Valve cover breather tubes with baffles?

[2QUIK6]

Anyone make a valve cover breather tube for the drivers side that has some baffling in it? Or even for the passenger side pushin one?

I have one from Johns Performance for the DS, its about 2 inches tall where the breather pushes in, and I'm tired of oil dripping out of the filter and onto the wiring loom then it gets all over the place from there.

On the PS side, the one behind the turbo has oil coming out of it too all over the front of the motor, but its not as bad.

 

[TurboBuickSix]

It sounds like the real problem is excessive blow by.You should do a leakdown and or compression test at this point then go from there.The baffle-less breathers seem to work ok for others including myself with no oil drips or mess.

 

[2QUIK6]

I can see the edge of the rocker arm just below the breather, it appears that its slinging oil up the tube. Compression appears to be fairly equal across all cylinders, I did that first thinking that might be an issue, but all are around 115-130. But also, this did not start happening until I started running 25# of boost, and only happens at the track. Did not have this problem before when I ran the stock turbo and could only run about 21# of boost so it could be blow-by only when running that much boost, but then it dripps and runs down for a day or 2 after that making a mess.

 

[TurboBuickSix]

It's unlikely the rocker is the culprit.115 sounds low and it is a little more than 10% away from the 130 cylinder.You are right about the boost level causing more blowby,you have a hell of alot more to compress when under 25 psi of boost.The blowby will increase with cyl pressure.I would either do so more investigating and rebuild if necessary,OR you could keep the boost at a sane level for now until you can afford to get it right.Another thing some guys do is hook a pressure gauge to the dipstick tube and look at the pressure there when under boost to verify if it is blowby causing the pressure but I'm not sure if this is a good method.If you have other buick folks in your area let them have a look and get their opinion,sometime we need to hear it from someone else to believe that such a PITA thing has occured,good luck,I hope it works out for you and I might be wrong but I don't think that is the case.

 

[2QUIK6]

I've got access to a dyno, so I'll watch it when its on the dyno to see how bad it starts puffing. There's oil all inside the filter and the tube caught in all the little grooves in the tube. I'll make a lite pull with the filter off and I should be able to see if oil is being splashed up or forced out by pressure.
My TTA will sling oil out the tube if the filter is not on it, but its a lot shorter tube, only about an inch, and it will sling it out by just revving it in idle, and the tube is more straight up and down rather than at the 30 degree angle or so the GN one sits at, so there is no place for the oil to drip except on the wiring loom beside the DS valve cover.

 

[V6POWER]

Is your pcv valve working?

 

[stickybones]

I made my own baffle for the breather tube out of a lip balm container. Works like a charm.

I'd insert an image of it, but for some reason I can't...today. Not sure why sometimes I can post an attachment and other times I can't. Oh well, if you want to see it, send me an email and I'll send it to you.

Mike

 

[2QUIK6]

I have a check valve in-line with the PVC and a catch-can between the check valve and PVC, never a single drop in the catch-can.
Mike, I think I get the picture, take a hardened plastic container that will just fit in the tube from the top but not slide out the bottom, and cut a few fine slots in it, then slip the filter back on the top of the tube......is that what you did?

When I got home I started it up, and revved it a few times up to only about 3k rpms and oil is flying off the rockers everywhere down in that tube. You'd be surprised how much oil can come up thru the push rods, I'm fairly certain at 4800 rpms it would be sloppin up that little short tube since there no baffling at all on it.
The motor hasn't been raced that much until recently and its got less than 55k on it orignally and I've owned it for 13 years, so I don't think there's going to be a rebuild for that.

 

[stickybones]

Originally posted by 2QUIK6
Mike, I think I get the picture, take a hardened plastic container that will just fit in the tube from the top but not slide out the bottom, and cut a few fine slots in it, then slip the filter back on the top of the tube......is that what you did?

Yup. Except I drilled holes and not slots. Just don't drill a hole in the center. Drill them on the periphery.

Funny, I have a catch can setup too, and mine pulls alot of junk out. Seems more gasoline like than oil. Maybe I'm running too rich.

 

[2QUIK6]

Originally posted by stickybones
Funny, I have a catch can setup too, and mine pulls alot of junk out. Seems more gasoline like than oil. Maybe I'm running too rich.

I have one also on my LT4 motor in my truck, and it fills up about every 2k miles, and the contents is real milky, not pure looking oil, well I opened it up the other day when it was real cool out, and it had a bunch of condensation inside it, so the water condensation in the can and in the vac lines is mixing with the oil giving it that coffee/cream looking color.

 

[stickybones]

That’s kinda the way mine looks too. A thin brownish milky like liquid. I briefly thought it might be a lot of moisture/condensation, but it smells gasoline like and if it was water, wouldn’t the oil/gas contaminants separate out? Mine doesn’t. Even after sitting a while, it’s still the same brown homogeneous liquid.

 

[2QUIK6]

Not sure why the water doesn't separate, I'm guessing its how it gets mixed together with alot of tiny air bubbles mixed in with it.
Kind of like if you've ever seen the oil drained out of a motor that got water in it. I don't see how gas could get mixed in with it since the fuel is injected right at the valves there should not be any way it could make its way back up thru the intake runners and out the PVC vac line to the catch-can when air is flowing the opposite way under a vaccum, or under boost conditions unless it is back-firing. The only other way for gas to make it there would be from leaking thru the piston rings, which would dry wash the cylinder walls in no time and you would have lots of other problems because all that gas would be mixed with the oil before being sucked up into the PVC, and your oil would be very thin and not have much lubricating properties left.

I guess as an experiment you could mix a tiny amount of water with some larger amount of oil, and stick it in the blender and see how it comes out and if it separates Don't tell the wife about the blender

 

[2QWIK4U]

Anyone got a pic they can post?

 

[stickybones]

Originally posted by 2QWIK4U
Anyone got a pic they can post?

A picture of what?