DIY: Seafoam a Camaro LLT V6

[Lil' Nasty]

Omg my engine blew!

Jk. Great DIY and i had a bit of smoke. Not sure why I had a couple drips of oil come out but oil level is fine and no more since. Idle seems smoother and power seems to come on stronger.

[Romerocamaro]

Did this over the weekend and wooo my camaro was smoking like a train. But since doing this it does feel a bit more responsive on the throttle.

[AiL762]

subd, def need to do this.

[Can't_C_Me]

Glad this write up is still helping so many!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[maverickmage]

For those that used MCCC... how did you apply it?

[NOVAK]

OMG, I have 75k and no catch can :X

[Elite Engineering]

If you have not already learned, using any solvent based cleaning process with engine running if over 10-15k miles on can and usually does cause damage to the engine, and here is how:


First, all GDI engines the deposits/coking is not like the old soft carbon of a port injection engine where you could do this and be confident no damage would occur, these the deposits are far greater and are very hard and abrasive as they are baked to a crystalline form from the much higher temps the valve operate under now no fuel is showering them to keep them clean and cool.


When broken loose (and go to any of their websites...they only remove up to 40-50% of these) the smaller hard particles some will always be forced between the piston and cylinder walls. This causes scouring (scratches) to the piston and cylinder walls. Usually this is not noticed right away, but is occurring and although minor to begin with, is damage nonetheless. Then you have to realize the need to change oil and filter immediately as some of both the solvent and the debris will get into the crankcase and engine oil. Then look at what happens when a large chunk is broken loose and gets trapped between the valve and seat allowing PTV contact:





You can see where the chunk broke loose, and the dealer did not diagnose the slight miss the owner complained about after the cleaning until thousands of more miles were put on it.


Then if you don't take steps to avoid the coking to begin with, doing an upper induction cleaning are not preventing the accelerated wear to the valve guides now as these hard abrasive deposits are drawn up into the softer guide with each cycle:









And this is what most 3.6 engines valves will look like by 30k or so miles for those that remove their intake manifold and inspect them:





Then you have the high failure rate of the catalytic converters when the debris loosened and the slug of solvent impact the catalyst strata. The shock can shatter or break this and lead to a clogged flow.


So, GDI is here to stay, and yes, you can ignore it and let it be, but the only way to get the same life out of these GDI engines as the past port injection ones is to take precautions and action yourself, and the average "catchcan" will do little to prevent this. You must use a complete system designed to stop most all of the compounds and oil that are making up the deposits. And then performing a solvent based cleaning every 10-15k miles will keep the valves deposit free w/out risk of damage. The Elite E2-X and E2 systems are designed just for stopping these issues, but using a proper solvent based cleaning will reduce the portion of coking caused by the EGR emulation of the valve timing events that back swirl a small amount of burnt gasses that will still contact the backsides of the valve. So it takes learning all of this, and as more miles accumulate on these GDI engines more issues seem to pop up.

[saviorcrash]

I bought a 2010 Camaro with 127k Miles on it. Should i do this seafoam process? The car right now has the Code P0420 on it. I know he has had the valves and guides all that replaced around 100k miles. Any advice thanks

[Nutbutt]

Get a catch can on the car if there isn't one already. Take off the top of the air induction and take a look to see if there is any oil build up. You should be able to see the valves also. If there is a build up think about a sea foam application.

[sunshine1531]

I got slight piston knocking from doing the Seafoam spray induction service and I followed the instructions exactly like on the bottle...hopefully I didn't hurt the engine too much.

[Romerocamaro]

uh oh.... is it still knocking? Because if so then uuuuhhhh you might want to get it looked at.

[Elite Engineering]

We do NOT recommend ever using any solvent based upper induction cleaners when the engine is running. While these are safe for a port injection engine with "soft" carbon, GDI engines the deposits are far greater and form into a very hard and abrasive, almost sand like material so when loosened while engine is running some is always forced between the piston and cylinder wall causing scouring. Also, as the cylinder pressures are so extreme (11.5:1 CR and fuel introduced at 2,000 plus PSI) a good deal is always pushed past the rings and into the crankcase where it mixes with the oil and if oil is not immediately changed, can cause damage, rod bearing noise and failure being the most common. Search here for the threads on manually cleaning the intake valves, they are the only safe and effective way to clean them.