Darkdan, talk to me about seafoam, lucas and oil...

[fordfest78]

DD,

Sorry to put you on the spot with these questions but you seem very knowledgeable in the posts I've read of yours regarding oils and additives. I am a little confused about what should be going in/out/in my engine. Right now I have a festiva with 130,xxx miles. It was driven hard all its life, but has no engine noise currently. Being a delivery vehicle, it saw oil changes way late and it had a ton of stop and go driving. It does not smoke and I have not done a compression test. But the engine feels "peppy".

My oil plan was the following....

Add a 1/2 can of seafoam to the current oil which god knows how long it was in there. Run it for about 10 miles then change it with 10w30 dino oil and a cheapo filter.

Add another half can of seafoam then run it for about 100 miles, which then I will drain and do the same, 10w30 dino + cheap filter oil change.

Dump another half can in and run for 500 miles which I will then drain, change to mobil 1 10w30 synthetic and a good wix filter and possibly a lucas synthetic additive.

I manage an auto parts store and people swear by lucas around here. But hey what do we know... people think everything is a miracle. I want to know what your opinion of oil additives are and why, including lucas. Seafoam has been sworn by for years and years, is my above method asking for trouble and why? Would there be a case where you would use seafoam or wouldn't?

I'm not really looking for opinions but for brain food. I think a lot of people including myself do funky stuff to their oils with no clue why. The above method I wanna do, its just in my mind a feeling of cleaning the crap out of the engine. But in some cases... crap is good...

[warlocke]

lucas oil stabilizer screwed the engine in my aspire, i put it in following the directions, not 2 miles i had valve tick, i figured it just needed to be thinned out so i ran it a few more days to and from work (2-3 miles each way) and it never stopped, so i drained it after 15 miles, put fresh penzoil in it for around 50 miles, washed the crap out, and changed it again, it still ticked till the day i sold it.

i personally wont add anything else into my oil, espically after that incident. imo seafoam will thin the oil out to much and risk frying a bearing.

i did like lucas fuel additive tho it had the best boost in the aspires mpg. a bottle every 2500-3000 miles and its good.

[mechanicaldj]

or how about this one, DarkDan:

is it true that synthetic oil can do more harm than good in older engines that have been modified or used in racing applications, due to the fact that synthetic oil does not contain zinc ?????????????

[Festiva_tunner]

I used to run a quart of lucas in my old Custom 250. I would run a quart of 15W40 , 4 of 10W40, and 1 of Lucas. it treated me well- in the winter though one of the I would run 3 15W and 2 10W30 with the lucas.

[jglutz]

I would pull the valve cover....if you only see varnish...no sludge...a couple of frequent oil changes should so the trick.
Changing oil prior to it breaking down will never require any additives.

[ericsmith32]

Bah spend 3 bucks for MMO do the same and be happy. MMO seems to work just as good as Seafoam in my vehicles and no need to suck it into the engine.

[leapin]

Im not too keen on the idea of oil additives. But seafoam has been good to me in the gas tank. Smoothed idle and drivability.

[Glease]

I also am not big on adding a bottle of something to my engine to magically make it run perfect again, but I do like seafoam. The only worry with it is that sometimes in high KM engines the carbon is the only thing keeping it from burning 3 liters of oil a week or leaking. I lost my head gasket in my escort AND my Geo after doing seafoam. Mind you they were both decently high KM cars, but its just something to keep in mind.

If anything add some to your gas tank, it really does work well.

[elcamino1]

Well I have a 1994 F150 190,000 miles 1 quart of Lucas at every oil change for the last 80,000 no engine problems, and I use the truck for towing everyday.