Oil Catch Can, Eliminate that knock!

I have to empty my can about every month/ 1000 miles in the winter of its oil/gas/water cappuccino.

Then I can go the entire summer without emptying it until fall arrives.

 

I just got mine installed with a new PCV valve this weekend. Curious to see how this compares to my 2009 Corolla S Turbo OCC. I also cleaned out the intake manifold. I need to still clean the EGR cooler and install new Denso iridium plugs.

 

Maybe we can tackle this together, although I’m overseas for a couple of weeks so it’ll have to wait.

 

My occ has a spigot on the bottom that’s made of metal. You twist to loosen and tighten, it has a small leak and contents will drain out into the canned veggie that Raytheeagle gave me to mount the occ inside. The veggie can serves as an overflow if there’s too much in the occ itself. There’s been no CEL for vacuum leak....yet. I can even feed a vacuum nossle hose down to the veggie can and vacuum the overflow out so technically I never have to empty the occ at all.

 

The Moroso can comes with a Fumoto style tap on the bottom, plus a spigot. Very impressive, but takes up a lot of room. With mounting bracket on the lower beam I need to raise the can for the spigot to not be bumping into the undercover. I'm slightly concerned too, that it might snag on something someday, under cover or not.

It occurs to me that I manage to change the oil on the car by just backing out a drain bolt. Accordingly, after next drain, I might take off all this:



And sub this, 3/8" NPT brass plug:


Maybe a little anti-seize on the threads to help seal.

All the fittings on the can are 3/8" NPT, a tapered thread that gets progressively tighter as you turn. For the elbows at top I find teflon tape good, both because it seals, and because being somewhat compressible, it allows you to fine tune the elbow position more; the I-can't-tighten-this-any-more point is more of a soft landing with several turns of teflon tape.

Oh, and that's times two: two cans thus, lol.

 

Would you consider replacing the drain with a Fumoto Oil drain valve(quick drain), one on each unit? If they functioned properly then perhaps a round cutout in the bottom cover at each valve to make draining a breeze.

 

Why not place it in the bracket so that the bracket holds the top of the catch can, instead of the bottom? Then you can empty it by just unscrewing the base of the can.

 

Hey fellas, here's an idea for a CC that would be bigger than the Moroso but much cheaper and easily serviceable. Look at the Motorguard M30. It's big enough to put a roll of toiletpaper in as a filter element. My idea would be to remove the filter element, and remove one half of the center tube - they pop out. Turn it upside down so that you can unscrew the base and remove the accumulated fluid.

This should be enough capacity to last for an oil change.



Edit: I have a spare M30 at home I can take pictures if anyone's interested

 

Any input on what the max potential CFM coming from the PCV might be?

 

Yeah I'm thinking of that too. I only have so much slack in the hoses, for dropping it down. Mostly it's a belts and braces thing, I like to have multiple easements. I do want take it out completely, say every couple of years, clean the wheaties.

My worst case cc's per mile is through winter, about 100 cc per 4000 kms. It seems to vary with different applications though; some are getting a lot more?

 

My bad, meant the total potential volume of gases in cubic feet per minute being passed through the PCV system.

Of course some engines could be more or less worn than others, but a rough idea will help with sizing separators by flow.

 

so BREATHER or NOT BREATHER for the prius?

I read through the first few pages and could not find an answer. looking online It seems like one of the drawbacks of the breather is a decrease in pressure, is this really a problem?

 

Non-breather.

 

no breather, you want all the negative pressure to suck the oil fumes out of the crankcase /

 

Ditto, non-breather. I think the usual terminology is "vented", for searching.

 

It is, youre volunteering for a check engine light and be referenced to vacuum leak.

 

The whole point of a PCV is to prevent venting of noxious fumes into the air. Clean air is important. We breathe the stuff all day long.

 

When I first installed my Moroso can, I managed to leave it's drain tap open, essentially making it a vented OCC. Drove around the block, thought it sounded kinda weird, the lightbulb went on, I closed the tap (had to take the engine underpanel off once again...), and another drive: back to normal sounds. So a vented can definitely does do something, does a number on it.

The weird thing was: the drain tap open or closed, there is a nearly air-tight cap over the end of the spigot. Even so it sounded weird. I can imagine without that cap it would have been more noticeable. Basically a vacuum leak?

 

I feel the oil can should be placed at the same height or lower than the PCV valve. instead of the proposed location by many in this forum.

The reason being is perhaps premature failure of PCV valve by either the long travel of oil against gravity. The hose is long enough already (about 30 times more than the original) and the oil has to travel along the path against gravity.

Now, my understanding is that there might be enough vacuum to suck up all the oil but what happens when the car stops and you have 3 feet of hose with oil pressing against the PCV valve.

please correct me if I am wrong with my train of thought on this issue.

 

Nope, I placed it low on our 2010.

Why risk additional back pressure against the check calve if you don't need to.

The I beam placement works well as a knock out pot, which is what I wanted.