I do a lot of highway driving, and as a poor college student, which really sucks lol, and declining, but high gas prices, I would like to keep my engine running good, which it isn't right now. My car gets me from A to B, but now it's sucking up more gas and losing gas mileage just to get to B! What are some of the things I can do to restore my car back to stock gas mileage? I recently cleaned my dirty throttle body, which was what caused my engine to idle rough. I use NGK Iridium IX spark plugs, although they could be changed again. I need to clean my AEM V2 air filter. Where can I get some cheap OEM Honda spark plug wires? The dealership wants $70, which I think is too much. I've tried adding Lucas oil additive. I know a good bit about tuning up my car, but I still have a bunch of questions. How would a radiator flush affect my performance and gas mileage? What about changing my fuel filter? What are some good intervals to change such things? Anybody have any good experience with any additives or cleaners? Gracias.

 

I'd say just change your fluids regularly, and keep the engine clean. You tried using seafoam?

 

Not yet. I know that you can put it into the crankcase and the fuel tank, but how do you put that into the intake? My best friend swears up and down that you aren't supposed to put any kind of liquid into the intake and when I showed him on the back of the bottle at a store that you can put it into the intake, he just told me "You really like proving me wrong, don't you?"

 

Pull off a vacuum hose & let the vacuum suck it into the engine. If you use a big hose (like the brake booster) you probably have to pinch it off so it doesnt suck it in too much & too fast.

 

I usually take off the intake hose and slowly squirt half a bottle in with a syringe... it's very easy to stall the car while Seafoaming it...

 

Apparently since it's silicon it's safe to go anywhere in your car. That's what I've heard anyways.


You can put it in your gas tank without doing anything else. If you put it in oil crankcase you'll have to change your oil. Same with transmission seafoam, you'll have to change your tranny fluid.


If I remember right, I poured an entire can of seafoam into a cup....then pulled out my PCV valve hose (the other end, like, I disconnected the end that's attached to my intake manifold) and I stuck the hose into the seafoam while the car was running.

I was careful and made sure that I didn't suck up too much liquid at once, and had my brother step on the gas enough to keep the engine running.


Apparently you're supposed to suck up X amount of it, then immediately kill your engine to let it sit in there for 5 minutes. Then whne you start it back up it's supposed to smoke like crazy.

But then again, I've applied seafoam through my engine several times and I've never got a single cloud of smoke, ever.

 

To get mileage you check...
Timing
Plugs NGK/Denso
Wires
Cap/rotor
Tire Pressure (one of the biggest things that can effect it overall)
Clean internals, TB/Intake/valves...
Also look over your exhaust tubing for crushed sections
Other than that it is all driving habits.

 

If you sucked it up with the PCV-valve end of that hose it would get sucked into the IM due to vacuum at idle. If you sucked it up with the IM-side of teh hose, it *shouldn't* suck it up becase PCV gases would be coming out.

A white cloud of smoke is what you should expect if you did it correctly, you may be doing something wrong.

 

even if it did suck it up it would just be going into the head, which is essentially just putting it in the oil, i would do it the other way and let it go into the intake manifold

 

Right, which explains why he didn't get any smoke. I think seafoam works best when it goes through the injectors and intake plenum, but nothing beats taking it apart and thoroughly cleaning it by hand.