Carbon Cleaning with Walnut Blasting

[Rawze]

You mentioned "The engineers over at BMW have figured out away" --- IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE A STATEMENT FROM BMW CORPORATE THEMSELVES!!! -- NOT SOME STEALERSHIP OR OFTER-MARKET CRAP SPAM POST JUNK OFF ANOTHER FORUM.

The only benefit I can see to sandblasting (walnut shell or otherwise) to improve efficiency in an engine, would be to clean out the carbon buildup in the intake BEFORE the valves ONLY IF you have had long term excess soot problems combined with neglect. Not to do some elaborate thing to try to clean out the inside of the cylinders themselves. ISX engines just like other EGR engine DO GET carbon buildup in the intake manifold all the way up to the valves in the head when they have long term soot problems. Doing a thorough job of removing the intake manifold, IFSM, ECM, and everything else in the way, gaining access to the intake valves at the head, then sand-blasting them with a soft material to remove all the carbon and soot buildup, if it is bad, would NOT be a bad thing as long as someone was careful to NOT blast cylinders with open valves. I.E. remioving all the rockers to ensure all valves are closed.

This would also mean that the engine had to have suffered excess soot problems in the intake for a long time. Lack of proper EGR maintenance, EGR cooler leaking and making buildup, etc. --- But this leads to a better solution...

I would consider sand-blasting the intake to an engine an extreme measure with risk, to be done ONLY AFTER long term excess abuse and neglect has set in,.. and NOT some elaborate gimmik as they claim on all the Internet sites to "improve fuel mileage" kind of crap! -- I have seen some engines, especially behind the ECM mounting plate and gasket get large amounts of carbon and soot buildup around cylinder #1 and #2, especially, that had reduced air flow,.. but it was ONLY BECAUSE of severe long term neglect, long term soot problems,.. and/or long term EGR cooler leaking problems.

It sounds like a very elaborate thing to go through to get rid of excess soot build-up in the intake,.. when solving the problems correctly by fixing THE EXCESS SOOT PROBLEMS would still be the proper way to keep problems like that from happening. ALSO, usually, by solving the soot problems,.. The intake will clean itself up all on its own after a while anyways. This is due to the normal processes of air and moisture going into the engine as it runs.