How NOT To Do Porting & Polishing

Via CarScoop (I’m really liking that site more and more) comes word from an Audi message board of a guy who went the cheap route in polishing and porting: he dumped sand into the intake.

I know, it’s probably (hopefully) a joke … but if not, it’s comedy gold.

His whole, 2 paragraph post after the jump (because I don’t want to take up all that space on the front page.

Hey guys, I’ve got a 98 1.8T. I’ve had a k04 and chip for a while and wanted to get more performance. I was recommended to port and polish the intake and exhaust. We found out they used abrasive material to do it like gritty sand. So I got with my friend that tunes Hondas and we decided to try it ourselves. We got a bag of sandblasting sand and hooked up into the intake and started the car. We had to hold the gas so it would run. He wanted to let the engine suck in the sand through the intake so it would port it out and then push it out the ehxaust so it would port the exhaust manifold.

I was worried that it might cause problems but he figured it’d be OK as long as we didn’t make boost and it get sucked in the turbo. After running the car and letting it suck in sand we got about half way through a 25 lb bag. The check engine light was on and the engine was bucking and kicking and sounding really weird. We stopped and hooked the car back up normal and took off the sand supply. We tried to start it again and it was really hard. Once started it couldn’t idle and kept making weird noises. We took it out and drove it and it started to make scraping and knocking noises.

Help! Can anyone tell me what to do! My buddy only does Hondas so he doesn’t know much about Audis.

What rock have you lot been living under exactly? This is ANCIENT!

well,i guess your friend doesnt know a damn thing about any kind of cars,let alone hondas! are you kidding me,you poured sand into you car’s heart and soul?
you dont deserve to have a car,or your drivers licence!

Your friend appears to be a unique tuner, he obviously has no fear of trying methods unknown to him so you could be on the way to getting some real performance figures out of this engine. All is not lost yet, try mixing some water with the sand so that is not course on the finnish. If it runs too smooth after this, remove the oil filler cap from the rocker cover and pour a mixture of grout over the camshaft to increase lobe lift. Allow to set over night. To ensure your new billet camshaft has cured, start engine cold in morning and hold @ 7200 rpm. for 1/2 hour.
NOTE: Dont attempt the above procedures yourself as it does require some mechanical knowledge get your Honda Technician on the job again.
Cheers.
Kind regards,
Daryl Black.