Clean Air Plenum without removing it?

[zedjr10]

What is best method to clean plenum without removing it. I have seen a utube on using seafoam with it idle and submerging one of your vacuum lines inside the can. I seen his car idle smoke a bit as i guess he was burning the carbon on the intake manifold. But does this clean the plenum. Is it even really necessary to clean the plenum? I can understand the reasoning to clean the TB but the plenum has alot of space. Doesn't make much sense the some residue would affect air intake. Does it?

[sonikaccord]

Probably mechanically using a wire brush... like a pipe cleaner. I don't think it's really necessary unless you have serious build up. At that point you'd probably have other issues as well.

[zedjr10]

What about using sea foam spray for cleaning the air intake. I've read good things as long as you follow sea foams instructions and don't use one of the vacuum lines. Anyone got experience with it?

[Jon]

Seafoam is an awesome product... HOWEVER it really doesn't do a whole lot in terms of cleaning, especially in the plenum. The vac pressure really wont allow the product to reach/grab onto the sides of the plenum to aid in the removal of carbon or whatever you're trying to clean that may be on the insides, it's just going to get sucked into your cylinders and stuff will get nice and smokey. Mechanically is probably the best option.

Your plenum is typically fairly clean unless your crankcase vent is pumping a lot of oil vapor into your intake.


This has been brought up several times about cleaning carbon and whatnot. You can introduce a small amount of aerosolized water into your intake stream to steam clean the top end of your engine. It doesn't take much, just a few sprays from a water bottle while the engine is at operating temp. Keep the RPMs up around 1500-2000, spray some water into the throttle body, the engine will hesitate/choke a bit, keep the RPMs up, and do it a few more times until you see a fair amount of moisture from the back end of your tailpipe.

If you couldn't tell, I'm not a big fan of Seafoam. It has it's place, but for most everything there is a better or cheaper method to achieve the same results. I think the product actually works better if given a chance to soak, i.e. place the part IN Seafoam while warm.

[zedjr10]

Seafoam is an awesome product... HOWEVER it really doesn't do a whole lot in terms of cleaning, especially in the plenum. The vac pressure really wont allow the product to reach/grab onto the sides of the plenum to aid in the removal of carbon or whatever you're trying to clean that may be on the insides, it's just going to get sucked into your cylinders and stuff will get nice and smokey. Mechanically is probably the best option.

Your plenum is typically fairly clean unless your crankcase vent is pumping a lot of oil vapor into your intake.


This has been brought up several times about cleaning carbon and whatnot. You can introduce a small amount of aerosolized water into your intake stream to steam clean the top end of your engine. It doesn't take much, just a few sprays from a water bottle while the engine is at operating temp. Keep the RPMs up around 1500-2000, spray some water into the throttle body, the engine will hesitate/choke a bit, keep the RPMs up, and do it a few more times until you see a fair amount of moisture from the back end of your tailpipe.

If you couldn't tell, I'm not a big fan of Seafoam. It has it's place, but for most everything there is a better or cheaper method to achieve the same results. I think the product actually works better if given a chance to soak, i.e. place the part IN Seafoam while warm.

At this point i don't think i am too worried about cleaning the plenum. Am going to do that seafoam fogging and see what happens. Using seafoams instructions instead of a vacuum line.