist.

 

[MetalMatty]

I used the GDI spray cleaner from seafoam into the intake manifold tract after the turbo and intercooler. Comes with a thinstraw to slip in between the pipe and manifold...gotta be a bit of a contortionist

Yup, this is the stuff I was talking about. A guy released a video years back saying if you use this in an Ecoboost it'll destroy the turbo, and while that seems like insanity to me, I wanted to ask again now since it has been years and the hype of that video is largely died down.

 

[Mycooking]

Yup, this is the stuff I was talking about. A guy released a video years back saying if you use this in an Ecoboost it'll destroy the turbo, and while that seems like insanity to me, I wanted to ask again now since it has been years and the hype of that video is largely died down.

I watched his video and he didn't follow the directions on the bottle. You're supposed to spray after the turbo. But it does make for good info on what happens if you spray before the turbo and he also failed to hold the revs consistently at 2000 rpm which will help the carbon burn off in the cumbstion chamber before exiting the exhaust valves as it will have the ability to cause the variable geometry vanes to stick on the factory turbo. Basically with anyway you clean the valves on a GDI engine do everything correctly 100% or something bad will happen whether walnut blasting or using a spray cleaner. I've gotten the chance to see the results of both going horribly wrong...not my cars thankfully. Also spraying before the turbo can cause it to ignite in the compressor which is fun to see happen when its not your ride lol.