What is Walnut Shell Blasting?

Walnut Shell Blasting involves "shooting" a mixture of compressed air and Walnut Shells into the Intake Ports to clean carbon deposits and buildup that occurs slowly over time on the Intake Valves. It is considered a scheduled maintenance service that is required only on Engines that have Fuel systems known as Direct Injection (or DI). Many vehicle makes and manufacturers have modern vehicles that are Direct Injection which would also require this cleaning at a specified interval, not just BMWs.

Modern day BMW's all use Direct Injection Fuel Systems - which as the name implies allows fuel to be “directly injecting” into the cylinder combustion chamber. This enables the vehicle to be much more gas efficient, make more power with lower octane fuels, and allows manufacturers to meet efficiency requirements. While it provides many benefits, one specific drawback of the Direct Injection style Fuel system is that the Intake Valves are not cleaned with fuel or detergents. It creates the need for a Walnut Shell Blasting cleaning as a scheduled maintenance which should be performed regularly. If you have a Stock or Tuned vehicle and this service has yet to be completed - it would certainly be a good idea to get it taken care of!

 

Do you have any Videos to better explain the Before & After Results?

Yeah, we sure do! We are confident in our results on every car that gets this service performed in our Shop. Here are some Before & After Video Results of a Client with a 2008 BMW 335i with the N54 Engine. This vehicle had 60K on a Stock Vehicle prior to this service being performed. The After results clearly show the Intake Valves and the dramatic difference with the Walnut Shell Blasting Service. We see this here visually, but this is also felt with power, response and gas mileage.

Before Cleaning:

After Cleaning:

 

How Often Do I Need Walnut Shell Blasting?

The service should be completed based on a balance of how the car was driven as well as modifications during this time. If the vehicle is completely stock, then the Walnut Shell Blasting Service should be completed as a scheduled maintenance service every 50K miles. With elevated heat cycling and levels with a modified or tuned vehicle - the need for the scheduled maintenance service becomes more important to be completed every 30-40K miles depending on use within this time. Many owners have more mileage than these recommendations, previous owners responsible for a large amount of mileage, or even drive the vehicles lightly. Any of these circumstances may call for slightly different intervals and if you have any specific questions in this regard please feel free to reach out to us directly and ask. We are happy to answer any questions specific to your application.

What are Symptoms of a Vehicle that Requires a Walnut Shell Blasting?

• Car is due for scheduled maintanance cleaning (Every ~30-40K Tuned and Every 50K Stock)

• Vehicle has Misfires in One or more Cylinders

• Rough Idle (May occur during Idle or Cold Start)

• Car has sluggish response overall

What is the Cost of Walnut Shell Blasting?

The Walnut Shell Blasting Service costs $300 and includes Replacement of the OEM BMW Intake Manifold Gaskets during the service. This price is for BMW N54 and N55 Engines.

*For other Makes and models such as VW, Audi, Mini Cooper, Diesel models, etc please inquire and give us a call for accurate pricing.

What is the Difference between Speed Logic and the Other Shops offering Walnut Shell Blasting?

Experience and Quality. With regard to Experience, we have performed over 400+ Walnut Shell Blastings for Enthusiasts within the Southern California area and beyond. On the other hand, don't let the number of cars we have Walnut Shell Blasted fool you. We take our time and treat every car as if it is our own - during cleaning and also careful reassembly. We simply won't reassemble the car unless it looks like one of the videos on this post. And we mean it! We have hundreds of videos we are happy to share to prove this is not an anomaly. Every single car that comes through our doors for this service gets cleaned with this expectation. Lastly, since we didn't answer the question directly - go ahead and answer it yourself by taking a look or asking for end results of those Other Shops? We promise our work is unmatched by any other Shop in this regard - not to mention we have the videos to PROVE it and are happy to do so