Seafoam eats carbon. I and many use that in the fuel.

 

i love seafoam. i needa grab a can n toss it in my fuel/

 

I will be using it in my oil 100 miles before I drain it to clean the system.

 

Avoid additives that include alcohol

Seafoam has alcohol (IPA - no it's not beer in this case - isopropanol) in it too which is not a desirable additive for your fuel.
MSDS - MSDS

As alcohol attracts water and combines with it, water is unintentionally allowed to pass the fuel-water separator. Water in your combustion chamber is converted to steam when the alcohol vaporizes. Steam builds ENORMOUS pressure...notably beyond the TTY bolts' capacity...headgaskets fail or heads buckle - neither is desirable.

Alcohol also increases the so called scar-test metal wear on a high frequency reciprocating rig (HFRR). I've attached a test of various fuel additives from several years ago. The test is a thread here too. There are plenty of alternatives without alcohol to perform the desired fuel system maintenance.

With all of the frustration of gas engine enthusiasts at federal requirements to utilize E85 I think it would be odd to want to put alcohol in the fuel tank especially without fully understanding the consequences. Certainly there are those who use alcohol based systems for cooling combustion (water-methanol) and gaining power but those are deliberate choices hopefully made while fully informed of how water contributes to compression (pressure) increases.

In closing, water reduces the capacity of ULSD fuel to lubricate (generally undesirable), lowers combustion chamber temperature (generally desirable), but also increases combustion chamber pressures (potentially desirable if adequate reserve clamping torque for the heads is in place - not the case if not running ARP/H1 studs...i.e, not a good idea for TTY bolts).

Try an alternative to SeaFoam if you can't accept the limitations of alcohol infused treatments.

Hope this is informative for those who didn't know and not taken the wrong way by those who understand their selection.

Jonathan

 

Great info, Thanks for the write up

 

I have used seafoam in the fuel for my truck once and i swear by the stuff. However, I will NEVER use it in the oil of ANY turbocharged vehicle.

Just for giggles, the 6.0 IS turbocharged. Amazing right?

However, something that I use EVERY tank and a lot of others also use, is Diesel Kleen or Powerstroke Cetane Booster.

Both of those should reduce the carbon build up by making the fuel burn better/cleaner.

And just open the truck up from time to time and blow the crud out.

 

Why after only one treatment would you swear by a product that has only three components knowing that one of the components harbors potentially damaging aspects? Perhaps I misunderstand.

SeaFoam has:
1. Oil. Pale oil is basically DIESEL FUEL...heavy paraffin distillate - to be fair most of the products for fuel treatment likely put the additives in a basically diesel base so nothing special here BUT it is about half of the bottle.
2. Solvent. Naphtha is a light hydrocarbon used as a solvent degreaser so this is what does most of the work for SeaFoam...another quarter of the bottle or more.
3. Alcohol. IPA (AKA isopropyl) is another solvent AND it is between 10 and 20 percent of the product.

The Diesel Kleen and Motorcraft Cetane Booster are both products without alcohol and a few other chemicals (different for each but they share a few too). Both of these products also received favorable results on the scientific tests with the HFRR as a fuel additive (not oil additives). All of the products with alcohol produced added wear as a fuel additive (not as an oil additive).

I'm sure that in certain applications like in cleaning a potentially contaminated fuel tank, SeaFoam would help absorb water but I wouldn't run that contaminated fuel through my engine...I'd drain it...and the Racor/Motorcraft/International fuel filter in the HFCM does a pretty good job of preventing the water from getting to the engine too - unless there is an alcohol that facilitates its passage.

I too have used Diesel Kleen and Motorcraft Cetane Booster. I have several one-shot bottles of the Motorcraft Cetane Booster that I refill with the 20 oz. bottles so that I can add a shot to each of my fuel tanks (40 gal rear, 50 gal forward) at each fillup.

If you like SeaFoam - good for you not for me. Using the truck at various demanding performance levels in an "open the truck up" style with the DK or MCB are better for you - with that I wholeheartedly agree.

Jonathan

 

I pretty much agree with you on everything. However the one thing I do disagree with you on is the seafoam in the fuel.

I whole heartedly agree with you on draining the fuel being the best option. However, that is fuel wasted, then it's also expensive to pay the mechanics and for the time it takes to do it.

One can of seafoam every so often (no more than 10k for me) can clean out any water/crud in your system and get it out with minimal effects on the truck.

I also believe that using one can of seafoam for a FULL tank of fuel with the added cetane booster will provide very VERY small negative results, if any.

But for me I still use the DK PS Cetane boosters every tank and that seems to be the way to go.

 

I have posted that info more times than I can count. It is excellent info. I have tried a bunch of different additives, currently using 2oz of XPD's per tank. I have used the 2 stroke oil, but by far nothing has made the noticeable difference that the addition of biodiesel makes. It immediately quites the injectors down like nothing else. I ran on B100 for about 5 month's and the first time I put a tank of D2 in the truck I was amazed at how loud and raspy the engine was compared to how it sounded on B100. That is the best for lubricity. I suspect it would also provide the best cleaning effect too.