Homebrew Seafoam
 

I know in the past I have seen a recipe to make a batch of Homemade Seafoam posted someplace but now I can't find it. Any body out there happen to have it handy.

Think I found what I was lookin for here but I want some opinions on it so speak up.


It's very cheap and easy to make at home

25% Cleaner>Naphtha
60% Stabilizer>Kerosene
15% Oxygenate> Isopropyl Alcohol (common Rubbing Alcohol)


Other Commercial Brands such as Chevron Techron Concentrate are 100% Cleaner.
Majority is Naphtha,,,along with Stoddard Solvent,Benzene,Xylene,etc.

You can Substitute Seafoam's 15% IPA for Toluene and get better results,,,most paint stores have it.



ALL the Products are merely a variety of Blends of generic,,bulk commodity petrochemicals.

They are simply bought by the barrel,,,,mixed together in various ratios,,,,Bottled>Labeled>Sold

SeaFoam for example,,
It's sells for about $8 USD for 16oz.

$64 USD per gallon


"Naphtha",,,2 Bottles @ $1 ea = 1/2 gallon
"Kerosene" 3 Bottles@ $1 ea =3/4 gal
"IPA" 2 bottles for 1$ = 1/4 gal

$6 for 1.5 gals
For "GENERIC ,Homemade Seafoam"

versus the
$64 USD per gallon
for actual,,name brand Sea Foam

It's not so much the point that it's only 1/10 the Cost,,,
it's that homemade blend allows for ,,,not just Enhancement but even Exaggeration of the Beneficial Properties of the Additive Mix.

For example :
Skip the Rubbing Alcohol,replace it with Acetone,,,Same Price.
Makes engine Start much better in Cold Weather,,,SOMETIMES improves fuel mileage,,,is Less Corrosive,,,and acts like a Cleaner Itself.
And,,it gets added in at much,much lower doses.

Or,,,add a $5 pint of Toluene in lieu of a quart of Kerosene

Or ,,1$ Quart of Auto Trans Fluid,to make Mega Stabilizer.

Or,to add to Crankcase---it sometimes Smokes a bit.
But I just FEEL better Cleaning internals with a premium LUBRICANT as the engine runs,,,rather than all Solvents.


Or if You would rather buy a Commercial Product and can Not find Seafoam
Chevron Techron is much,much More Powerful Cleaner by volume.
It will work at minimum,,,,better and faster and on a wider range of Fuel Deposits .
But ya should really only use it in fuel,,not in Crankcase.
It's too aggressive a cleaner and not made for such use.


Beyond Those particular products,,
Anything labeled "FUEL INJECTION" cleaner is typically going to be Higher Concentration of appropriate CLEANERS,,, than products labeled as "Carb Cleaner" or "Gas/Fuel Treatment"

The Later 2 products Have been enriched during last Decade or so,,
So the Differences in all the Variety are Not as Great as they were 15~20 years ago

If Sea Foam is Not available,,
Chose Anything labeled as FUEL INJECTION cleaner and it will do about as good a job as Sea Foam in your Tank, injectors, varnish, carbon etc in Intake tract, Valves and combustion chamber.

All more/less same stuff.
CLEANERS,,,have More Cleaner and Less Stabilizer than SeaFoam.
You are currently going through Fresh Petrol,,,so Ya do not Need the hi-dosage Stabilizers at this point.
Especially when trying to CLEAN the fuel system.
You need the higher dose Cleaner.

oooh, got all that stuff at work.

Thanks

I like seafoam, i put it in the fuel filter when i change it. Well i did on my 06. My new 09 just got the new f/f put on a week or so ago. I will probably continue to use seafoam in this truck too. This homebrew sounds interesting tho. :pca1:

I first saw the thread and though "oh come on you cheap s.o.b. just buy the stuff" but then you broke it down to $4/gal home brew or $64/gal purchased.:tu:

I use a lot a this stuff between all the cars, trucks and tractors I take care of so this could be huge savings for me but I want some opinions first.

Be careful, alcohol is bad on the injectors.

Then never use any kinda cleaner cause they're all alcohol based. For that matter don't use any fuel additive that claims to keep injectors clean because they all have alcohol added to them. Including Power Service and all the others.

For Fuel Treatment I will say that it is never a good idea, NEVER to add any cleaner to the fuel tank. When you change the filter just re-fill the filter canister with the cleaner and fire it up. This way all the cleaner is gone within seconds and not flowing through the system for 400 miles or more.

In gasser's just pull a vacuum line and let the motor suck it right out of the can like a straw. It's gonna smoke like a mother while it does it and your gonna have to have a second person holding the RPM's up while you do it or the motor will stall out but it works well.

As an oils additive/cleaner just dump it in the crankcase and run the motor for a few minutes, only a few so that it circulates but don't give it time to heat any bearings up and then drain and change your oil.

I use this stuff in weed-eaters, mowers, tractors diesel and gas trucks and cars. We've even run it through hydraulic systems before we rebuilt cylinders to clean all the crud out.

Bubba, so your saying you DO use this home brew recipe? Which version do you use or recommend? I noticed you put a few "Substitute chemicals" in there. Where do you even get some of these chemicals at? I don't think they have them at Walmart?! :lol:

Good writeup though! :rocking:

I've been using the same homebrew stuff for the last 6 months now with good success.

25% Naphtha
60% Kerosene
15% Rubbing Alcohol (70% pure)

My Costs:

$6.00 Naptha ($6.00 for 32oz can at Home Depot)
$6.00 Kerosene ($10 for 1 gallon can at Home Depot)
$2.50 Rubbing Alcohol ($2.50 for 16oz bottle Rite Aide)

After sales tax I figure ~$16/Gallon as opposed to $8.00/16oz can ($64 per Gallon).

I've added the stuff to the fuel in all my engines here; car, lawn mower, lawn edger, weed wacker, pressure washer and outboard motors.

welcome to diesel bombers NoEcm sounds like you and uncle bubba have it figured out you need to go here and introduce yourself to the people of diesel bombers Diesel Bombers Initiation - Diesel Bombers :yeah:

Sorry I missed this response earlier. To be clear here, as I said in the first few post I haven't tried it yet, I was lookin for opinions and input on it. I do use a lot of Seafoam and this would save massive amounts of money for me over the course of a years time.

Be careful with replacing alcohol with acetone.
Acetone is a very good solving agent and can clean nearly everything in the shortest time.

But it also loves to swell and destroy rubber sealings in the smallest concentration rapidly!

So check for rubber sealings first or replace them as you have used acetone. Because they will be cracked and destroyed.

there are non alcohol based cleaners and lubes out there. https://www.amsoil.com/storefront/adf.aspx

Hi, I just thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

I noticed that in the homebrew recipe that there is no mention of any lubricant. Seafoam obviously has some kind of lubricant in it. Put it between your fingers and rub, you can feel it. The naptha you can smell, and the kerosene makes complete sense, because its an all round heavy weight solvent. We used to call kero 'coal oil', but a lubricant it is not :) If it contains isopropanol it would have to be %99.9, and not really a good choice anyway since it is from grain, not petro, and always contains a tiny, tiny, bit of water, and seafoam says on the bottle "dries water in the crankcase" or "dries oil in the crankcase" one of the two. Anyway, I doubt they would use isopropanol for that, rather ethanol, also from grain, but usually purer.

My monies on mineral oil for the lubricant. Its a byproduct of refineries, its cheap, and they can use it as a filler. Besides seafoam doesnt burn well, thats why you have to open the throttle up high to get it down the intake without killing the engine.

If you were to take naptha, kerosene, and isopropanol, surely it would spark up quickly, and seafoam doesnt burn well.

My best guess would be %50 mineral oil, %30 kerosene, %20 naptha.

Speaking of which, anyone know a good source for naptha nowdays. Used to get zippo fluid, but its a bit high.

Thanks guys, and remember, just my opinion :)

I created my own recipe based on the information in the Sea Foam MSDS.
Homebrew Sea Foam (SeaFoam) Motor Treatment

The MSDS sheet isn't a complete list of ingredients in any product. It only contains a list of ingredients that the government has deemed as potentially harmful or toxic to the environment and how to treat exposure to or hazardous cleanup of those ingredients.

I've seen many times when guy's think they can brew they're own home brew batch based off what's listed on these sheets.

Well, you did ask for homebrew sea foam recipes and this one attempts to faithfully reproduce it from published information. I do not think basing a recipe off an official MSDS is necessarily worse than substituting kerosene, toluene, or acetone just because a non-toxic ingredient might be missing. Take a look at the percentages and it should be clear that these three ingredients are the majority of commercial sea foam.
pale oil 40-60
naphtha 25-35
IPA 10-20

If you take just the low numbers and assume some sort of non-toxic unlisted ingredients, it would be 40-25-10 = 75% with 25% unlisted ingredients. You can't take all of the high numbers because 60-35-20 = 115%, which is not possible. I think the true ratio falls in the specified ranges, oil is the main filler/carrier, and any non-toxic unlisted ingredient would not help dissolve petroleum varnish/deposits/residue anyway.

So, the recipe I came up with is close to:
pale oil (pharmacy mineral oil or 10W-30): 6.5 oz
naphtha (home depot): 6 oz
isopropyl alcohol (pharmacy 91%): 3.5 oz

However, commercial Sea Foam is certainly not the only way to clean your air, fuel, or oil systems. Use whatever combination of solvents you want. I just thought this information might be helpful and relevant considering the topic of this thread. :)

Sorry Bud. Didn't mean to discount your recipe at all, you may have the perfect blend for all I know cause I'm clueless on this stuff. We just see it happen so many times that guy's follow the MSDS and and say they have the same finished product as the name brand that I get a little quick on the draw when I see it.

Hildstrom's info helped me. I really didnt think it contained isopropanol at all.

Also, I agree that it unlikely it contains anything else significant. I wish I had read up on this before I went and spent $9 on 16oz :P

I also agree with you bubba, the msds only lists hazarous stuff. Some ingrediants in things can make a difference in the recipie and not be listed in the msds because there not dangerous.

I'm thinking now about mixing up a batch for the car. What is a good source of naptha. Charcoal fluid has kero in it I think. Whats good?

Naptha can be had at any hardware or home improvement store in the paint section or in a few stores the acid cleaning agent area but they all have it.

I mixed up some more of this homebrew stuff using different oils. The best one so far in terms of viscosity and mixing uses ATF for the oil component in Sea Foam instead of motor oil or mineral oil. I have a pic of the samples after sitting for a few days on my page. So, the question remaining is if the ATF is thin enough or if a thinner oil is necessary. It might be worthwhile to make batches using kerosene and diesel for comparison. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test the ATF blend in my FZR600 this weekend.

Homebrew Sea Foam (SeaFoam) Motor Treatment

http://hildstrom.com/projects/seafoa...oam-labels.jpg

Also, I found this interesting tidbit on the official Sea Foam FAQ:
"Sea Foam is composed solely of three specially blended petroleum oils – each having specific functions such as lubricating, cleaning or moisture control. There are no other chemicals (not even color dyes) included in the formulation. Being of the same basic petroleum chemistry as the motor oils and gasoline you already use in your engine, Sea Foam is completely compatible with all engine components, fuels, lubricants and other additives you may have in your engine. Sea Foam will not damage gaskets or seals, and will not interact in a negative way with motor oil or fuel, or the additives used in them."

Just be careful of which ATF you use. So much of these modern day ATF compounds have so many different additives mixed in for anti friction, anti foaming, and so on and we don't know how they will react during the burning process. I'm sure you in particular already know this but those that will read this in the future that may not.

Have you tried replacing the ATF with say water clear hydraulic fluid (the good stuff like JD or MF). Basically the same stuff as ATF without the friction and foaming additives.

No, I've just tried the stuff in the photo so far. I mixed up a batch using Diesel fuel as the "pale oil" component last night, but I'm going to give it a day to see if anything separates. It's definitely thinner than the ATF and seems to mix with the other ingredients better. I'd like to rig up a simple viscosity test to see which one is closest to the original.

I updated the pic I linked above. I measured the viscosity of each batch and compared it to Sea Foam. I added some conclusions to my web page about this. I will probably use either ATF or Diesel in future batches for the "pale oil" component because of viscosity and mixing ability. So, here's my updated recipe:

pale oil (ATF or Diesel): 6.5 oz
naphtha (home depot): 6 oz
isopropyl alcohol (pharmacy 91%): 3.5 oz

"The Diesel batch was less viscous than Sea Foam. So, the Diesel batch would not provide as much fuel system or upper cylinder lubrication as the other formulas". If I interpret your data correctly:

The original Seafoam drained out in 1 minute 0.7 seconds

The diesel formula drained out in 55.6 seconds (or a difference of ~5 seconds)


Have you considered a combination of diesel and 20W-50 oil? This might bring up the viscosity and provide a little more lubrication.

I tried 50/50 Diesel and 20W-50 for the oil component after your suggestion, but I was not happy with it. The mixing ability was somewhere between 20W-50 and ATF. The viscosity was very close to Sea Foam and it was very murky.

I just made another batch using a 4-2-1 volume ratio of Diesel, naptha, and IPA instead of the ratio I originally chose to test with. The solution is very clear and the additional Diesel brings the final viscosity up very close to original Sea Foam. The component mass ratios are still in the range specified by the msds. I updated my page with this information and I will probably use this recipe going forward unless someone finds a better "pale oil" or more exact specifications.

4 parts Diesel
2 parts naphtha
1 part isopropyl alcohol (91% or better)

Ha! After all of that testing, I arrived at a recipe very similar to the one mentioned in post #2 and #10. Funny how that worked out. :)

I wonder if 2 cycle oil could be substituted or used in place of the pale oil?

MSDS: http://msds.walmartstores.com/cache/24970_1.pdf

WalMart $11 per gallon. Manufactured by Pennzoil-Quaker State

One other question, how much lubrication does the diesel provide?

"Sea Foam is composed solely of three specially blended petroleum oils – each having specific functions such as lubricating, cleaning or moisture control."

4 parts Diesel
2 parts naphtha "cleaning"
1 part isopropyl alcohol (91% or better) "moisture control"




Just wondering.

2-cycle oil might work, but Diesel is $2.75/gallon. ;)

The 4-2-1 Diesel-naphtha-IPA recipe has a final viscosity very close to original Sea Foam, which hopefully means it has similar lubricating ability. Other than that, it is difficult to say how well it lubricates without doing some very expensive or time consuming lubricant tests. You would also need to quantify how well original Sea Foam lubricates for comparison. Lubrication is somewhat of a relative term here. Sea Foam is thinner than any engine oil I have seen because it was designed for different purposes. Kerosene is used as a cutting oil and Diesel fuel is thicker than that, so I would say it has lubricant ability.

Just some interesting reading that I found:


"The lubricity of diesel fuel can vary dramatically. It is dependent on a wide variety of factors, which include the crude oil source from which the fuel was produced, the refining processes used to produce the fuel, how the fuel has been handled throughout the distribution chain, and the inclusion of lubricity enhancing additives whether alone or in a package with other performance enhancing additives. Typically, Number 1 diesel fuel (commonly referred to as kerosene), which is used in colder climates, has poorer lubricity than Number 2 diesel fuel."

http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/f.../Lubricity.PDF




"The need for diesel fuel lubricity has been recognized for many years. Most early concern focused on the use of #1 diesel fuel in place of #2 diesel fuel under cold weather conditions. Higher wear rates with #1 diesel fuel would be aggravated by #1 diesel fuel's lower viscosity. However, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandated that the sulfur content of on-highway diesel fuel be lowered from 5000 ppm to 500 ppm in 1993, fuel lubricity captured national attention. There is still disagreement about what specific fuel changes are caused by the sulfur reduction that result in lubricity reduction. Some have suggested that sulfur compounds themselves provide lubricity, others have suggested that nitrogen compounds or naphthenic hydrocarbons are responsible. In any case, there is general agreement that the hydrotreating process used by petroleum refineries to remove sulfur results in lower fuel lubricity. Recent regulations by the EPA to further lower the sulfur content of diesel fuel to 15 ppm are expected to make the fuel lubricity even worse.

The addition of small amounts of biodiesel (0.25% to 2%) to diesel fuel has a dramatic effect on the lubricity of that fuel. Pure biodiesel and high level blends have excellent lubricity."

Biological & Agricultural Engine

There's some good info in those links. Thanks.

I found this great document: http://www.metalwebnews.org/ftp/lube.pdf
NAVAL SHIPS’ TECHNICAL MANUAL
CHAPTER 262
LUBRICATING OILS,
GREASES, SPECIALTY
LUBRICANTS, AND
LUBRICATION SYSTEMS

PDF page 11 states: "The most important physical property of a lubricant is its viscosity. Viscosity, which may be defined as a fluid’s resistance to flow, is the characteristic most frequently stipulated by equipment manufacturers when making lubricant recommendations. The selection of proper lubricant viscosity is often a compromise between selecting one high enough to prevent metal to metal (wear) contact, and one low enough to allow sufficient heat dissipation."

So, matching the original Sea Foam viscosity should come close to matching the lubricating ability since this is the most important property. It was nice to find this bit of reinforcement for my testing method.

Just a question...... Why use diesel fuel when putting it in the tank? Why not just dump the rest of the stuff in.

Also talking about the alcohol content- You'd hate to see what ethanol/bio does to seals. I've "heard through the grape vine" that it'll etch concrete.

If the goal is to duplicate Sea Foam, the Diesel component or some other "pale oil" is necessary to bring the viscosity up. The added lubrication in a gasoline fuel system should function as an upper cylinder and fuel pump lubricant. The Diesel component would likely have no effect when used in the fuel system of Diesel engines. However, the Diesel component will have an effect when the mixture is inducted into the intake manifold, added to the crankcase, or added to a transmission.

Normal non-E85 pump gasoline contains up to 10% ethanol already, so I'm certainly not worried about its effect on most gasoline fuel system components. Adding a solution that is roughly 1/7 alcohol at 1oz/gallon (fuel) or 1oz/quart (oil) results in very low overall concentrations. For example: 1/7 * 1/128 = 1/896 in fuel or 1/7 * 1/32 = 1/224 in oil. Both result in the final alcohol concentration being lower than 1%. Also, I do not plan to use this at every fill up or run it in my crankcase constantly, so I am not worried about this aspect of it. Alcohol does not eat metal, glass, plastic, or concrete and it only damages some types of rubber seals when the concentration is high enough.

Sea Foam contains isopropyl alcohol and the official FAQs say that it is safe in gasoline and Diesel fuel systems and crankcases when used as directed.

Thanks!! An interesting read indeed.

I did some reading and it seems that gasoline and naphtha are pretty similar in terms of density and average number of carbon atoms per hydrocarbon molecule. I just did another experiment using 2 parts Diesel and 1 part gasoline, skipped the IPA drying agent, and the results were surprising.
http://hildstrom.com/projects/seafoa...oam-labels.jpg

My page has been updated: Homebrew Sea Foam (SeaFoam) Motor Treatment

With your latest formula, you may not need the IPA as the ethanol in the gasoline is already hygroscopic.

good thing you said it before me.

Re: Homebrew Seafoam
 

subscribed for interest

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