Carbon Cleaning Tools

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

Hey guys, anyone ever try to modify the BMW walnut shell blasting tool for use on the V10? Seems like a much more efficient way to clean the valves. Anyone have the dimensions of our intake ports? Are they close to the BMW port sizes? Anyone make their own tool? I’ve been kicking around some ideas. Any one add an extension to their blaster to get down into the port better? Can you use a piece of copper pipe or will the walnut shells wear the pipe too quickly. SST pipe?

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/860017962.jpg

#2

When I got my project started I wanted to test a few different ways of cleaning the carbon.

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http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/404261076.jpg

This is what I did.

I found they both had their plus sides and negative sides. I’ll try to get my review of my thoughts on carbon cleaning in my build thread so I can give a better idea on what they both have to offer.

I know that’s not a ton of information. The entire carbon cleaning direction is very involved for each option.

#3

Thanks for the feedback. Appears you found the “hands on” approach to be easier. Don’t see any oven cleaner…
Is that one of the BMW blasting adaptors? Did you make the blasting wand or purchase? Appears you could make one out of a compression fitting and some tubing? Thanks for the info, look forward to more insight from your experience!

#4

I have been doing carbon cleans for a while and this is what I have learned from my experience.

  1. The dealerships use the old fashioned method with brake/carb cleaner, screw drivers, picks, and elbow grease.

  2. I started using walnut shells with a media blaster gun that was meant to be used inside a blast cabinet. It shot walnut shells all over the place. Using walnut shells takes off the surface layer of carbon that is loose but it helps to break the carbon up with screwdrivers, picks, and brushes then blast off the loose stuff. Next repeat until the port and valves are really clean.

The media blaster gun looks like this:

https://dccf75d8gej24.cloudfront.net/images/products/00/000510003/C20BB802-DA1C-466E-8616-C0DCC3D1AFF1-huge.jpg

  1. I recently got the Bavarian Auto Sport master kit for carbon cleaning. It comes with the different fittings for the different BMWs. There is a smaller fitting on the far right side (that my BMW friend said was for the N54) that fits the RS4 port that I am working on. I need to tape off the sides because the port is a little too big for the adaptor fitting but that is okay. To vacuum out the walnut shells you need a really big and strong vacuum like the 5 horsepower 16 gallon vacuum that I got from Home Depot. This should be a much cleaner and easier method than anything else that I have tried.


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#5

Great information, thanks. I tired using a very simple siphon blaster with fine, 25 grit walnut shells. The blaster has a ceramic tip that doesn’t allow me to get very close and wasn’t too effective, however I didn’t do the scrape down first. I built a simple fixture to for the vacuum intake to cover one port while I blast the other port, then rotate and do the other side. It’s working well to keep the media contained, just not getting the effect I would expect. Trying to figure out how to attach a smaller tube to the gun to concentrate the media. Will get some pictures together.

#6

Every time I have seen or worked with anyone trying to do blasting. It always seems to get everywhere. For the most control I found the soak and hand scrub works best for me. The big down side I always saw was the lack of control with blasting. Its hard to target the areas you want to clean.

#7

I agree. It would make a good episode on the show “Dirty Jobs” though.