[mweisdorfer]

I just did my first walnut blasting. When my car had 87k on it, I did an old fashioned gun cleaning kit & intake cleaner scrub of the intake valves. 2 years later and maybe some change, I just completed a walnut blasting; the car now has 122k on it.

I will say the car does seem to get up to speed with much less effort. The acceleration seems smoother. Car overall does feel like it has a jump in it's step.

I did my research in procuring the parts needed to do the walnut blasting. I bought the aluminum cyclinder adapter and wand for $74.00 total (shipping might have been an additional $10.00) from BMW Fairfax, and I bought the sand blaster for $96.00 at Amazon. I bought 24# of 18-40 grit ground walnuts for about $40.00 on eBay, which included shipping.

So, total was $220.00 initial cost plus my time. Next time (in about two years), it will be about $40.00 and thats it. I plan on running the car to about the 200k mark before I get another 3 series.

The job was really dusty; more dusty than I expected. Clean up in the garage was not too much fun. My car needed a bath after this project. I did use a gasket pick to clean the carbon that mushroomed around the top of the valves, after I did an initial blast of each cyclinder. Once I loosened the carbon on top of the valves, the next round of blasting seemed to clear away all the excess carbon that collects on top of the valve. A little intake cleaner goes a long way too. You will need a good brass tooth brush type brush to clean up the carbon where the cyclinder adapter essentially covers up about 1 1/2" of carbon when it is inserted into the cyclinder. You dont need to blast for more than 5-6 seconds really. Also, I would recommend a shop vac that has at least 6 HP. My 1hp pancake air compressor did the trick. However, it would have been nice to have a more powerful one. This way I wouldnt have to wait in between blasting to make sure I had enought pressure. I blasted at 90psi, which is the max suggested on most internet sites I perused about walnut blasting. They say between 60-90psi. I sealed the valves by turning the crank with a 1/2 drive 22mm ratchet. Next time, I will buy a gadget that you hook up to the starter and press the button to rotate the valves. Its a pain the @ss to unbutton the bottom cover, take the fan out, FMIC out and the redo that process when your all done, just so you can turn the crank. The $29.99 gadget at ECS tuning for example is probably worth it all things considering.

Well thats my 2 cents - take it for what it is worth.......