I had been reading about the benefits of Seafoam on here and decided I'd give it a go on my new-to-me RX. The car had an oil dumping issue when I recently bought it. That issue's been resolved and you can see my post regarding it here: https://www.rx8club.com/new-member-f...elcome-271770/
I plan on taking in for a compression test soon and wanted to get it cleaned up first, partly due to said excessive oil dumping but mainly because I don't know much about its repair history.
Fast forward to this evening: I was installing new plugs and while I was at it decided to go ahead and Seafoam it. I used the method where Seafoam is sprayed directly into the leading plug ports. I had bought the Seafoam that comes with an extra-long straw so that, with the driver's side wheel off, access was quite easy. All was going quite well until my assistant bumped the starter while the straw was still in the #2 leading port. The straw got pulled right into the engine!!! Fortunately (can I even use that term at this point?} the straw was only partially pulled in. I was able to put a socket wrench on the crankshaft pulley bolt and, by turning the engine in the opposite direction, the straw was pushed right back out, intact. It appeared to be pinched in two places so I assume that it got across two apex seals. FWIW the extra long straw that came with the Seafoam is slightly smaller in diameter and softer than a standard application straw.
So... is the engine toast? I'm sure hoping the seals tolerated the unsolicited violation. Thoughts? (maybe hold back on the chastising and flaming. I know it was a stupid mistake).

 

The seals are steel and the straw is plastic, so I doubt any damage was done from this. Glad you got it out.

 

Thanks! I sure hope you're right. I just ordered a rental compression tester. Fingers crossed that both rotors read good!

 

Another thing to note is the apex seals are on springs. So its not going to cause the metal to bind and warp. Should be OK.

 

You should be fine but at the same time, I wouldn't bother with Seafoaming. It's more or less a last resort kind of thing that may or may not help, most likely not.

And in principle, Seafoam really mostly works on carbon deposit when your engine is running and gets very toasty.

 

Good point. I hadn't even thought about that. Thanks!

 

Well got the compression tester and confirmed that a rebuild is in order. I'm sure the above described incident had no bearing on the results though. Both rotors, all faces, numbers in the 80s (psi).

 

At what rpm?

 

Corrected for 250 using the RCTV5.2.