cgilbert23

Hey guys, I recently purchased a 99 a4 coupe w/75k on the clock. The car had a bit of a rough idle..not noticable if simply watching the rpm's, but for example, if you sat a bottle of water next to the gear shifter you could clearly see the car had a bit of a shake. So I decided to seafoam it, thinking that it would most likely eliminate the rough idle. I poured a bottle in the vacum line and let it sit for a hour or so, then fired it back up. Took her around the block to clear out the smoke and I was done......well now I have 2 problems.

1. the idle is worse.....My thoughts are now I need to change the plugs and wires? or should I be looking at something else?

2. when the motor is not fully warmed up it has a slight ticking noise. (I have read about the ticking noise and from the readings, the LS1's are prone to doing that) but, it didn't do it before (from what I can remember) and it quits after the motor has warmed up. Did I hurt something when seafoaming....at the very end, when I tried to flood the engine with the seafoam, it didn't work and the rpm's went really low and after turning off the ignition it finally died after 3 or 4 seconds of ...any thoughts? I have since run through 4 or 5 tanks of gas and the car runs fine...just a slight tick tick tick when the motor is cold.

Thanks in advance for all the input

Blown427conv

Probably need to change your oil for starters. May have thinned it out with seafoam if it leaked down past the rings causing your ticking. If you have the original plugs/wires it would't be a bad idea to change them also but I think all C5's have a little bit of vibration.

cgilbert23

Sorry...I forgot to mention that I did change my oil Thanks 427

cgilbert23

Oh yeah, also...when I purchased the car it did not have an oil change sticker on the windshield (don't know what the previous owner used) so I used Mobil1 10w30. I'm in Texas and use this in all my vehicles (95 tahoe w/215K, 95 Z28 w/179k)

lucky131969

Did you even read the directions before doing this? According to the website, it's only 1.5 ounces of seafoam per quart of oil capacity(including filter). Then you are suppose to drive a minimum of 30 miles, and then change the oil.

What were the condition of the plugs and wires before this? Did you check for air intake leaks, vacuum leaks...lines for cracks, etc?

dankhts

10 years is a long time for plugs/wires if they're origional!!!

Bill Curlee

First off,,,,,How did you seafoam the engine. What entry point did you use to get the seafoam in the intake??

NEVER, kill the engine with seafoam. You can injest the liquid and kill the engine with the ignition key but do not flood the engine to kill it. TOO easy to hydro lock the engine if you goof up!

Ticking is a little different than piston slap. Some piston slap is considered normal when the engine is dead cold. It should stop once the engine is warm.

You need to use a mechanics stephoscope to narrow down the noise and try to pin point it to a specific area or component.

What is the oil pressure COLD,,, WARM and HOT.


Insted of throwing parts at it, remove whats there (Plugs and wires) and examine them. If the wires are good, why replace them. You have to test them.

- Reasistance end to end??? (Stock wires should read 250-750 ohms)
- Condition of the boots and jackets and connecting hardware???

Read the plugs. If there balck or damaged,,,you have issues. If there normal, the engine is running performing well. Replace them if in doubt.

Oil. If in doubt,,,REPLACE IT! Hell,,,I would be replacing ALL the fluids to get the car on your base line!

BC

jovette

Lucky, go back and read again. O/P said he put seafoam into the vacuum line, NOT the crankcase.

Yes, go ahead and change out spark plugs and wires.........it's likely you knocked some crud loose from the combustion areas and you may have some fouled spark plugs.

cgilbert23

C'mon now Lucky131969...I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm not an idiot.....I have used seafoam many many many times!!

so, yes, I have read the directions, and yes I put the whole can in at once. I'm not asking if I did it right, I'm asking if a good starting point for the rough idle should be started with changing the plugs and wires since the seafoam didn't clear it up. No I didn't check the plugs and wires, or anything else...just seafoamed it.

lucky131969

Ok, so there are two choices where the fluid will go, sucked into the intake, or down in the crankcase. With the engine not running, and a whole can poured in, where so you think all the seafoam went?

cgilbert23

My thoughts exactly dankhts...I will look at the wires when I get home and see if I can find any numbers on them to determine wether or not they are original...either way, plugs/wires are next on my "to-do list"

lucky131969

I'm sure you're not............

Yes, plugs, wires, security of intake air connections, and condition of vacuum lines should have been the first thing you did.....not seafoam.....

lucky131969

cgilbert23

Cold


Warm


Didn't have time to let it completely warm up...I'm at work.

lucky131969

Yikes....

cgilbert23

Your a real ball-buster arent ya? my bad, I didn't place an arrow to specifically show you which line i used (your the smart one...thought you could figure that out on your own)

Do me a favor and be a smartass on someone else's thread!!

lucky131969

Although I am a consummate smart ***, I assumed you were indicating the vacuum line attached to the power brake booster was where you poured in the can of seafoam. If that's the case, pouring in that much fluid to be ingested into the intake is asking for trouble.

Bill Curlee

I will explain in detail!

The vacuum port for the Brake Booster gets it vacuum from the VERY BACK of the intake manifold. That port is directly over cylinders 7 & 8. The air enters the intake from the FRONT.

When you use that port, you clean the hell out of 7 & 8 and the rest of the cylinders most likely don't get ANY Seafoam. When you concentrate that much ingested fluid over TWO cylinders,,,you run a great risk of hydro locking those cylinders

The more correct method would have been to select a vacuum port closer to the TB. that way, the liquid is better distributed thru out the intake and into the cylinders more evenly. It also has a chance to clean the intake better.

bill

K RIPPER

Seafoam?? I just don't get it...anything that makes claims like they do I'm just a little bit skeptical ,gas,diesel,add to oil ,gas upper cylinder lube ,stops ping, hesitation and so on yet I see in this post so pretty respectable names( Lucky, B.C.) sounds like magic in a can. I've used Marvel Mystery oil in the past they make similar claims, however I used it for one specific thing only and it was pretty effective at freeing up stuck and or ticking lifters but that was it. I know GM sold GM upper cylinder cleaner but that was developed when they had a specific problem(certain caddys had a carbon buildup problem where the piston would actually hit the head making a knocking noise). I'm not a fan of "cleaning" the inside of a running engine knocking chunks of carbon and sludge loose which will circulate through the engine even if oil is changed.I'm not being s smartass as I said there seems to be some smart guys who seem to condone and approve its use I'm not looking for an argument just some common sense replys why this stuff is a good idea or if limited use what might that be

NeutronVette