It has been a while, but I drove the car a bit into December, and it has sat untouched until a week ago. I have a list of projects to tackle on it in the coming weeks, and one of them is to finally do something better/different with my crankcase pressure and annoying oil leaks.
For the past 4 years that this engine has been in the car, it has somehow survived on the terrible setup of having a breather in the passenger side valve cover and an elbow with a 3/8" I.D. hose coming out of the drivers side valve cover and necking down to a tiny 3/16" I.D. vacuum port built into the sniper throttle body. Time to be done with that.
Current:
Best solution would be a mechanical belt driven vacuum pump and all that goes with it, but I don't have the $1300 for that plus then I would want to redo alternator, power steering pump and brackets, which is far beyond budget. Research showed that electric vacuum pumps can be hit-or-miss and a wide range of success-fullness on street/strip cars, but I am going that route. I am going to use a catch can also, and hope to keep the price tag for the entirety of the project around $250. I currently already bought the catch can $105 and an ebay Ford pump $62 and some cheap 1 way check valves, so I think its realistic. This also doesn't have to be the best configuration possible either, thats not my goal; it just has to do better than my existing setup.
Here's the plan that I hop to make work for my car.
- baffles in both valve covers (done)
- both valve covers to get a rubber or rubberized plastic 90* elbow that fits in the 1.22" valve cover hole
- a rubber line off each valve cover (3/8" diameter or 1/2" diameter hose) angled slightly uphill to a Tee-Y
- a 1-way check valve in the 1/2" rubber line after the T and the next 5 feet of line will travel downhill
- Racetronix sealed catch-tank #CT1L8GS. Plug up breather in cap. Use stainless-steel thick wool as media
- the other ports int eh tank will be plugged and sealed tight, except a 1/2" port with a hose to the air pump. tank to be located in
the drivers side front corner of engine bay.
- will need to adapt 1/2" hose to 5/8" I.D. hose for Ford Pump XR32-9A486-AA, CX-1718_
this pump will be powered by a relay and tied to my ignition fuse block. The Ford pumps have been known to
pull a steady 4 or 5 inches of vacuum and some people have had great luck with them. I think I have to solder
some wires inside of it and take out the foam guts too. If these pumps fail, they dont lock-up which means
the wheel can spool and keep venting crankcase pressure until I notice the issue. pump to be mounted either directly
underneath catchcan, by front turn signal of drivers side or passenger side . not sure yet.
- exit hose (5/8" I.D.) will come off of the pump and point to a safe spot under the center of the car in case of
massive oil discharge.
A few quick questions:
- does the height of the components really matter that much. I could see it being more of a factor if it was a vented breather style can or a catchcan only, but should I be worried about any of this uphill/downhill nonsense if I have an electric motor pulling vacuum on it?
- Longer runs of hose is better right, allows hot oil mist to cool to oil droplets in the hose along a long distance? In total it looks like about 5.5 feet of distance from pass valve cover to travel to the location where I want the catch tank.
