nathanacura
Active member
I walnut blasted my intake ports in the head last night. Basic instructions and tool list(this is for a different car, but good info): https://www.northamericanmotoring.c...ning-dyi-walnut-shell-blasting-ss-3-27-13.pdf
Under $70 to buy everything needed.
I used my phone to confirm closed valves(1-3 were closed and 4 open by chance). I scraped with a screw driver and vacuumed it out and then walnut blasted. Probably 2-3 min with the screw driver and maybe 3-5min blasting on each port and they came out nearly spotless. Use the phone camera to verify almost all of the walnut is out of the port and then tape it up and go to the next. Access back there is terrible, just trying to get the blaster with a shortened tip is a total PITA but it works out.
I cleaned my intake by soaking it in a bucket of "industrial purple" degreaser mixed maybe 6:1 with water, which is lye based. Alternated soak and spraying with a spray nozzle with a bit of screw driver work on the stubborn bits. Lye is fine on aluminum if you don't use super concentrated or soak for days. Lye can eat aluminum but it takes maybe 1.5kg of lye to eat 1kg of aluminum. There isn't much lye in a solution like I made and it was mostly busy eating the carbon and oil. I got some light black powder residue on the aluminum in the end, which cleaned up easy.
While I was in there I fed a tube down the egr port in the exhaust manifold and soaked the turbo vanes, which were completely stuck, in lye based over cleaner. Turn the turbo, work the lever, repeat until the lever moved freely then I put a new actuator on it.
All told, it is like a whole new car. No more smoke at startup(it billowed before) and more power almost everywhere. I wanted to post before and after picture of one of the ports ... but I can't figure out how since it requires a URL for the pic ...
Under $70 to buy everything needed.
I used my phone to confirm closed valves(1-3 were closed and 4 open by chance). I scraped with a screw driver and vacuumed it out and then walnut blasted. Probably 2-3 min with the screw driver and maybe 3-5min blasting on each port and they came out nearly spotless. Use the phone camera to verify almost all of the walnut is out of the port and then tape it up and go to the next. Access back there is terrible, just trying to get the blaster with a shortened tip is a total PITA but it works out.
I cleaned my intake by soaking it in a bucket of "industrial purple" degreaser mixed maybe 6:1 with water, which is lye based. Alternated soak and spraying with a spray nozzle with a bit of screw driver work on the stubborn bits. Lye is fine on aluminum if you don't use super concentrated or soak for days. Lye can eat aluminum but it takes maybe 1.5kg of lye to eat 1kg of aluminum. There isn't much lye in a solution like I made and it was mostly busy eating the carbon and oil. I got some light black powder residue on the aluminum in the end, which cleaned up easy.
While I was in there I fed a tube down the egr port in the exhaust manifold and soaked the turbo vanes, which were completely stuck, in lye based over cleaner. Turn the turbo, work the lever, repeat until the lever moved freely then I put a new actuator on it.
All told, it is like a whole new car. No more smoke at startup(it billowed before) and more power almost everywhere. I wanted to post before and after picture of one of the ports ... but I can't figure out how since it requires a URL for the pic ...
