Rocker cover breathers

[Soul]

Forgive me in advance - I don't know tooooo much about the SR20 yet (I'm learning!)....

The rear breather (hiding in the top right corner of this photo)

Is shot to hell at the bottom.

At the same time the foam breather thingy in this photo

is also perished.

Would you just replace the rear one with another stock one?

What do people do with that one above my turbo?

I've seen various setups with both joined together going to a catch can, but not sure of the relative merits of the different options.

Cheers!

 

[JDM_virgin]

Id be installing a catch can- its neat and simple and also helps to get rid of the oil vapours instead of putting them back into your inlet to be burned off. You can use normal fuel spec hose with jubilee clips or go the whole hog and use braided lines with AN fittings. Looking at your engine bay and setup I'd be doing the braided AN approach

 

[sibbers]

The breather round the back looks like maybe the EGR pipe? Is it actually connected to anything? Most people that take an engine out and put it back in again block it and don't bother using it. Unless I'm wrong about it being the EGR pipe...

 

[Soul]

It goes from the rocker cover down to the block so it was connected.

I've seen photos were people take all these breather pipes and connect them together into a catch can, but I've also seen various threads saying this is a bad idea :S

So I'm pretty confused right now .......

 

[Soul]

Like this for example

 

[sibbers]

Here you go mate.

http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?578587-To-PCV-or-to-not-PCV&highlight=rocker+breathers

I think that it makes little difference, but you might want a catch can because it looks good and means there is nothing but clean air going in to your engine (even on boost you inlet will have some oil and vapour that is residual) but it's significance is likely to be minor. The engine bay in the pic above looks pretty amazing. He's even cut out convenient holes to check his tyre depth more easily!

 

[Soul]

That thread is where I got that photo

I still wasn't sure of the best route having read it. If the rear pipe is just a breather between block and rocker cover does it make sense to just leave that one alone as it's not going into my inlet?

It would be the other one I highlighted and any on the other side that I'd want to catch can?

How do you fit AN fittings to the breather outlets? (I've never used AN before)

 

[sibbers]

I have no idea what an AN fitting is, soz dude. The breathers that go to the catch can are any that don't go into the plenum, so the one at the front and the one opposite at the rear of the inlet cam but I'm pretty sure the one on the rear of the exhaust cam scoops back into the plenum with a small restrictor in it to stop oil/slime getting through - I seem to remember that if this gets blocked then crankcase pressure goes up and bad things happen. I'm really pulling on some old dying brain cells here!!!

I think back in the day when I used to use a plastic coke bottle as my catch can, I just ran those two breathers together and vented to atmosphere, leaving the rear alone to do it's thing after checking to make sure it wasn't blocked (it was gunky but not blocked) and everything was fine, if a little bit ghetto.

 

[Soul]

AN fittings are those cool blue connectors with braided hoses

 

[Soul]

So am I right in thinking that to put AN fittings on I've got to weld the fitting to my rocker cover?

e.g. http://www.speedflowshop.co.uk/an-weld-on-21-c.asp

And then I can make up AN hoses to go to a catch can?