Many of us who upgrade our MAF pipe or intercooler problem have a bit of a dilemma.. Buy a "real" oil catch can, or pop a breather on the valve cover only to have it dribble oil.

Attached is a picture of a quick and easy, and SMALL assembly. Basically its an improvement on another Member's earlier post because of the tendency of his "Fuel filter" trap to get saturated and become restrictive.

The Breather itself is a standard "Small" Filter element like you see at pep boys, its just a cheap ($10) gauze air filter. The Trap portion of it, is constructed of one of those inexpensive inline "Mr. Gasket" Replacable filters.. The modification to the filter was I unscrewed the assembly, and removed the "Screen filter" so its just an empty void. I then reassembled it and put the whole thing together.

The best way to mount this is either straight up (which will allow the oil to recirculate back to the engine under vacuum) or at sideways which will trap the oil and will occasionally have to be drained.

Obviously this has a few advantages.. Its cheap, VERY small, and looks half-way decent... Have fun guys!

(I made another version with a nice looking container that the oil can drip into using a T-fitting, but it didn't look as good, and I was concerned that the container would fall off, break, or melt)

Now the moment of truth.. The picture..

 

nice work...Jack, your creativity with your projects continues to impress me......

 

I have another "Billet Aluminum" version that I made using similar parts and a few fittings. It looks alot nicer, I'll post it in the next few days when the parts show up.

 

if i didnt already buy a oil catch can.. i rather buy a small oil filter to plug between the lines instead of having it vent into the hood... so what about the MAF pipe line? do u leave it open? im sure if u leave it open, it will cause problems

 

I have a Buschur maf pipe which removes the fitting, but get a nipple or plug to put on the one to the "Stock" location.

This mod really only prevents oil from getting back into the intake tract, its mostly an appearance mod otherwise.

 

well my friend reported oil coating on the turbo and intake piping... i'd think heat dissipation would be a problem with that layer of oil.. which hopefully wouldnt thicken.

 

Yeah I noticed the same thing in my pipes..

 

That's a pretty neat idea. I have one of those little fliters laying around and I'm sure I can come up with the rest of the components, but my question is, where doees this little thing go? I'd appreciate a sketch or pictures or some kind and some explanations.

Thanks in advance

 

I don't know if this applies to our cars or not, but years ago when I was messing with Miatas and turbo chargers I had a similar experience. This was a Aerocharger blower which is a very different design as it has variable pitch vanes and also has it's own self contained lubrication via a wicking system using some very expensive and hard to find heavy synthetic lubricant. Upon dismantling the system, I found the entire piping going out of the turbo (and into the IC) coated with this extremely hard to clean coat of crap. I guess it was the lubricant from the turbo reservoir coming out and getting blown down the pipes
That whole system was a mess and those turbos were very unreliable . Anyway, I can definitely believe that the oil that lubricates the blower shafts and bearings can make it's way into the IC pipes, the IC itself and the intake . Not only that, but even the Mobil 1 synth. oil will prolly coke up when subjected to the very high temps in the blower.....

 

Actually the oil probably doesn't coke up as much as you think.. I suspect it probably would vaporise going through the turbo and settle somewhere in the intercooler.

But the oil in our circumstance is coming from the breather tube that goes from the valvecover to the MAF pipe (the pipe between the MAF Sensor and the Turbo inlet) So that oil is being slung around all sorts of ways eventually finding its way into the intercooler and other pipes. I don't know how detrimental it is, but I'm sure that it can get sludgy over time..

and a good location to mount this bad boy is as close to the valve cover as possible (keep as short a hose as possible) and as high as realistically possible so the oil can drain back, otherwise mount it sideways so the oil is trapped in the glass tube and check it frequently until you get an idea of how much oil accumulates.

And from an earlier comment.. I think EVERYONE has one of these Mr.Gasket inline filters laying around.. It seems to be a rite of passage..

 

where are you placing this in the vacum line system. if it vents to air , it will effect vacuum, i forgot where the connection would go.

thanks

 

Cant see the pic is it posted?

 

you need to go to the How to section, this is the discussion section for that how to link. the pic is there.

looks ok , not bad for a quick fix.

 

MalibuJack, can you post a pic of it installed in the car?

 

there should be a pic of it in the how-to thread.. but I don't know if I ever posted a pic of it installed.. I'll see if I can snap a shot tomorrow and post it.