01tl4tl

How do you know a car is running perfectly good unless you have dyno'd, pulled the injectors and measured flow on each, removed the intake manifold, and at least run a boroscope into the piston area?????

Xpditor

Let's see. I bought the car new. I maintain it well. Approximately every 3rd or 4th tankful, I add a bottle of injector cleaner.

It now has 12,000 miles. It feels the same as the day I brought it home... actually: better since it is broken in. It idles smoothly, accelerates like a rocket and gets decent gas mileage. Therefor, in my case, I don't see anything that could be gained by using Seafoam.

You mention the money-back guarantee. I'm not so concerned about the $5 cost of a bottle as I am the possibility of hurting something that is working fine.

If something serious did happen down the line, I don't think Seafoam would be chomping at the bit to pay for repairs. Even if they did, the car would never be the same.

If anything, I would consider giving it a try on my 16 year old Jeep Wrangler with 166,000 miles. I have already used Auto-RX on the Jeep which was highly recommended by some oil engineers on another forum: www.bobistheoilguy.com and, a year later, I am having clogged emissions device issues.

So, put me down as skeptical but willing to listen and learn with a big dose of caution.

westas2

Has anyone tried the E3 plugs? Saw something on the powerblock where they ran the dyno before and after on a V8 and picked up 5hp and better gas mileage. Not sure I believe it but curious what everyone thinks.......

http://www.e3sparkplugs.com/

01tl4tl

NO on the e3 for a TL, do not use!! wrong type of electrode for our engine

USE NGK Iridium IX or NGK Platinum- the oe plugs are ngk platinum, iridium is a different metal- both work in the TL

As for xpiditor- you are running fuel cleaner 3-4 per month? so every 1200-1500 miles you put a bottle of techroline or similar product?? and have only 12k miles on the car?
Then you are keeping things clean, so FOR YOU seafoam would not make a differance.
Until now- this fact was not mentioned, just your mistrust of seafoam and concern for a different brand of car

For others who have never run good gas or good cleaner and have 50k miloes or so,
IMO seafoam does a good job for them.
In the old school days we would spray water into the carb or TB, someone else here used alcohol and water,,,, that was the cleaner of choice, but harsh on certain parts.

My point to all of this- in relation to changing the spark plugs- would be to run SOME sort of cleaner in the gas, and if you choose to- something thru the TB or manifold vac.

01tl4tl

I saw that tv show to, they used a wildly cammed, trick heads and 770 carbed small block on 93 octane, that already was pushing 400 HP-

they got 5 hp on a plug change at hi rpm between e3 and another hi performace brand
Too bad they didnt test pulse star plugs for us~

sixsixfour

im in the same boat as you.

i dump a 3-pack of STP gas treatment in between 5 fill ups. run a fuel injector cleaner once a month. put nothing but high grade gasoline and even dump a few gallons of 100 octane cool blue. i follow the MID for service and put Mobil 1 5W-20. car runs fine, idles smooth, takes off great, and i get good gas milage. no problems whatsoever. just a hair under 21K miles for an 06.

i did contemplate about running seafoam on the car. i know people who did run it on their cars and have had noticeable improvements. then again, they dont really maintain their car to the same insane neurotic level as I do. i think it will be a waste of my time to run, plus i dont know what i might do to break this streak of problem-free runs.

the "if it aint broke, dont fix it" saying applies for me as well. i just dont see any reason to deviate from anything but proper car maintenance.

Xpditor

Not per month. Every 3rd or 4th tankful. That's about every 1,000 miles. I have a 2004 and am averaging 2500 to 3000 miles a year. So, that's a bottle of injector cleaner every 5 or 6 months.

I use tier one fuel.... the same 93 octane from the same station since it was new.

I agree with the poster who observed fuel trucks of all brands filling up at the same tank in the port. After they fill up, they add the detergent additives to the tank according to their brand. Or not.

They can carry two kinds of fuel. 87 Octane and 93 Octane. The middle grade, 89 Octane is a mixture of the other two. That's what I'm told by the drivers.

Yesterday, I went out on the Turnpike with little traffic and a nice sunny day where me and my radar detector had a clear view..... and blew it out a little.

It likes it.

01tl4tl

cars that are still near new do not need seafoam- its for cars with advanced deposits- hows that guys
You are in prevention and maitenance modes on new cars.
Xpiditor- blow that thing out more often! and if you park it for extended-weeks- at a time- you can throw Stabil fuel treatment or seafoam in the tank to prevent fuel coagulation and deterioration- according to the directions on the can and website.

fsttyms1

Ive been using seafoam for years. I can say it never hurt my motor. I had almost non existent carbon deposits on my motor i pulled out during my 6 speed swap. That motor had 210k miles on in. I recently got my dad to try it on his caddy that he thought was running smooth and after running a can thru the gas and thru a vac line he commented on how much smoother it was and that his mileage has actually gone up since doing it.

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

lolz.......a HAWT conversation is going on.....:P......difference of opinion guys.......he knows what he is doing for his car n so do u.......u wont wanna fuck up a 30-40G car......

@Xpditor: dude i did like 2500 miles in 4 days......how do ya do it over a year.......how can u drive a car and know what it wants if you drive it only once a while......(assuming since 2500 miles a year is 200 miles a month which is 7 miles a day )

anyway, can anyone who has a NGK Iridium IX throw in a part number???

Xpditor

Daily driver is my Jeep Wrangler. The TL is garage furniture except on the weekend when the weather is nice and dry.

I did take one road trip with it to NC, SC, GA etc. About 1500 miles round trip. If it weren't for that trip, I'd only have about 10k miles as the car will be 4 years old in two weeks and I've been averaging about 2-250 miles per month as you noted.

That's about 60 miles per weekend. But, I don't take it out if it looks like rain. Black is hard to keep looking clean but it's beautiful when it is.

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

Mine is starting to idle like crap, I think i'm going to pull the egr port and have a looks see. I only use V-power, i'm considering pulling the EGR, taking a few pics, pulling plugs, taking a fews pics putting it all back together then do a seafoam take it apart and take some more pics. Then replace plugs,oil,air filter, and actually scrub the egr port with carb cleaner and the TB. I might add a CAI during this lol.

jchcmax

I was curious about the IX plugs and could not find it as a cross reference for our stock plug on NGKs website. I spoke with Brandon at NGK USA and he recommends to use the stock iridium plug. I asked about the Iridium IX and he does not recommend them for the TL. The IX has a shorter firing projection that could possibly lead to misfires. The only improvement that the IX has over stock is that it has a tapered cut groove. This is not noticable on a stock engine. Lastly, the IX would only last for 40k miles versus 90k miles on the stock iridium plug. So I'm sticking with the stock iridium plug. For me, I was using Denso iridium IK20 and was recently getting 19 to 20 mpg on surface streets. I put them in when I first got my TL. After 35k miles, I put the stock NGKs back in and now I'm seeing 22 MPG. I guess Denso's right about their iridium performance plugs (IK series) lasting for only 30k miles.

From Denso: "DENSO Iridium Power plugs, with their .4mm center electrode, have been developed for performance applications. Because gradual wear will “round-off” firing points over time, the concentrated firing power and voltage requirement benefits will be reduced. For this reason, DENSO advises replacement after 30,000 miles."

01tl4tl

your the first person to have any problems with them and many are running long miles on them and exceptional gas mileage

the stock plugs were not Iridium according to most - they were ngk platinum
BUT I am not expert on this subject, just what I read on azine

Tripnbeats

why not just get the cleaner honda makes for the throttle body and the cleaner for the carbon deposits they make?? it just plugs into the vacuum lines n pulls from the bottle it takes about an hour and cleans the hell outta the motor n intake manifold. then they have another cleaner for the injectors that connects to the fuel rail and does a sick job as well. instead of paying them I believe 400 for all 3 procedures u can do it urself if u want that clean feel. IMO

01tl4tl

whats the prices on the honda products?
sounds like something to check out if its sold by our maker

Tripnbeats

50 for all 3 bottles.....and each use is half a bottle except for the carbon cleaner thats the whole thing

jchcmax

When you take the stock plugs out of the TL (at least from my 05 TL)you will see that they are Iridiums:

01tl4tl

ahh thats the prob- I am gen jumping again and only know whats true for my 01
sorry for any bad info related to your year car

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

I got stock plugs and I get 21-22 mpg over combined driving and I drive in a spirited manner....thought of switching to densi but then I heard ngk IX is awesome....but then u said IX is not good for TL nor is denso.....so am in a dilemma again....

Darn it.....!!!!!

TylerT

iTrader: (1)

I'm using the NGK Iridium IX right now ... car runs very smooth.

Legend2TL

Denso has a pretty good website the FAQ's are also very good. I did not know that you're not suppose to use a round spark loug guage to gap the Iridium plugs. Also the explanation on how the Iridium works better than the Platinum plugs is also good.

Also good for posting your experience with the Denso's.

Legend2TL

Besides the website never heard of them before, they look like a hybrid between a Bosch Platinum+2 and Bosch Platinum+4. I used the Platinum+4's in a 89 Legend and they did not work well. Very slight mis-fire and gas mileage dropped. I went back to the standard Platinum (single side electrode) and the engine ran better and mielage went back to what it was previous.

Legend2TL

Which IX are you using? The NGK website does not list a IX for my 05 TL.

01tl4tl

try the kragen website- they carry ngk and thats where MANY of us bought the IX

Iridium used to be very expensive to mine- its from the USA!, and was used in airplane and race car spark plugs. New mining technology reduced the cost so they can use it in street car plugs too.

Legend2TL

They're the same as the NGK website, only the OEM Iridium's are listed (same part number) no IX's.

timmahh

Oh my god this is getting so confusing..! Is this a seafoam or sparkplug thread?!

So, my car is at 62k miles.. should I look at replacing my spark plugs? What about the Pulstar plugs ??

http://www.pulstarplug.com/

Are those even worth getting ?

01tl4tl

pulsestar testing underway on a few TLs
the reported gains so far are 1 to 1.5 mpg increase- that pays for itself in a year or less with rising fuel cost.
The gains are not a big as regular cars, since we already have coil on plug ignition- not old school cap rotor wires setup with lots of power loss on the way to the plug

60 k miles is a good time to seafoam, and a few days later change the spark plugs to ngk iridium
thats all you have to ask for at the parts store- they will get the right ones on your hand.

Falen

Do I have to change the motor oil, the spark plugs and the air filter after a seafoam treatment????

01tl4tl

YOU will have to--- just because you spent the evening posting this question in every forum
It may even require a new transmission or carbfibrillator attenuation afterwards
You never know~

SRT-11

HAHAH!!!! I love it 01tl4tl!

More on topic, I just changed my plugs out two days ago to denso iridiums (because RR likes em, and that's reason enough for me) and install was quite easy/do-able with the DIY, thanks TylerT! I think the most important thing that I wouldn't have figured out for like half an hour would be to put the components of the wrench together one at a time when doing the rear 3, plug in, then socket, then extension, then torque wrench.

My concerns: Well I seafoamed first, and some smoke came out, but not a plume like many have described. I used the sippy sip sip method but had to get my wife to keep popping the throttle as even the tiniest sip seemed to make the car choke out each time... sucked down about 2/3rds or half a can (I put 1/3 to 1/2 the can in on 3-4 gallons of gas back on Friday to pre-clean the injectors), let it sit exactly 15 minutes, started up, let stabalize & smoke for a few minutes, went for a drive (misfiring like a SOB) and then the later that day I did the plugs. The denso iridiums I used (IK20's- I really hope these were the right ones, denso said they were when I called) fit right in no prob, the stupid torque specs were in Newton Meters so I "assumed 15ft-lbs" from some quick mathamation and no worries I used some anti-sieze on the middle three threads on the plug, but when I went to the denso site later that night I found this helpful table (WHICH SHOULD BE ON THE DARN BOX THE PLUGS CAME IN!!!)


Note: The installation torque values shown above apply to new spark plugs without lubricating the threads. If threads are lubricated, the torque value should be reduced by approximately 1/2 to avoid over-tightening.


So I'm now curious did I overtorque them? should I adjust them? were they lubricated because of the anti-sieze or is lubrication referring to something else? Also one of the stock plugs I pulled out seemed a bit "wet", was that residual seafoam or is that uh-oh?

The car doesn't run any better truthfully, even though the stock plugs looked like butt. It also isn't harder to start up, but it takes longer and turns over a bit differently... I bought this thing (04 AT AM) with 31k mi on it back in early January and noticed a sort-of rough idle/mild vibration when stopped and in D(rive) so I embarked upon changing all the fluids, seafoaming, etc. so far in the past month I've: (not to threadjack)

-AMSoil 5w20 w/ AMSoil filter- car ran slightly smoother, worth the $

-AMSoil ATF (triple change method)- car drives WAY smoother, WELL worth the $, LOVE it.

Seafoam (gas tank and in intake) - car sure did smoke, and misfire a bunch, and people stared at me which was cool... and I tried to follow the post-seafoam-driving directions to a "t", not much $ so not a big deal.

-Denso Iridium Plugs - not much difference, maybe I did something wrong? Shoulda gone NGK? so far, not worth the fiddy buck$.

(still to come):
-Homemade grounding kit
-Change Brake Fluid
-Change Power Steering Fluid


Truthfully nothing has reduced that rough idle more than the Redline SI-1 fuel treatment in every tank (use like 1/7th a bottle per tank)

SRT-11

forgot to add- I also did my coolant last night, that bolt on the rear of the engine block is a bitch to get at.

01tl4tl

NGK IRIDIUM beats denso hands down
you are a thrillseeker with amsoil in the auto trans~
Seafoam- if you read my directions, it needed more of the stuff in tank and manifold
A full 8 oz can in the manifold- not half of one. same for the tank 2oz per gal of fuel
And if revved much during adding to manifold- that sucks it right out.
A lot of the smoke is just the oils reacting to heat in the exhaust- not a full indicator of cleaning process
If you are going to use a little cleaner all the time -just use it right a few times instead, then run the right gas Teir 1 level with techroline or vpower added to it at the factory.
Redline SI-1 (which I have used for decades) is very good stuff in the tank.
Do a cleaning dose of full bottle to 8 gallons of gas. When a fuel cleaner says treats 8 to 25 gallons- you can figure out which in going to be stronger and faster- more effective.

SRT-11

Really? RR posted results of a test that showed that densos misfired the least of all plugs tested. huh.

The ATF was a great decision (so far) and I'm happy I did it!

A full can is 16oz... so does that mean do a full can in the intake or do 8oz like I did? I only had my wife hit the throttle when it was going to die, which it did nearly every time it sipped...

I always fill up with chevron premium fuel, I doubt the previous owner did though.

Tripnbeats

WHY DOESNT EVERYONE JUST STICK TO OEM PLUGS?!? They made a specific kind work with the motor leave it alone.

01tl4tl

NGK are the OE brand of plugs- they were using Platinum on the gen2s, and those or the newer technology Iridium work great in a TL, as proven by many members of this forum in real life miles driven testing
I dont care about lab test or other cars- only what I drive!

Some of you are lucky to get 16 oz cans of foam- its not available everywhere.
8 oz is the referance measure when talking about ~a can~

The trans fluid may be fine ~now~ but there is no telling about later- will the trans fail like so many others? time will tell.

Acura-Honda has some special secret sauce in its various oils like the PS fluid and the trans fluid
I dont care about test results of slipperiness or friction modifiers unless the test was done ON a TL
thats my opinion on the subject.
I use chevron-texaco-shell gas, all Tier 1 approved brands for the TL.

Tripnbeats

yea man chev has sick gas!

TylerT

iTrader: (1)

I haven't gotten Chevron in awhile; it's roughly $4.22 a gallon in my area.

01tl4tl

Tyler- the TL really does prefer the Tier1 brands of gas,, with their secret sauce cleaners.
Chevron-Texaco are the same company/gas now, Shell, 76, you can do a search for all the names of places that meet the standard.
If you have to run crud gas- you will enjoy the results of seafoam or other fuel system-engine internals cleaning system used from time to time.
We have hi compression engines that know the differance!

jchcmax

I can tell that the engine likes the better quality gas. The noise, response, and acceleration from the engine are improved when putting higher quality gas in the tank. I can proudly say that my TL has never tasted Arco gas or lower quality. I have been frequently using Shell because I use their credit card( it's actually a Mastercard) that saves me 5% each month on gas purchases. Around here , that's almost 20 cents a gallon saved. It's a good deal.