DIFFERENT deep cleaning

[Don]

All of us here go to great pains to keep our cars clean. The paint, the engine, the interior, the inside of the throttle body & intake manifold, glass & fabric....WHOA, back up the boat...inside of the intake manifold? Yep.

Thanks to the Wild World of Wonder, otherwise known as the internet, I discovered something that has been in use on race cars for decades also has the benefit of keeping oil and water vapors, combustion by-products etc from entering your intake manifold, where they would get burned and turn into a burnt-on coating of carbon, which if left along can build up on valves, pistons, etc and cause problems.

With the help of a few dollars worth of materials, a catch can is quickly and easily made and voila, no more crud-filled air entering your engine. The collected waste oil is easily disposed of in the same container as your used engine oil (for recycling of course). And as a side benefit (in my case at least), I gained about 1.6 mpg (5.5%) the first tank of gas (steady-state highway driving).

Here is a pic of the type of setup I have, I posted this pic because it shows just how much gunk is collected during in about a week during the winter. It looks the way it does because of the increased amount of water vapor created in the winter

This is the setup that is like mine:



Here is a pic of my actual set up:



Yes, they are water separators from an air compressor, I used 5/8" brake line and rubber fuel line (rated for fuel injuection) on mine.

[roushstage2]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

I have seen those around, and have thought about doing that with my truck. Looks great!

[Don]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

I did a bunch of research (long live the free internet!!) before buying the parts & installing it and found that originally, cars had a 'dump tube' that would, like the name suggests, let the gunk dump out onto the ground, then they changed to the tube running into the airfilter housing with that piece of filter material that would get soaked with gunk, now they run the tubing straight into the intake manifold, where the stuff is drawn into the cylinders to be burned (as part of the supposed 'pollution-control' system).

The tighter tolerances of today's cars are a double-edged sword, they don't allow as much blow-by, but as you can see from the picture, there is still a significant amount, which which makes the tighter tolerances more susceptible to the effects of having burnt carbon deposits building up.

That stuff goes straight into the manifold and cylinders without filtering, so just imagine what all could be finding it's way into your engine and being deposited on the backs of the valves or being ground against the cylinder walls.

So IMHO, seeing as they are saying that every little bit helps in the fight against pollution, I think it is MUCH MORE Eco-friendly to collect the oil and add it to your used engine oil to be recycled, than it is to burn it and maybe reduce your MPG increasingly over time, affect the efficiency of your catalytic converter with the extra carbon deposits or let the fumes of the burning process escape into the air.

Or you could just look at it as a cheapo mod that looks cool.

[Jeepster04]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

So that filters out the air going through the PCV valve? My Jeep as a little piece of foam that filters out that stuff. I washed out the foam not long ago.





Some of our other Jeeps do not have that foam. The oil usually runs out of the pcv hose and ends up on the air filter. I think mine is the only one thats Ive seen with the foam.

[Don]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Here is a pic of an engine similar to mine:



The line outlined in yellow is the PCV line with a different filter set up than mine (this one is using an in-line gas filter, which is smaller and IMHO, less efficient. The hose outlined in yellow is the crankcase breather. It attaches to the intake before the throttle plate where there is little to no vacuum (compared to where the PCV hose attaches in the actual manifold).

Clean air is fed into the crankcase through the breather hose and dirty air is pulled out through the PCV valve. I have a 1996 Cherokee with the 4.0 L6 that has the same setup. All you have to do is look for the two lines coming out of the valve cover(s). The one that leads to the air filter box, or immediately before the throttle body is the fresh air feed. The one that leads from the valve cover to the intake manifold, or the very base of the throttle body is the PCV line and that's the one you connect the catch can to.

[Forever New]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Ive had a catch can in my turbo MR2 for about 4 or 5 years now. I know in the tuner community that a lot of people have them especially with any kind of forced induction motors.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Ive had a catch can in my turbo MR2 for about 4 or 5 years now. I know in the tuner community that a lot of people have them especially with any kind of forced induction motors.

They are very popular with Dodge SRT4 and Chrysler PT Cruiser GT owners (same engine in both cars). My PT Turbo has been sporting one for a few years now and it definitely catches the blow by from the PCV valve that would otherwise dump straight into the intake manifold.

Jeepster04, double check the lines on your engine. The 2.4L engine in the SRT4 and PT have a similar line feeding to the stock air box, but it's an air make up line, not the PCV line. That line is on the other side of our engines and doesn't go to the air box but rather directly to the intake manifold.

[Jeepster04]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

ooo, I understand now.

If you look on my oil filler neck you will see the PCV valve. It goes around to the back of the engine where it goes into the intake.

Do you need to do anything special to the water filter? It looks like you broke off the stuff on the inside of it in that first pic.

[Setec Astronomy]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Don, I think you've got things a little backwards in your explanation about the evolution of PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) systems. You say that originally there was a "dump tube" that would put this stuff on the ground. That's not really the way it was. Crankcases used to have a breather cap (this was usually the oil filler cap) which had some filter material in it. When you got piston blowby, instead of pressurizing the crankcase, the blowby gas would go out this breather cap. The filter material was there to prevent dust, etc. from getting in. Yes, they would get oily, and perhaps some cars dispensed with this and had a "dump tube" but I've never seen that.

With the advent of the Clean Air Act in 1968, this piston blowby, which contains plenty of hydrocarbons, had to be captured. The way this was done was connect intake vacuum to the crankcase, to draw the blowby back into the intake. To keep from creating a hard vacuum in the crankcase and aspirating engine oil into the intake, outside air was allowed to be drawn into the crankase through a breather line. So as not to bring dust and dirt into the crankcase, this breather line was equipped with a filter, as you noted, and was usually located in the air cleaner, so that if the system malfunctioned, the crankcase vapors would be drawn into the intake, rather than go to atmosphere. Because a direct porting would essentially be a large vacuum leak which would cause fuel mixture problems at the carburetor, including rough or erratic idle, a valve was developed (PCV valve) to modulate the vacuum.

Malfunctioning PCV valves or other vacuum leaks or blowby in excess of the system capacity would result in crankcase vapors being pushed into the air cleaner, along with oil, etc. I'd be curious to know how much of that "gunk" is really gas and water, rather than oil. I suspect in a well-maintained engine, that there is very little oil in that condensate.

[Don]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Don, I think you've got things a little backwards in your explanation about the evolution of PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) systems. You say that originally there was a "dump tube" that would put this stuff on the ground. That's not really the way it was. Crankcases used to have a breather cap (this was usually the oil filler cap) which had some filter material in it. When you got piston blowby, instead of pressurizing the crankcase, the blowby gas would go out this breather cap. The filter material was there to prevent dust, etc. from getting in. Yes, they would get oily, and perhaps some cars dispensed with this and had a "dump tube" but I've never seen that.

With the advent of the Clean Air Act in 1968, this piston blowby, which contains plenty of hydrocarbons, had to be captured. The way this was done was connect intake vacuum to the crankcase, to draw the blowby back into the intake. To keep from creating a hard vacuum in the crankcase and aspirating engine oil into the intake, outside air was allowed to be drawn into the crankase through a breather line. So as not to bring dust and dirt into the crankcase, this breather line was equipped with a filter, as you noted, and was usually located in the air cleaner, so that if the system malfunctioned, the crankcase vapors would be drawn into the intake, rather than go to atmosphere. Because a direct porting would essentially be a large vacuum leak which would cause fuel mixture problems at the carburetor, including rough or erratic idle, a valve was developed (PCV valve) to modulate the vacuum.

Malfunctioning PCV valves or other vacuum leaks or blowby in excess of the system capacity would result in crankcase vapors being pushed into the air cleaner, along with oil, etc. I'd be curious to know how much of that "gunk" is really gas and water, rather than oil. I suspect in a well-maintained engine, that there is very little oil in that condensate.

I know that in my case, while there is a small amount of water being collected (as evidenced by the whitish goo at the bottom of my catch tank) but the remainder of the collected material, based on consistancy, color, texture and primary odor is primarily oil.

The person who originally posted this pic stated

Here's how much goo it caught last week. Mind you, this is about twice as much as normal because of the colder weather. The can catches a lot of water lately because of that, that's why the goo is milky. Normally it is like oil.

What's in my can looks much more like this, with a very small amount of whitish goo at the very bottom.





As for me having it backwards...

Full Article here

Prior to the early 1960s, automobile gasoline engines ventilated directly to the atmosphere through a simple vent tube. Frequently this consisted of a pipe (the "road draft tube") that extended out from the crankcase down to the bottom of the engine compartment. The bottom of the pipe was open to the atmosphere, and was placed such that when the car was in motion a slight vacuum would be hopefully obtained, helping to extract combustion gases as they collected in the crankcase. Oil mist would also be discharged, resulting in an oily film being deposited in the middle of each travel lane on heavily-used roads. The system was not positive though, as gases could travel both ways, or not move at all, if conditions were just right. Modern diesel engines still use this type of system to dispose of crankcase fumes. During World War II however, a different type of crankcase ventilation had to be invented to allow tank engines to operate during deep fording operations, where the normal draft tube ventilator would have allowed water to enter the crankcase and destroy the engine. The PCV system and its control valve were invented to meet this need but the need for it on automobiles was not recognized.

I admit, I didn't know about it originally being developed for tanks.

Current PCV system (or reasonable facsimile)


Old 'Road Draft Tube system'

[Setec Astronomy]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

As for me having it backwards...

Well, clearly, I'm not old enough to know what I'm talking about.

Funnily enough, my sister had a car that had a cracked valve guide or head and used to blow so much oil into the air cleaner through the PCV intake that I had to route that hose into a jury-rigged "road draft tube system".

Thanks for the education; sorry about that.

[Don]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Well, clearly, I'm not old enough to know what I'm talking about. Thanks for the education; sorry about that.

I'm only 41 (Ok, Ok...almost 42), an age I used to think was ancient...actually, I still do whenever I think back about all the stuff I've done and gotten myself into. Besides, you weren't all that far off, you just didn't know about the pre-PCV era and I do have to admit, I had to GOOGLE 'PCV Emissions History' I just knew the very basic details...and that only because of the talk of the other guys when discussing the catch can topic.
As Mike says: "Each one, teach one"

Funnily enough, my sister had a car that had a cracked valve guide or head and used to blow so much oil into the air cleaner through the PCV intake that I had to route that hose into a jury-rigged "road draft tube system".

I like to think of it as a "James Bond oil slick generator"

[Setec Astronomy]

Re: DIFFERENT deep cleaning

Besides, you weren't all that far off

Well, thanks for trying to make me feel better, but I violated a tenet myself and a work colleague agreed on long ago, which is "the older you get, the more you realize you don't know" or "the more you learn, you realize the less you know"...or something like that, it was so long ago I can't remember exactly!