These are generally filled with a desiccant that removes moisture from the refrigerant. My buddy Tim Moore’s idea was to use an AC system’s large aluminum receiver/dryer canister. We got to thinking about this, and I think if you were handy, you could make your own vapor separator. Inside this separate is just some steel mesh that helps separate the oil from the vapor. Moroso makes a really nice aluminum air/oil separator that features a valve opening at the bottom to drain the collected oil. This can mean employing a vapor separator or catch can in between the PCV valve and the connection at the engine. Often, pulling a large volume of vapor out of the engine will also mean that inevitably some liquid oil will accompany the vapor. It allows you to custom tailor the amount of vapor pulled from the engine. This is M/E Wagner’s billet aluminum and adjustable PCV valve. The valve is not inexpensive but it will certainly do the job. Matt and his dad Gene designed a PCV valve that is adjustable, allowing the end user to create the ideal amount of ventilation through the engine. This might seem an odd thing to do but engineer Matt Wagner discovered that many PCV valves really don’t do their job. We ran across a small company called M/E Wagner Performance out of Pennsylvania that sells an adjustable billet aluminum PCV valve. It might take experimenting with several PCV valves to find one that actually works well. This assumes that the PCV valve is doing its job. This creates a full circuit that will purge combustion vapors out of the crankcase. So the system pulls a small amount of vacuum from the intake manifold, past the PCV valve and pulls in fresh air from the air cleaner. On the opposite valve cover, a PCV valve is routed with a hose over to manifold vacuum source – often found on the back side of the carburetor. Most factory systems route a line from inside the air cleaner to an opening in the valve cover. It starts with a filtered, fresh air inlet. With a baffle in place, the routing of the PCV valve circuit is important. Without a baffle, a good PCV valve will pull liquid oil directly into the engine which is obviously not good. There should always be a small housing or vapor separator chamber between the PCV valve and the open portion of the valve cover. Often pulling too much can be caused by how the PCV valve is positioned in the valve cover. If the PCV valve pulls too much oil, this can be worse than not pulling enough. It’s also possible for a PCV valve to work too well. The idea is great but sometimes these valves just don’t work, or if they do, they do the barest minimum job of pulling engine vapor from the crankcase. But today, the valve has been consolidated to perhaps a few dozen applications. Its job was to direct a measured amount of vacuum from the intake manifold into the crankcase, pulling oil vapor into the intake manifold where the oil was burned.Īt one time there were probably hundreds of different PCV valves – all specific to individual engines. The very first emissions device was the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) valve. If you look at old photos of the freeways in Los Angeles from the early ‘60s, you will see a black stripe of oil centered in each lane from the oil dumped on the road from these road draft tubes. Let’s start with a quick review of what the PCV system is and how it works.īefore 1962, cars merely dumped crankcase vapors overboard. Often, it’s just a matter of getting the car to perform the way you want. Not everybody is concerned with peak horsepower. Jeff Smith: Sometimes the smallest details can make a big difference in a daily driver. I was thinking of buying one of those big oil separators. But even with a piece of cloth (it’s just an old sock!) around that big breather, it still drips oil on my valve covers. I had a PCV valve on the engine, but at highway speeds it would sometimes push out the dip stick so I removed it and just put a big breather on the valve cover. I have a 472-cubic-inch engine in my ’69 Cadillac and I have a problem with oil vapor covering my nice new aluminum valve covers.
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