Script Won't Set Permissions with Wildcard - powershell

Question

I have a PowerShell script that I wrote to create a subfolder "Admin", if it doesn't already exist, in over 4000 folders in a shared directory. After creating the subfolders I need the permissions of the subfolders to only be for a specific group within the domain. I get no errors, other than the folder already exist errors on the subfolder, but I let the script run for 12 hours and it never completed. I stopped the script to find that all the Admin subfolders were created but the permissions were not set.
If I take out the * wildcard in the $folder add input a folder name it works perfectly. How can I get it work with the * wildcard so I don't have to manually enter over 4000 folder names?
Here is my script:
# If the folder for Equipment Images does not exist, make a new one and set the correct permissions.
$Location = "E:\Images\Equipment\*\"
$file = "E:\Images\Equipment\*\Admin"
foreach ($_ in (Get-ChildItem E:\Images\Equipment\*\)) {
if (($_.PSIsContainer -AND $_.name -eq "Admin")-eq $false) {
New-Item -Path $location -Name "Admin" -ItemType directory
$errorActionPreference = "continue"
}
$folder = "E:\Images\Equipment\*\Admin"
$acl = Get-Acl $folder
if ($acl.AreAccessRulesProtected) {
$acl.Access | % {$acl.purgeaccessrules($_.IdentityReference)}
} else {
$isProtected = $true
$preserveInheritance = $false
$acl.SetAccessRuleProtection($isProtected, $preserveInheritance)
}
$account = "recoequip\folder sales group"
$rights = [System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemRights]::FullControl
$inheritance = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit,ObjectInherit"
$propagation = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]::None
$allowdeny = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]::Allow
$dirACE = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule ($account,$rights,$inheritance,$propagation,$allowdeny)
$ACL.AddAccessRule($dirACE)
Set-Acl -aclobject $ACL -Path $folder
Write-Host $folder Permissions added
}

Answer 1

Just don't use the wildcard with any Acl cmdlets, I don't think that will work.
Set the permission on a single folder in the loop before, or if you have to do it later, just loop through all the folders and set the permissions on all admin folders individually, one by one.
Some tips:
Start with a small sub-set of the 400 folders for testing, and Write-Host the currently processed folder so you can see the progress.
Code sample:
Get-ChildItem E:\Images\Equipment\ -Directory -Filter "admin" -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
$acl = Get-Acl $_.FullName
... # do your permission stuff
}