Hopefully this in the right area...

Since it was a cold, snowy day here in GA (and no one really knows how to drive in the snow) I decided to do an experiment given the amount of time I had on my hands.

I've seen people review/talk about Seafoam all the time but I always wondered "Does it REALLY work? Most of the smoke you see in videos must be from the oil that's inside the product!". The same thing with B12 chemtool; you see people pour it in plastic cups all the time and it just eats right through it. However, how does it stack up against carbon build up?



The spark plugs I used in this experiment came out of a 1996 LS400 with 225,000 miles. They have around 150,000 miles on them according to when they were last replaced.

Without further adieu, here are the results.


This photo was taken after the plugs have been soaking in the jar for 5 minutes. Both chemicals started out looking like water. Right as I poured the B12 chemtool into the jar, I noticed it started turning brown/yellow. Seafoam on the other hand took around 4-5 minutes to start changing color.


B12 Chemtool after 15 minutes of soaking and a light swishing around of the chemical to move it around.


Seafoam after 15 minutes of soaking and a light swishing around of the chemical to move it around.



Here are the plugs after 20 minutes of soaking. Seafoam on the left, B12 Chemtool in the middle, Control on the right.



Decided to throw in 2 more plugs into both jars (didn't change out the chemical).

Same thing again, Seafoam to the left, B12 in the center, Control on the right.


The two jars with B12 Chemtool (left) and Seafoam (right) after two spark plugs have been soaking for 1 hour total.


I'm impressed at how much build up is in the jar of B12 Chemtool!


Seafoam did quite a great job taking off pretty decent size chunks of carbon build up but nowhere near as much as B12!

As I'm not a scientist, I'm not too familiar with all of the additives in each of these two products; if someone can shed some light as to why they perform so differently, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'll let the pictures let you decide as to which product you're more comfortable using, however I'm leaning more towards B12 Chemtool after this small experiment. I'll definitely add onto this once I get my hands on Gumout Multi System Tune up!

 

Nice post - I've always used Seafoam due to others recommendation and never really considered B12...but with the sole purpose of "cleaning" and "flushing", it seems based on this B12 is a little more aggressive.

good thread here about B12 (vs Seafoam and MMO) at Bobistheoilguy
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...Number=2679730

 

interesting to actually see!

 

I was using seafoam for my other cars but someone convinced me b12 was the way to go. Seafoam had an old chemical that does not yield positive result with newer cars. I forget what it was though.

 

Thanks for sharing your findings with us. It's really interesting to see the results!

 

great thread. I've always used seafoam in the gas tank but also heard over the years that B12 is a great product and about 2 months ago I was told to use it as my car was idling funny because I wasn't driving it and possibly had old gas. i ended up not using it just added non ethanol gas and car idles perfectly. I will try the b12 next time instead of seafoam