Valve cover breather installed..

[SC2150]

Here is a good link to understand diesel oil analysis:

http://www.polarislabs1.com/technical-bulletins.php

[STINGER BEE]

Have you encountered a crankcase oil smell with the oil cap filter.I just installed mine and I am getting this nauseated oil smell plus soot residue on the rear splash guards/quarter panels and rear end. Is this common with this filter installed.

Originally Posted by topgun1

Sure Ssooch! here you go, just a few reasons:


Pressure Control
Valve cover breathers prevent pressure from developing in the crankcase. They also promote air circulation in the crankcase, preventing oil temperatures from rising.

Engine Durability
A crankcase with persistent high pressure levels can place a considerable amount of strain on an engine. A valve cover breather works to preserve the functionality and durability of an engine by controlling the pressure levels.

Oil Maintenance
If the oil in a vehicle is heated and reaches damaging temperatures, it can quickly become burnt and dirty, requiring it to be changed more often. Valve cover breathers help keep oil stabilized and clean by regulating its temperature.


...and it looks cool

[Moreno1]

Originally Posted by SC2150

Because you are sucking up dirt, dust, water, sand, and everything else that gets kicked up from the road directly into your motor. Open your hood and look at the amount of sand, dust, and dirt that accumulates on your engine cover. That is a fraction of what your sucking directly into your motor. I've seen some new motors destroyed in as little as a year with this mod done by a well know traveling tuner that does this on LS motors, or it may take several years. But ingesting dirt directly into the valve cover is about as quick of a way to destroy the motor as any.

Read this white paper to fulley understand just how the PCV system works & has evolved from the primitive days of the 30's/40's to today:

Understanding PCV Systems

To understand why we need a proper PCV system one must understand what takes place in the crankcase during the average day of driving. First off, all internal combustion engines have a certain amount of "blow-by" or leakage past the piston rings into the crankcase. This consists of several compounds such as unburnt fuel and a small amount of the combustion gasses that result from the explosion of the air/fuel mixture. The combustion gasses contain several nasty things including sulfuric acid, carbon particles, and other caustic compounds that will contaminate the oil over time. In the crankcase there is also a certain amount of water, or moisture from condensation. Even if never run, an engine will accumulate moisture from the heat of the day to the coolness of the evening depending on how humid the climate is where the motor lives. Every time the motor gets run up to operating temperature these compounds are "gassed off" and with the OEM system it all gets "flushed" or pulled into the intake manifold where it is mixed with the intake air charge and burned in the combustion process and further in the catalytic converter before it is exhausted into the air as mostly just water vapor at that time. Now of course, a small amount keeps leaking past the rings into the crankcase and completes the cycle all over again, but without a proper vacuum pulled ventilation system....these nasty compounds will break down the oil and reduce its protection properties and the corrosive aspects start to rust internal parts resulting in reduced engine life.

In the "old days" of our grandfathers, the engineers that designed engines new the importance of evacuating these nasty compounds and the design was extremely simple. First was nothing more than plain breathers to allow excess crankcase pressure to be released or vented. But the damage from not "flushing" all the gasses out resulted in very short engine life (of course the oils of that day were nothing like the protection today's synthetics provide) so the next change added a vent tube, or evacuation tube that ran from the top of the crankcase to low on the car where the air streaming past would create a suction, or vacuum that would pull the vapors out and vent them directly into the air with a breather (barely filtered with a wire mesh type media that was oiled to catch dust & dirt) allowing the "fresh" makeup air in to complete the flushing process. Now this resulted in greatly increased engine life, but as the motors got worn oil would start to drip out the tube and drip onto the roadways, then the rain would wash it into the ditches, where it would enter the ground water (you know the rest of the EPA story) and the gasses just vented to the air.

As the EPA and the powers that be mandated stricter emission laws the system was refined more and more ultimately evolving into what we have today. A completely sealed system that uses the vacuum provided by the intake manifold to draw these vapors out, and the filtered fresh makeup air is drawn from the main air intake system and filtered by the main air filter. This results in very clean emissions, but the unintended issues are the detonation or "knock" that occurs when oil is introduced into the combustion chamber that the knock sensors pick up (before we can hear it) and pull timing to protect the engine from damage, and thus reduced power. Another result is the carbon buildup on the valves & piston tops (any techs reading this can surely verify the amount) also resulting in decreased performance and less power made.

The purpose of a proper oil separating catch can is to route these gasses through a baffle system that provides the most contact possible with the outer surface resulting in the oil being trapped and removed from the other gasses that do continue on through the intake and are burnt and consumed. It does NOTHING else in ANY way to the engine oil itself....it can't.

Deleting your PCV system:


While this will insure NO oil the the intake tract via the PCV, it will greatly shorten the life of your engine if street driven. The worst example I have seen is to cap off all the fittings and run an open hose from each valve cover to near the ground. One would think “they are both releasing pressure, so what can it hurt”. The answer is plenty. Lets take the basic principle of the Venturi effect. Whip a piece of hose around in a circle so that air rushes past the end. This will result in suction from the end of the hose near the center of the radius. Now with a car traveling down the road at speed, both hose will have air traveling past the ends and one ultimately will have more air rushing past thus creating more suction, and the other will them become a vacuum tube sucking up dust, dirt, water, sand, etc. directly into the engine from the side with the least suction. Depending on the amount of dust & dirt on the roads you travel (just look under your hood to see all the sand & dust that accumulates on the engine exterior). So it may take years to destroy your engine this way, or it may take no time at all. To see this if you have been misguided into doing this just remove each valve cover, and looking up into the baffle in each you will see the accumulated dirt built up as it comes in contact with the oil.


Now, addressing the "Home Depot" oil separator, it will and does catch a small amount of the oil but the majority still gets past into the intake (we used these and then the other cans that popped up on the market through the years before designing the ultimate final product that is offered today) and the reasons are simple:

It is plastic and transfers heat very inefficiently so very little condensing takes place.

The size. Anything less than 1 qt capacity and there is not enough surface area to be as functional, and the volume needs to be enough to allow the flow to slow enough for the oil to drop out of suspension.

And the lack of an effective baffle system allow oil to be pulled directly through.

As for having steel wool or another type of filter media inside, this will work well at first to trap oil....but as soon as it gets saturated droplets are pulled off and into the intake.

Why don't the auto manufacturers incorporate something similar? Cost and the added maintenance was deemed something that would NOT be accepted by the general market. (even though it is as simple as draining the can at each oil change).

Bottom line is this: The OEM system does a great job of meeting emission standards and removing the harmful contaminants, but the unintended consequences are the oil that is drawn into the intake charge. For an engine to produce the maximum amount of energy per explosion (of the A/F in the combustion chamber) you want air & fuel only....any amount of oil in this mix will hamper the explosion resulting in less energy released, detonation, and carbon buildup. Trapping and removing this oil before it gets into the combustion chamber is the ONLY solution to maintaining the maximum efficiency and prevent excess carbon buildup.

I'm sure you had no idea the consequences of your mod, but hopefully this will help others from making the same mistake. The breather is not to release excess crankcase pressure except at extreme WOT operation. It is to provide clean, fresh, filtered make up air to the crankcase as the vacuum drawn combustion byproducts are drawn, or "flushed" out.

Good info! thanks

[topgun1]

took mine off a while back stinger bee!

[IOM Black Diamond]

Wow a lot of good info in this thread

[rberns]

This kind of ties into a Catch Can. I bought an RX CC and was thinking about doing this breather, but from hearing people on this forum and one of the guys in our club who had their rear main seal start to leak after installing the breather has made me think twice about getting it. However, I am not sure if RX has re-engineered the valves in the breather or CC to prevent this from occuring.

[IndeedSS1]

You really should check your fuel trims as well. Even with the check valve, it does change them by a few percent.

[DCC1464]

Originally Posted by rberns

This kind of ties into a Catch Can. I bought an RX CC and was thinking about doing this breather, but from hearing people on this forum and one of the guys in our club who had their rear main seal start to leak after installing the breather has made me think twice about getting it. However, I am not sure if RX has re-engineered the valves in the breather or CC to prevent this from occuring.

For what is worth, almost(would say 100% but cant really confirm that!) all of the people that have/had issues related to the CC/breathers were caused by faulty installs. I've been running a CC w/ breather for around 8k now and havent had one issue (minus a bad o-ring seal on my breather but that was my fault.). These are a good product that do help, keeping engine cleaner by evac'ing the crap with a more easy flowing air sorce and prevents a oil back flow under WOT through the fresh air tube into the manifold (main reason i picked this up). The only down side to this is that it does infact alter your MPG due to the fact that now your fresh air sorce is no long monitored by the MAF causing the ECU to incress the AFR to compensate , but i only noticed about 0.2-0.5 MPG drop. So take this for what you want but i will recommend this to anyone who drives "aggresively" as a preventive mod.

[Jose]

IMO, it just looks cool, that's it.

[Higgs Boson]

Originally Posted by rberns

This kind of ties into a Catch Can. I bought an RX CC and was thinking about doing this breather, but from hearing people on this forum and one of the guys in our club who had their rear main seal start to leak after installing the breather has made me think twice about getting it. However, I am not sure if RX has re-engineered the valves in the breather or CC to prevent this from occuring.

Maybe if they capped off/closed/sealed their PCV system and installed only a breather, especially if it has a check valve.... just adding a breather to a functional PCV system is not going to do anything except help the crankcase breathe better. if you install one with the correct check valve it will only help the crankcase exhale better, which is what you want.

[SC2150]

if installed correctly there can be no leaks......with over 10,000 of these sold and installed in every type of application possible we have no issues, but some have hooked them up backwards and had issues.

With a V8 you may need to T both the valley cover vent and the rear of the drivers side valve cover if the fixed orfices have become clogged due to gunk build-up.

And yes, the RX flow controlling checkvalved breather will still alter the short term fuel trims a few percent but way within the acceptable parameters where an open breather will skew all over the place.