Sea Foam Auto & Marine Additive (Guest Review)
by Duane Richards

I bought my first small outboard engine this past year. As with many other fisherman, price versus use was a concern. I elected to buy a used 4.5 hp from one of the River Smallies.com regulars. I only use this engine at certain times and places, therefore, it gets very light to moderate use. After running the engine a few different times, I noticed a significant loss of power as the engine warmed. I spoke to many people concerning the problem and repairs, but most responses were mechanical failure in the fuel or cooling system.

My father is a member of a striped bass club here in Virginia and has owned many boats/engines over the years. This striped bass club does quite a bit of trolling, which involves running engines all day long at times, especially when the fish go into lockjaw mode. Anyway, I spoke to my father about the power loss problems on my small outboard and he immediately told me to buy a product called “Sea Foam”. Sea Foam is an auto and marine fuel/oil additive tune-up type product that the striper club uses in all their engines on a regular basis. Simply add it to your fuel/oil mixture at around 1 oz. per gallon of fuel if no problems exist with your engine. If you do have a problem like I did, use twice that amount.

I added it to my fuel expecting just about nothing. I have never seen any additive type product that really did much at all, just to be honest. This time it did! I have been running my engine this past week, sometimes for 6 hours at a time without even shutting it down, and you know what? It runs and starts like a sewing machine since I added the Sea Foam. It took about a gallon of treated fuel run through the engine to fix the power loss problem. At $5.50 to $7.00 for a 16 oz. bottle of Sea Foam, it was a very easy and inexpensive fix for my outboard.

This product is designed for the small and large engine world. Mowers, tillers, weed eaters, outboards, diesels, you name it. Sea Foam is an injector cleaner, carburetor cleaner, fuel stabilizer, de-icer with anti gel, upper cylinder lube, frees lifters and rings, and dries oil and fuel. Sound like a miracle product? Believe me, it sure was for me! My small engines from now on will surely be running Sea Foam in their tanks. If you have an engine that’s just not quite running up to par, this product just may save you some expensive repair bills, like it did for my engine.

Sea Foam can be purchased at most local lawn mower repair shops, some large chain stores in the fuel additive section, and many outboard repair outlets, or you can write to the manufacturer at:

Sea Foam Sales Co.
PO Box 5178
Hopkins, MN 55343-1178

Sea Foam may not be a “cure all” product for existing engine troubles, but the price is right, and it's surely worth a try.