Paxton - oil catch can and plumbing

[crazyfast]

Getting some oil in the supercharger and charge cooler so I'm going to add a catch can into the system.

I'm trying to decide how to route the crank case breather lines.

The plan is to "T" the two valve cover breathers together and run them up to the catch can. The catch can will not be routed back into the intake.

Guess I have two questions;

1) Is the PCV valve still needed?

2) What are you guys using to plug the hole in the intake manifold?

 

[Viper X]

1) Is the PCV valve still needed?

Yes.

2) What are you guys using to plug the hole in the intake manifold?

No hole in intake manifold - keep the pcv. Oil gets into the air box (and into the supercharger) from the hose from one of the valve covers depending on the year of your car.

Send me your email and I'll send you a photo of the system that I use. Very effective and good looking. Parts avaialble from Exotic engine. Breathers on both valve covers go to catch can. PCV at rear of passenger side valve cover. Air box plugged. No more oil problems.

Dan

 

[Viper Specialty]

I have been using some new products, happen to be made by Moroso. It is a combination breather and separator, works GREAT. Internal baffle collects oil vapor, drips it right back into the valve cover. The top unscrews for cleaning if neccesary. They only come from Moroso in bare aluminum, I can Ano them in Red, Black, Silver, Yellow-gold, Purple, etc. (Note: location shown in pictures will not work without valve cover spacers, and may have interference issues with stock fuel rails... I generally mount them opposite of the oil cap on mostly stock engines)

Eliminates the PCV system altogether, good riddens. If I had a dollar for every teaspoon of oil I've pulled out of a manifold or burnt oil cake ive cleaned off piston tops.....

http://gallery.viperclub.org/data/500/57.JPG

 

[ILLSMOQ]

looks really good Daniel, the finish on the intake and cross bar looks nice, what looms are you using with your wires?

Are you going to be offering some sort of PCV elimination kit as well?

 

[Viper Specialty]

looks really good Daniel, the finish on the intake and cross bar looks nice, what looms are you using with your wires?

Are you going to be offering some sort of PCV elimination kit as well?

Thanks, appreciate it.

Which wiring are you refering to? Spark Plug, engine bay, something else in particular...?

Yes, I will probably throw a kit together in short order... its easy enough. Only issue would be the hole in the valve covers, best results by far with real machining Vs. a hole saw... I would have to offer a machining service, or offer complete new pre-machined valve covers... they look better anyways with the vents removed and plugged, etc.

 

[Nader]

I recently found oil at the front of my manifold when changing the throttle body. I posted this and heard that the PCV valve or crankcase(both) need vacuum from the intake to operate correctly. Dan can you give us some insight into this and how you deal with that?

 

[ILLSMOQ]

Some weekends we'll go do some back road high rpm driving. My car seems to eat up quite a bit of oil during these runs. I think the problem is made worse due to the fact that the breathers are at the back of the valve covers on my car (2004)

 

[Viper X]

This oil in the intake situation seems to be a common problem for both supercharged and N/A Vipers. I had serious issues with my 04 Paxton car (PCV at the rear of the valve covers) before I went to a good breather system. I had serious issues with my GTS too before the breathers where installed.

My 06 Coupe doens't seem to have any issues, yet ..... but the breathers are on the front of the valve covers. I'm not so confident that oil will stay out of the intake manifold under heavy braking.

My new breather systems are installed in the center of the valve covers much like the one that Daniel has shown pictures of except that instead of small vented "pots" and venting oil vapors there, oil vapors are contained in hoses and directed to a large catch can where they are vented. As stated above, this works very well.

Let's hope that the 2008 has a better system.

Dan

 

[Viper Specialty]

I recently found oil at the front of my manifold when changing the throttle body. I posted this and heard that the PCV valve or crankcase(both) need vacuum from the intake to operate correctly. Dan can you give us some insight into this and how you deal with that?

Yes, the PCV system needs vacuum to work correctly. The crank case does not need vacuum, however you definitely dont want any positive pressure (leaks). It is true you can pick up a few HP with some vacuum, however, a PCV system will NEVER do this anyway, as the only time it would matter is WOT, and there is no vacuum in the manifold to speak of at WOT anyway, maybe 1-2" tops... nill.

The PCV system is a tree-hugger solution, thats all. It keeps oil vapor out of the atmosphere, end of story, no other purpose. On the downside, this oil vapor can lower octane, it gets oil all over your intake system, and it cakes your combustion chambers over time. Its really best to get it off on these cars, especially if you are running on the track where the oil is being sloshed through the PCV system regularly. For reference, the manifold connects to one cover and to a metered orifice in the cover. The intake connects to the other side to a wide open port. This keeps crank case pressure close to zero with good flow-through, as the wide open intake side has no problem balancing out the pressure as it can flow much more. Connecting the hoses backwards is NOT good, it will put close to 20" of vacuum in the crank case at idle, and such in large quantities of oil under load.

In most Big Power cars, the solution is smple; disconnect the PCV hoses at the manifold, intake, and valve covers, plug all ports, and add some type of stand alone, separate breather system, and your done.

Another BIG issue is on cars with Paxton Blowers and some TT cars. The installers leave the PCV system, add a PCV valve to the Passenger side between the manifold and cover, and call it a day. Sure, this keeps manifold pressure from entering the crank case and causing a bigger issue, but its also one less place for crank case pressure to escape (on a system that by design already has more blow-by then stock!), increasing the flow through the single PCV hose left. this increases port velocity, carrying with it more oil, and those systems eat large quantities of oil through the front end of the system.

 

[Nader]

Dan you mention, "Its really best to get it off on these cars, especially if you are running on the track where the oil is being sloshed through the PCV system regularly." You talk about big horsepower cars, but what about us slightly modified cars? What are our options? I do track the car two or three times a year and was not happy with the oil i found in the intake.

 

[Viper Specialty]

Dan you mention, "Its really best to get it off on these cars, especially if you are running on the track where the oil is being sloshed through the PCV system regularly." You talk about big horsepower cars, but what about us slightly modified cars? What are our options? I do track the car two or three times a year and was not happy with the oil i found in the intake.

ANY Viper will benefit from ditching this system. Even a car ingesting a little at a time will eventually build up oil cake on the chambers thick enough to cause hot-spots. Big Power cars on the other hand, have no choice but to do it. their increased blow-by simply cannot be handled by the OEM PCV system without taking huge quantities of oil with it.

 

[crazyfast]

Same problem - same solution. You need to stop the hot oil mist from going back into your motor. I pulled my intake off the other day and there was oil in every port. The problem will be worse depending on how much time you spend in the higher RPMs...I've spent a lot of time there.

These guys have some nice breather systems, but for now I'm making my own. I've T'd the two valve cover breathers together and ran them to a catch can....we'll see how well that works out.

 

[Nader]

Dan do you have a system you sell to eliminate this problem?

 

[Viper Specialty]

Dan do you have a system you sell to eliminate this problem?

Yes, but it would require sending me your valve covers for machining, and if you want, the removal of the OEM hose connections. The location and number of the breathers in your case would depend on what is done to your engine.

 

[ILLSMOQ]

Wanted to revisit this. It seems most are either running the breather lines to a catch can venting to atmosphere or venting right out the valve covers.

Would there not be a benefit to pulling some vacuum from the valve covers? I'm thinking it would take some pressure off the seals.

I had two ideas for this.

Option 1 - Have one breather venting to atmosphere the other breather would run to a baffled catch can which would then go to the air box seeing vacuum from the supercharger.

Option 2 - Run both valve covers to a baffled catch can which would then go to the air box the same as option 2.

There may infact not be an appreciable amount of pressure in the crank case with the breather systems most are currently using so let me know if I'm trying to fix something that isn't broken.

 

[ILLSMOQ]

Thanks, appreciate it.

Which wiring are you refering to? Spark Plug, engine bay, something else in particular...?

I was refering to the spark plug wire looms....looks like you have AB's wires. I have them as well and had trouble making them fit in the factory looms.

 

[Viper Specialty]

I was refering to the spark plug wire looms....looks like you have AB's wires. I have them as well and had trouble making them fit in the factory looms.

Order up a set of Gen-2 looms, they will work with the aftermarket wires.