Vapor blasting engine parts?
 

I'm not sure I have a question or a story, maybe a warning...

What do you guys think of this newish type of media blasting?
Its glass beads in water, they say that it doesn't embed itself into the material.
Aluminium look like new after being blasted, the pores closes up and gives it a dirt resistant finish. Looks brilliant! Popular in the air cooled bike world, really cleans up the fins on heads and cylinders.
But....

A friend of mine bought a newly assembled engine, by an old professional, but this cleaning method is pretty and not spread around here.
Apparently the engine parts was blasted somewhere in the UK by a customer, the parts was assembled by the builder for the customer, but the engine ended up selling to my friend.
It lasted a whooping 1000 km (625 miles in the units of your old masters ;) ) then it seized.
The last bearings in the cam housings very rough, the oil there feels gritty. The number 2 (or 5) conrod was almost seized to the crank, very rough bearings and gritty. Cylinders and pistons scratched (mostly pistons). Almost everywhere there is abnormal wear.

Would this be typical damage of a media blasted engine?

It's definitely possible that the blasting could have caused it. But someone who knows what they are doing wouldn't force the nozzle on any parts of the engine that could force debris inside.

In all honesty, I WISH I had it where I live. It is GREAT on suspension components and other places that pick up a lot of road debris.

I thought about have some engine and tranny parts vapor blasted, then thought differently when I read about it and realized there it's not just vapor. I didn't want to risk getting media in any crevices where it might be a pain to clean.

Could be operator error, but the water/glass sludge flows everywhere....

I agree its awesome on suspension parts and like an assembled gearbox where you can block off the vent.
I definitely getting it done to some cruddy trailing arms I got laying around.

vapor clean
 

I have cleaned an engine case with it.I used small swatches of Gorilla Duct tape to mask off oil holes and small rubber plugs for the case through bolt holes.I just did the outside though.When finished had the machine shop remove the main oil galley plugs and clean in wash tank with heat and spray.Next a few hours in Peter Dawes big ultrasonic cleaner.I have run it and have no worries.Just have to cross the T,s and dot the I,s.

It can leave glass beads, especially in any sort of crevice/hole. It doesn't seem to get trapped in the pores of the metal as much but a good cleaning is definitely needed after vapour blasting.

CO2 is what you want