Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

Ok. I have always used Sea foam like this to clean the engine every 10-15k miles or so.

I've done this a million times.

-Disconnect Brake Booster Line
-With engine idling, let stick the line in right above the can of sea foam, letting it suck it up and playing with the throttle in order to keep the engine from stalling
-After I've gotten about 1/3 through the bottle, I let it suck up so much that it stalls out in order to get liquid sea foam in the cylinders to really clean the gack off.
-Wait about 3 minutes...then start the car up and make a huge toxic cloud of death
-Let the car sip a tiny bit more sea foam just to blast any remaining crap out

I've never had a problem.

Yet this evening, after letting the car stall and waiting 3 minutes, it wouldn't start back up. I figured maybe it was too wet in there, so I pulled the spark plugs, swapped them for some dry ones and let everything air out for about 10 min. Reinstalled nice, new, dry plugs, disconnected fuel pump, cranked the engine a couple times. Then reinstalled fuel pump fuse, tried to start. Still just cranking away.

Decided to pull the plugs and let it air again for about 2 hours. Came back after 2 hours and tried to start again.

....nothing.

What happened? Could I have hydro(sea foam)locked the motor? What can I do?

I pulled the plugs again and I'm going to try again tomorrow morning.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

no.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

try watching ur timing belt with someone cranking the car, i would expect if it's hydrolocked the belt wont move.

also, i do beleive the guys over at HT declared seafoam to NOT cause hydrolock, unless u like filled each cylinder to the max with it then tried to crank it i guess?

i'd also try going through basic troubleshooting. check for spark, check for fuel.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

check in your dizzy

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

Well i'm getting fuel.
I tried checking for spark..but i'm the only one here so it's hard to ground the plug and crank the car at the same time.

I kinda tied some copper wire around the plug thread and grounded it to the cylinder head...and turned hte lights off in the garage to make any spark more visible...

No spark as far as I could tell, but this really is a 2 man job. I'm not sure the spark plug was grounded properly.

The car IS turning over....the timing belt is moving.

How could sea foam have damaged the distributor?

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

take a piece of wire and connect the posotive terminal to the starter solenoid. Should help ya out a little.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

pour a tea spoon of oil into each cylinder, dry crank it a a few time then try again.. Cylinder wall might got washed down.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

what in the world is sea foam to begin with. Fuel injector cleaner every 6000 miles and a well tuned vehicle no need to use stuff like that imo but what do I know

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

seaform CAN hydrolock your motor using the brake booster line.

Happen to a CRX..........

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

It just matters how much you let it suck up. If you just have the tube chillin in the seafoam like a straw in a soda then you might of but I just have it resting at the top of the liquid so it won't suck so much in at one. Also I've been able to check for spark by myself. Just lay the wire with the plug in it somewhere you can see it from the drivers seat. I just laid mine on the valve cover and I could see it fine.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

I use the same method but I NEVER let the car suck up so much seafoam that it stalls... that just sounds like you are asking for trouble.

It's good news though, that your engine is actually cranking over, which would indicate you are not hydrolocked.

Did you change the plugs out? There's really nothing that seafoam could damage if all you did was feed it through your brake booster like that.

Maybe the problem was not caused by the seafoam but just randomly happened when you were using it?

I dunno what it could be other than the dizzy if you aren't getting spark, and using seafoam shouldn't affect the dizzy.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

What the hell is seafoam, I just though it was a really gay color, I see your using it like GM top engine clean but I'
ve never heard of seafoam

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

The stalling isnt a big deal. I usually rev it to like 4k and have a friend pour it in.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

Ok so I'm definitely not getting a spark. I just replaced the dist. cap/rotor less than 100 miles ago. I just opened them up and inspected them and they seem fine.

Here's a pic of my distributor with the cap, rotor, and cover off. (b16a3 OBD-1 DOHC VTEC)

Can someone please edit this pic showing me how to troubleshoot and inspect the distributor and coil and things for any damage? Like where to place the OHM meter probes, what to set the OHM meter to, what kind of readings I should expect....etc.

http://x2.putfile.com/9/27213573869-thumb.jpg

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

you must have gotten the dizzy wet

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

by sucking sea foam throught the brake booster line? How?

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

what happend is you "grounded" out the electrode in the spark plug and by doing that you put extra stress on the *coil* and *ignitor* and burnt one of the other out. i'd try swaping the coil out first, almost any honda coil will work. and if that doesnt work change the ignitor, i'll bet thats your problem. I have had a few of them going bad pulling spark plug wires off and them grounding out and putting to much load on it. I've even done it to an msd coil.

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

Thanks for the help

Re: Sea Foam. Argh! Ahh! Death! Destruction! What?
 

It also wouldn't hurt to pull the plugs and crank the engine a few times to blow out extra sea-foam. It may make a mess but should ensure your plugs not get wet again.