Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Hey All!

So, what kind of fuel injector cleaner would you all recommend?

Im asking so i can run some through my Saturn v6 (its a Honda engine), but i imagine it would also be good for boat engines too.

Hey Walt the best product I've found is Lucas. I use it in my bronco's, the Class C R.V all my autos yes and the pontoon. You can find it almost any where Wal-Mart, Napa auto supply ect. 1 gallon is about $ 31.00 or smaller bottles 8 oz about $ 4.00 great stuff.

I'm an AMSOIL man myself. Great fuel system cleaner in general.

I have used gumout products for years, before using the seafoam. The gumout is a little cheaper than the seafoam, although don't know if it deals with the water issue. I mainly use the mpg on the computer to show when I need to put it in. Those are my two main ones I use.
Had a guy that worked on my suv said he couldn't believe how clean the engine was for its age. So, I guess it work pretty well for the money. On the suv it only seem to vary about 2mpg though.
doc

I've used Lucas and Gummout before on my Silverado and GP. I dump a can of it in the Silverado on EVERY oil change, and the Throttle body is still clean as a wistle with 194,000 miles.

Thanks!
I poured a bottle of Lucas into the car and off i went!
Hopefully the engine will notice that i love it and run for a zillion miles with major work!

Yaa... riiiight.. heh

All the above are good, I use Techron in my stuff, most Auto Parts stores carry it. About every oil change is good!

Sea Foam

A lot of the auto techs like Techron and/or Seafoam. I use one or the other just before oil change.

Seafoam

Sea foam...use it in all my vehicles but switched to Startron Blue for winter storage in the boats.

out of curiousity what made you switch?

Last spring I had problems. My boat would start fine, idle fine then die when I gave it gas. Next trip, wouldn't idle but ran ok at mid-open throttle...took the carb apart and there was yellow debris inside (see my "Well there's your problem" thread). The fuel line had a plastic liner (suspiciously the same color as the debris in the carb) which had deteriorated (dunno if due to ethanol, the Seafoam or the combo) but I used Seafoam since the boat was new without problems. I checked in at the marina office to report what happened and they said they had about 100 out of 400 boats with similar issues, even a Coast Guard patrol boat (didn't matter whether people used street gas or marina gas).

The owner said he recommended Startron, winter and summer. Nothing else. Last fall, I put Startron in the last tank of the year and ran it dry...well see what happens this year. I'm de-winterizing the boats next week.

I filed an insurance claim with Boat US and the adjuster said it was a widespread problem last spring. My claim was paid (carb, fuel line, fuel pump was replaced).

Not blaming the Seafoam, I suspect the fuel hose wasn't ethanol safe (not Mercruiser's fault, whoever installed the motor apparently used the wrong fuel hose). The replacement hose had no liner of any kind.

Here's the thread I mentioned above:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2284&hilit=problem+fuel+line

And apparently Seafoam is an alcohol based additive, which many of us didn't know until just recently. So, although it's a great injector/throttle body/fuel/valve cleaner, it's probably not the best thing to winterize your 10% alcohol fuel. So, I switched this year for my other toys to Startron, but I was too late to do my boat. I'll find out in a couple of weeks if it's OK.