Intake Valve Cleaning/ Walnut Shell Blasting-Bay area - N54Tech.com

DV135i · **Intake Valve Cleaning/ Walnut Shell Blasting-Bay area -** 07-29-2013, 07:52 AM

New to the Bay Area and wondering if anyone knows of any good shops or techs that do this. I work for BMW of SF and they want to try and charge me $1150! In SoCal almost every place is charging anywhere between $300-$400. This $1150 is bs, and that's employee pricing.

Booyaazaa · 08-15-2013, 11:32 PM

Vargas TT in Hayward and Edgemotorworks in Dublin. I heard Vargas charges $400 for the blasting.

DV135i · 08-25-2013, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Booyaazaa

Vargas TT in Hayward and Edgemotorworks in Dublin. I heard Vargas charges $400 for the blasting.

Thanks! I'll check them out for sure

TSRxi · 11-12-2013, 11:31 AM

i tried vargas but he is too swamped to do it now. I ended up doing it myself. If anyone in the bay wants advice or to borrow my Walnut blaster set up PM me. you need a 7.5 CFM at 90PSI compressor to run this deal correctly. Shop vac.. You can filter and use the walnut media I have or $25 for new box. It takes about 5+ hours depending on how bad your valves are.. Mine were as bad as I have seen. worth doing.. night and day since I did it. way more power, no more misfires, smoother idles better. I will be using Amsoil powerfoam at least every 3-5k miles and get a Oil CC. see how it goes.

Booyaazaa · 11-27-2013, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TSRxi

i tried vargas but he is too swamped to do it now. I ended up doing it myself. If anyone in the bay wants advice or to borrow my Walnut blaster set up PM me. you need a 7.5 CFM at 90PSI compressor to run this deal correctly. Shop vac.. You can filter and use the walnut media I have or $25 for new box. It takes about 5+ hours depending on how bad your valves are.. Mine were as bad as I have seen. worth doing.. night and day since I did it. way more power, no more misfires, smoother idles better. I will be using Amsoil powerfoam at least every 3-5k miles and get a Oil CC. see how it goes.

Yeah VTT is pretty busy. I ended up going to P-tech 3 weeks ago and had them do a intake cleaning and had them install my bms occ since they were under the hood. Car feels good but that's expected when you've got new injectors, plugs, coils, oem turbos, and clean intake. Now time to get some DP's.

philipf22 · 01-22-2014, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TSRxi

i tried vargas but he is too swamped to do it now. I ended up doing it myself. If anyone in the bay wants advice or to borrow my Walnut blaster set up PM me. you need a 7.5 CFM at 90PSI compressor to run this deal correctly. Shop vac.. You can filter and use the walnut media I have or $25 for new box. It takes about 5+ hours depending on how bad your valves are.. Mine were as bad as I have seen. worth doing.. night and day since I did it. way more power, no more misfires, smoother idles better. I will be using Amsoil powerfoam at least every 3-5k miles and get a Oil CC. see how it goes.

I'm due. Would you be interested in doing this on other cars? I haven't done it before so I've got some concerns. It doesn't seem overly complicated but I'd prefer to have somebody teach me to fish (of course I'd pay you). Let me know. My 09 135 just turned 29k so it's due. I'm over in Danville.

TSRxi · **valves -** 01-22-2014, 11:03 PM

at 29k you may still be ok. I assume the 09 135 is an N54? Harbor Freight sells a scope for $69 that you can prob a few and take a look.

My tools and stuff I keep at my sisters in Dublin so not far from you. do you have a compressor that can flow 6+cfm? I can show you how to do it but at 29k miles you may want to scope them or wait a while.

black535xi · 01-23-2014, 07:34 AM

Would you be interestd in loaning the tools to do this for a small fee?

TSRxi · **tools -** 01-23-2014, 05:20 PM

Are you local in SF bay? Looks like your in the mid west. It really would not be worth it. Order the parts from Harbor Freight. See the pics i did the mod to their gun. Just go to Home depot and get the gun on their Media blast tool tube down to a 1/8 brass pipe (do not use any other metal as you can damage the head)

I got an radiator hose with a little s bend on either end and you need a 6.5+ CFM air compressor and a shop fac, some gun cleaning pick and about 5 hours. Most of the time is cleaning takes about 30 minutes min per cylinder depending on how bad your are. The stuff is so gummy. I found letting it sit with Carb cleaner for good hour helps. The walnut shells cannot get through some of the real gummy stuff.

Anyone local in the bay I can loan the stuff out and help you out with this. My tools home shop is in Dublin CA

TSRxi · **picture -** 01-23-2014, 05:30 PM

here are some pics. Lot of time with a gun dentist pick.. For the back side of the valves. I actually got them a lot more pretty than the pics at the end. As clean as any i have seen. Will use some Amsoil power foam every oil change now and get a OCC. Only takes about 30mins to get the intake off when you have done it once. We are lucky here in CA that "harness" that everyone complains about came off easy on mine.

jtrejo · 01-23-2014, 05:59 PM

dang that is gunky

Booyaazaa · 01-24-2014, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philipf22

I'm due. Would you be interested in doing this on other cars? I haven't done it before so I've got some concerns. It doesn't seem overly complicated but I'd prefer to have somebody teach me to fish (of course I'd pay you). Let me know. My 09 135 just turned 29k so it's due. I'm over in Danville.

Yeah you've got some time left till you would need the blasting. When P-tech did mine the intake didn't look that bad and that was at 66k miles. I'd wait till 50-60k miles before doing it.

Laurus_CEO · 06:01 PM

Hey guy I all the tools to do my own car and especially now that I no longer have a full time job would be happy do walnut blasting for you. I'm in the Bay Area, San Leandro to be exact and would be willing to perform this service for $250. I can also do valve cover gaskets, oil filter housing gaskets, oil changes, transmission fluid changes, coolant flushes and other routine maintenance as well as install any bolt-ons, suspension and tunes.

535Paul · 04-27-2017, 10:44 AM

Digging up an old post, but does anyone know of a walnut blasting place in Central CA or Bay Area?

TSRxi · **edgemotorworks -** 04-27-2017, 04:19 PM

call http://www.edgemotorworks.com/ in Dublin ca

they do it for about $800... Depends on how bad your valves are. I can do mine in about 4hrs if I move through it.

More a tedious job that hard technically

Banana Clipper · 05-02-2017, 11:36 AM

$800? Faaaaaawk

TSRxi · 05-02-2017, 12:59 PM

Most dealers charge $1500+ in the bay. There is a shop in Vallejo that does it for about $650. A lot if it depends on how bad your valves are. If you have never done it and are above 50k miles... its a major pain in the ass to do this. Its not as simple as just turning on the walnut blaster.. Each valve takes about 30min to do correctly. x 12 valves.... and that is someone that knows how to do it. Only takes about 30 min to get apart.....

Most dealer techs dont like to do this job.. hence the high price.