The beauty that is Sea Foam

Today was fiddle-with-the-car day. Specifically, to clean out my engine (and my wife’s) using Sea Foam.

Every now and again I get to reading various car-enthusiast boards, especially if a Check Engine light comes on and I need to find out what to do to fix it.

One product that kept coming up was Sea Foam.

It’s sold as one of the many, many engine cleaners in your local auto parts store, but this is one of the few that people really, really like. So I figured to try it.

It works at least three different ways. You add a third of a can to your gas tank to clean out your fuel injectors and such. You put a third in your crankcase (i.e., your oil), where it removes the various kinds of crap and sludge in your engine. (Drive a little while, then change your oil.) Finally, you can find the correct vacuum hose and pour a third of the can into that, which gets sucked into your engine and cleans out valves and the like.

Even that last part is pretty simple, although it sounds complex. More important, though, is the effect it has.

Once the Sea Foam gets sucked into the vacuum hose and starts working its way into your cylinders, it burns off, taking a lot of gunk with it. This results in huge clouds of white smoke coming from your tailpipe, which (hopefully) has the effect of alarming your neighbors.

Some people on message boards report neighbors rushing over to put out what they assume is a fire. One guy on a Chevy board said he would only do it late at night in case some Ford owner drove by and thought his car was burning oil. (Seriously.)

This was indeed the case, first with my car, then with Karen’s. My engine was warm, thanks to the trip to AutoZone, so I revved it for a bit and let everything burn off. Quite a lot of smoke came from the tailpipe, much to my amusement. I cackled in case any neighbors were watching.

Karen’s car, though, I only ran for a little bit. The rest will come off during her James Bond-style drive to work tomorrow, when people behind her are engulfed in a cloud.

And if I didn’t tighten the drain plug, she’ll even lay down an oil slick. Sweet!