I had to post this since I went through the effort to email a copy to my buddy about this discussion.
Personally I won’t use the stuff myself (not anymore), I only use seafoam for storage, I have used a little in the past, but Seafoam has all the benefits and None of the negitives. Yamaha says I NEED to use Ringfree (R) (Yamaha product) in every single tank of gas, to keep carbon deposites to a minimum, seafoam Does the same job, as ringfree and it’s also a fuel stabilizer for upto 2 years. Not to mention I’m not sure about stabil or ringfree but Seafoam is made from a light oil and will not reduce oil’s capacity to lubracate, in esssence you can’t really use too much. The Arguement between ringfree vs. seafoam, is Ringfree says it treats 10 gallons with an ouce of ringfree, seafoam says it’s good “upto” 25 gallons, on a 16 ounce can, some say 1 ounce of seafoam is enough and works as well as ringfree. I myself go with my own mix, I go 1 can per fill up, figuring I have a 37 gallon tank in my boat, figuring that I rarely run my tank all that low, I don’t actually recall puitting more than 25 gallons in at any given point, normally I put in around 15 gallons, I figure at minimum I have of what seafoam reccomends and at 16 ounces versus 4 ounces (of ringfree)added I have much more decarbonizer than in the gas than ringfree. Hard to say exactly if 1 ounce of seafom is as good as one ounce of ring free, but I really suspect it is pretty close, giving me more fuel treatment per tank. at about the same cost. Ringfree is about $15 give or take last time I bought some, for 16 ounces, about a buck per 10 gal, seafoam is in the 4-5 range if you find it decently priced, so cost wise my method is a wash. My motor also has an Oxygen sensor, so it’s extra touchy with carbon build up, I’ve heard the claim that the leading cause of outboard motor failure is carbon build up, so running these products should only do you good. People have taken out their Oxygen sensors and cleaned them, by letting the sit and soak in staight ringfree and straight seafoam, people said the seafoam soaked ones clean up easier and faster, Leading to the idea that seafoam may actually be a bit superior to ringfree in carbon cleaning power, not real scientific but anyways.
So all that being said your timing is impecable, ran across another product today, damn near stopped at the store to pick some up, but I’ll probably do a little more reseach before I run it, main issue for me is lubracation, I want to make sure this product wouldn’t harm or effect it. But here it is http://www.starbrite.com/productdetail.cfm?ID=1537&ProductCat=Marine&ProductSCat=Gas%20and%20Diesel%20Additives&ProductSSCat=Startron%20Gas Apparently the “deisel” version is the same stuff twice as strong.
Merc also makes their product Quickleen which appears to work just as good as ringfree, lots of people swear by that also, Haven’t use it myself, but like Ringfree I don’t think it actually stabilzes the gas either, which again is a big reason I go with seafoam.
Anyways this is what’s rolling around in my head, from what I’ve come up with from reading and doing some “research”. I still run ringfree a couple times a year, incase it happened to be a bit better.
-Nick
