Excellent!

Not blast. JW would not blast mine, nor put them in his BFPW (large parts washer). I cleaned them by hand, drilled and pulled two of the aluminum plugs and cleaned the gunk out of the spray bars. I recommend that.

Just to add to whats been said.
I used to work for a machine shop, the only parts allowed in the blaster were heads, sheet metal, small wheels, and cylinders only if they were to be sent out to have there walls reconditioned afterwards (and even then we had to double up the inner walls with duct tape for safety).
Parts that went into the large heated washer was everything in terms of the engine. (ours was filtered)

I didn't know Porsche supplied them. But I am a bit puzzled as to how well they fit. I have had to adjust the diameter by as much as 0.003" to get the proper fit.

These are in our catalog:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/911M/POR_911M_enginC_pg3.htm#item8

-Wayne

wouldn't blasting your cam towers do damage to the area that the rocker bolts pass through? how about future oil leaks as well, like where the rocker covers meet the cam tower etc, surely blasting them would f--k the surface and give you leaks? to be honest i want to blast as many bits as i can coz im lazy and it looks great but i only want to blast the bits that don't get hurt (and i dont want any oil leaks!) so will it bring oil leaks?

This is what I ended up doing. I bought the plugs for the oil lines. Had my machine shop drill them out. I disassembled and cleaned the cam towers by hand. My thumbs are very sore. The metal does not look as nice as a blasted part but it is clean and free of debris. I used scotch brite pads, brake cleaner and an assortment of wire brushes. I bought some welding clean up brushes (brass) from Home Depot and some gun cleaning brushes from Walmart. The gun smithing brushes came in very useful cleaning the bolt holes, removing loctite and dirt. I used the 12, 20, 28 and 410 guage brushes.
I'm still having a time finding a brush that will fit in the oil line. So far all I've done is use compressed air through it.
When I finish, I will have about 6 hours into cleaning the cam towers, not nearly what was put into the case cleaning. However, I feel it was an important process as the cam towers and I have "bonded".

How about pipe cleaner for the oil line ?

so hand cleaning is goin to do the job but is it acceptable to blast if you are TOTALLY thorough with your cleaning, and is there any areas that you need to protect from the blast media?

When the engine is assembled the cam carriers are almost invisible. The risk to benefit ratio of bead blasting wouldn't seem to be worth it just to indulge ones compulsive tendencies. Lets face it, the cams carrier isn't going to work any better if it looks nice.
-Chris

good point chris, maybe im getting a bit too worried about exterior looks of something that is ultimately going to be covered up.

It depends, glass beads as opposed to sand is much more forgiving to metal surfaces like aluminum. Of course you never what to blast at something that's precisely machined to fit something else. But you can vary the pressure, therefore weakening the speed that the beads travel at, and control where it points. The main reason not to blast cam towers are those oil lines that are built in to them, glass beads mixed with oil is not what you want spraying onto your cams, lifter, and valves. And what sucks about glass blasting is that unless what you are blasting are like heads where every corner of the head is accessible by some sort of cleaning method, then there will be some left over glass somewhere. The stuff seems to find it's way into places that you may not have noticed before.

soundslike it aint worth it.