84Riceeater

iTrader: (1)

I bought a used endyne catch can just want to share my thoughts on a oil drain return in this location. Would the port be big enough? I don't know how quickly this would fill up. My b18a ls-vtec build I'll be running a turbonetics T3/T04E-50E.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

there's a huge catch can thread in this forum, I suggest you read it.

drainbacks in general are horrible because you're letting blowby vapors moisture, and other contaminants drain right back into the crankcase. this causes rapid oil degradation, oil dilution, and depending on how much blowby you have it can lead to bearing damage.

don't drainback, vent the can to atmosphere and manually drain the can into a bottle.

$MIKE$

iTrader: (13)

i recently just changed mine so it doesn't drain back.

in my catch can there is a lot of nasty **** i don't want going back into my motor,

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

^exactly.

once you drain your catch can into a clear bottle and see all of the **** in it the last thing you'll want to do is drain it back into your motor.

of course what your catch can traps depends on how well made it is. high quality catch cans have baffles and stainless steel wool type media in them to separate the vapors and other contaminants out of the air before it's vented to atmosphere through the filter. your catch can should also have a high quality cleanable, reusable filter like a K&N or a stainless dry mesh filter.

you can tell how well your catch can removes vapor from the air by checking the inside of the filter for any signs of oil staining.

For example here's a can from Sheepey Inc.



it has internal baffling and media to further separate out oil and water vapors as well as a high flow reusable K&N filter. this allows for maximum airflow and air velocity through the catch can system which can further help reduce crankcase pressure.

I might end up fabbing my own can with horizontal baffles with the inlets at the bottom. this way the air has to move up around the baffles through the internal separation media while gravity causes the captured vapors to drip to the bottom of the can.

each baffle will be at an angle with perforations at the bottom of each end so all of the vapor leaves the media. the area under the inlets will taper at an angle to a single low point with a single an fitting on the bottom which leads to a section of braided line with a male an fitting on the end with one of those an fitting block off/storage caps. this way I can easily drain the can so I can monitor blowby quantity and the smell/appearance of what comes out of the can. Never use a petcock... they have a tendency to leak from the start or will eventually leak and excessive vibrations/chassis movement can crack them open slightly. no one likes when people leak fluids on the track, whether it's drag racing or road racing.

if you must run a petcock for whatever reason make sure you safety wire it to something so it can't open. we do this the radiator drain petcocks on all of our cars from street cars to track cars and have never had an issue with them opening on their own. it's cheap insurance to make sure you don't start leaking coolant and/or oil everywhere

the manual drain is also useful because you can collect a sample to send to an oil analysis lab to see what exactly is in the blowby and in what quantities. it's also useful to analyze side by side with a used oil sample collected at the same time to gauge engine health, efficiency, and if you are using the proper oil for your application (oil quality, viscosity, if the additives are at suitable levels/the oil contains the proper additives for the application, as well as the overall condition of the oil after xxxx miles, after any hard or spirited driving like at the track, etc)

it really allows you to get a true picture of the health of your motor and if any issues need to be addressed or if some area of the drivetrain needs to be corrected or modified.

turbomaniac

i agree better not to return it to your inlet.

catch can with a good filter is the best solution like wantboost's pic.

$MIKE$

iTrader: (13)

Catch can from 2 track passes and some street pulls almost a half quart.
I have an 10 blocks off for the two bottom ports on my asp battery catch can

Mind you this is a fresh oil change less than 20 miles

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Yea that is mostly moisture from the crankcase along with anything the seeped past the rings.

that does not need to be put back into the crankcase. until the oil reaches at least 200F it wont begin to burn off any of the moisture and other contaminants in the oil. putting that much water back into the crankcase could easily dilute it and cause the viscosity to drop.

turbomaniac

i see water to your oil, or what?

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

There's always moisture in the crankcase until the oil reaches at least 200F. the water and other contaminants burn or boil off so the water leaves the block as steam and then recondenses in the catchcan as water.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Also OP the location you want to have the drainback plumbed to is too high. the catch cannot be mounted high enough for it to work, the line has to be nearly vertical, any dip or nearly horizontal line won't drain adequately as the drainback contents will stay in the line. also that port is too small.

you need to use one of the 2 larger block plugs. Most put a tee in one of the breather lines to the can, the drain attaches to the tee and under vacuum the can drains.

the prelude fittings have an inner diameter that is too small. Tue velocity of the air and fluid moving through the fittings is so high that it draws a vacuum and sucks engine oil into the can and a lot of it. this is a common problem.

you need to run two -an10 lines on the block ports like the kit goautoworks offers. it has two -an10 fittings that thread into the OEM block plug ports and it has an o ringed aluminum plug to blockoff the OEM black box port. these fittings have a large enough diameter where they won't suck up oil.

the 2 block fittings are adequate enough for most crankcase ventilation setups. you could run two fittings off the valve cover if you wanted but I feel that unless you're running high boost pressures/power levels that 2 ports are sufficient.

also the block is the most efficient place to ventilate the crankcase from. the oil drainback ports in the head are fairly small and wouldn't adequately vent the block if only the valve cover was being used to ventilate the motor.

diatibe24

Is there a measurable way to tell if your catch can set up is doing adequate ventilation? Meaning the measure isn't just symptomatic of engine observation/behavior. Could you hook some kind of pressure gauge up to your vent lines and obtain a measure that way? (Not saying that is a way to do it but using that as an example)

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Most run a pressure sensor in the crankcase. monitoring pressure in the lines won't work because it will always be higher due to the small cross section of the lines.

monitoring the crankcase directly is the best way to gauge ventilation performance. a well ventilated crankcase will be at 0psi. the only way to pull a vacuum in the crankcase is by use of an external vacuum pump or running a dry sump oiling system.

turbohatch96y7

iTrader: (15)

I had mine draining for 6 months.
No issues.

So im guessing You think there's no condensation in your motors to begin with?

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Oh no there is but once the crankcase oil reaches a minimum of 200F all of that moisture and condensation boils off out of the oil.

the main issue is that the blowby gasses contain all sorts of caustic substances and contaminants that can degrade oil quality.

the moisture and these gasses are collected by the catchcan and they condense back into liquids. namely water.

it's just not good to be constantly reintroducing these substances back into the crankcase. once the oil gets up to temp and you dump a bunch of water back into it, it not only causes a drop in oil temp and a slight loss of viscosity but the oil then has to climb back to 200F and boil off al of the water again, depending on how hot the oil is when the drainback empties the can it can even cause the water to flash over into steam inside the crankcase.

we had this issue on our road course z06. Even though we have a super efficient motor when our catch can was setup as a drainback we would see the drop in oil temps and what not along with quicker oil degradation, not good on a race car. given that we operate mostly at wot for periods longer than any drag car or street car would see we had above normal catchcan volume

Let me tell you that dry sump systems don't like to suck up water in oil. when we designed our atmospheric dry sump oil tank vent can we designed it to be manual drain only. this can then collected any water that boiled off the oil and kept it there along with any blowby gasses. since in a dry sump system there is no oil in the crankcase, it all sits in the tank till it goes through the motor. this is why we could design the vent can to retain water. dry sump systems physically pull a vacuum in the crankcase so any blowby was sucked up by the pump then enters the tank where it to boils off and gets trapped by the vent tank never to reenter the crankcase.

this then allowed us to have our crankcase catchcan drainback because all it was catching was oil vapors. this simply caught the last bit of oil vapor floating around in the upper part of the crankcase, cylinder heads, and lifter valley.

we've seen a slight power increase, improved crankcase vacuum, as well as much more consistent oil temps and improved oil life.

since wet sump engines keep the oil inside the crankcase you can't run a dual can system and any catch can needs to be of the manual drain type to keep from constantly putting these contaminants back into the crankcase.

at least that's my opinion. you just have to remember to drain it. I was pit chief for a guy who had a gnarly 800hp c6 z06 circuit car and he kept complaining that under hard g forces that the car would lose power and smoke. he had a manual drain catch can and I asked him if he ever emptied it.. his reply "you have to drain it?"

so I removed it and drained almost 20oz of the nastiest oil/water milkshake and carbon **** you've ever seen. turns out the can was so full that it passed the baffles and under hard g forces the motor would actually suck this **** out of the can and into the motor. once I drained it the world was a better place.

turbohatch96y7

iTrader: (15)

So in a stock motor this isn't a problem why?

lostforawhile

On this point, another reason to run a good thermostatic valve with any oil cooler you run, I run a fail safe style derale type, oil is always in the cooler, but when the valve is open, it takes the easy path through the thermostat, cooler is fine as long as the oil reaches the minimum temp

lostforawhile

I designed a crankcase evacuation system using both the PCV and a header evacuation system, both work best at different rpm's so compliment each other, I built a baffled can and used check valves to only allow a vacuum on the can,no back flow through the pcv valve. as far as ball valves leaking, you can get high quality ones that require a lift to turn motion, they can't move them selves out of the closed position. I'll let you know how well it works after I get this up and running, after I went through all this, I discovered road and track had designed a similar system way back in the 70's, and it's already been proven to work. as far as the baffling material, I would be very concerned about using steel wool as tiny pieces could end up back in the engine under a vacuum condition, A lot of people have suggested those plastic bath scrunchie things, strange but true, lots of area to capture oil, and any pieces wouldn't do damage

turbohatch96y7

iTrader: (15)

I put like 10 falufas in my catch can

TravisBiggie

I was in a pickle this myself about a year ago. Once I saw the sludge that goes into the catch can, I decided not to do a drain back. I put a valve on the bottom of my catch can which is connected to a hose, which runs down to the bottom of the chassis. Whenever I want It drained, I just open the valve, and wala, emptied.

lostforawhile

what about those positive lock oil drain valves? use one of those for the drain line when you empty it

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Because with a stock na motor there's a pcv valve with a vacuum line to the intake manifold. the engine produces a vacuum in the crankcase and any water that evaporates and blowby gasses are sucked into the motor and burned up during the combustion process.

the pcv valve system is rendered useless on a boosted motor

turbohatch96y7

iTrader: (15)

Good idea spilling oil all over the place.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

The problem with the exhaust slash cut method is that on OBD1 cars it increases emissions output and depending on the health of the motor it could lead to a failed emissions test.

lostforawhile

I have an 86 Accord, lol, no emissions left, no converter, nothing like it, would have had an obd 1/2 computer on the original carb anyway lol. It's got lots of old school performance goodies on it now

lostforawhile

the issue with this, is under a number of conditions, mainly WOT crank case vacuum goes to zero, and all the blowby builds a positive pressure which forces blowby out the breather as positive pressure, this is why on emissions cars they wont let you run an open breather filter, and it has to be routed back to the intake. if you combine this with a crankcase evacuation system, under wOT you get plenty of vacuum from the system. A catch can needs to be in there anyway to keep all the crap from going back into the intake