I am looking at installing some cosmetic stuff on my engine that will interfer with the hose that runs from the pcv valve on the valve cover to the throttle body (plus I never did like the damn thing spitting oil in my engine ) Anyways, would it effect how the engine runs by putting a breather on the valve cover and putting a plug at the other end??? Thanks

 

Its pretty safe to do. Plus, they are only 9.99 at autozone. I have one on both sides of my engine. The engine will run exactly the same, and it will help to reduce crank case pressure along with the PCV valve.

 

It does not run exactly the same. If you do not disable the PCV vacuum, you are introducing a vacuum leak that the PCM has to overcome.

Breathers only, are much less efficient at removing harmful vapors from the crankcase than the PCV system.

If you do a search about breathers, you will find a very good explanation of the system posted by Injuneer.

BTW, the PCV valve is not in the valve cover.

 

If the only purpose of that tube to the valve cover is to supply air, then why would removing it and plugging the hole on the throttle body cause a vacuum leak??? The air is still getting inside the enigne, just not from the throttle body

The reason I ask this question is because thats how my fathers Chevelle is setup. Although it is an older vehicle the pcv setup (I think) is the same concept. He has a filter on one valve cover with a ccv (or pcv) valve on the other valve cover going to the carb (instead of throttle body). To the best of my knowledge he has zero vacuum leaks and it runs like a bat out of hell

 

because with the breather, you introduce UnMetered(Maf sensor) air into the system

 

So, are you saying i should hve one or the other... breather, or pcv valves? Cause i am lacking some serious gas milege. maybe that could be the problem

 

You appear to be confused. "the hose that runs from the pcv valve on the valve cover to the throttle body " is your first mistake. There is no PCV valve on the valve cover.... its on the drivers side of the intake manifold.

You MUST have the PCV system... its there to remove the harmful combustion vapors, including water, that bypass the rings. Delete the PCV (POSITIVE crankcase ventilation) and rely only on a breather, and you will see brown sludge start to build up, first on the breather and the fill tube, then all over the valve covers and the valve train. The system is there for a reason. If you remove it, you would have to add a road draft tube, an eduction system connected to your headers, or a vacuum pump pulling stuff out of the crankcase.

The hose supplies MAF measured air from the TB to the valve cover, where the PCV valve vacuum pulls the clean air through the engine to sweep out the harmful vapors, and burns them by using the vacuum source to put them back in the intake manifold. Its a "closed" system. Use a breather, and you "open" the system. Doesn't change a whole lot... just requires the long term fuel corrections to adjust for the air that is no longer being measured by the MAF. Not a big correction.

I kept the PCV system fully intact on an 800HP nitrous setup, and it doesn't hurt the engine in any way.

If your valve cover is "spitting oil in (your) engine", you may have a problem with excessive blowby on the rings.

 

i took that tube off years ago and put on a breather. Looks better and i had no side effects what so ever.

 

I have to share my experience with this breather thing. And maybe someone can relate. It is going to sound ridiculous, but I need to know.

I put a Metco breather from Thunder Racing on my 95Z. It went w/ everything in there really well. I had to get the LT4 design b/c of my valve covers. I put it on and drive around.

That evening, I was wiping down the car, and the bumper had millions of little smear dots all over it. I couldn't figure out what it was. I went out the next night, and came back home, same thing. I had seen this once when my Moser was overfilled. I had something leaking.

I looked under the bottom of the car, and I was in awe. There were millions of oil sprays. It looked like someone had taken a bottle, filled it w/ oil, and saturated under my car. Everything was sticky and some places had drops forming, that were dropping down. My car gets mirrors at shows, so you can imagine how hard this was to clean up. Everything is detailed, and to beat it all, the car is white.

SO.

I thought about it a little while, what did I change? I checked the breather-nothing in the filter, etc. Although it looked a little greasy on that valve cover. I removed it and compared it to the regular LT4 oil cap. There ARE differences. The oil cap has 2 engraved turns, and the Metco has one. I put the regular cap on there, wiped everything down, and went for a drive. I came back, checked the bumper first. Nothing. No smears. I drove around some more that day *yesterday* and kept checking it. NOTHING. HOW could a breather cause all that????? When I had it on, and was parked at my parents, I left a puddle of oil at least 12" diameter. Parked in the same spot, after the same kind of run last night, and no oil spills.

I had a very SMALL leak coming from the timing chain cover that would drop out maybe 3 drops over a week's time. But it was like this breather put pressure on it or something.

Can someone explain this to me?? I know it was long, but it needs to be informative. I can't understand how the breather could have caused that kind of spray. My y-pipe was covered and will have to be recoated. It went from bright alum. to brown. AND here is the thing, the MOST of the oil spray,
at least 90% of it was all on the pass. side, the side the breather is on. It wasn't evenly distributed, if that makes sense.

Anyone? I would love to hear Injuneerz theory on this.

 

What i did is put a little black deutshe brand breather filter on the valve cover that has outlet/inlet at a 90 degree angle put it in the valve cover then back into the intake manifold. I had oil in the intake too.

 

I'd like to hear the solution to this also.

My situation is very similar. I'm getting a lot of oil getting sucked in from the PCV pipes. I have no blo by and its not the valve guides or seals. So to try to fix it I put a breather on the valve cover. It didn't help and I think the oil is coming in through the other side now. That is through the new PCV valve and into the intake. What can I do? I'm also seeing oil leaking from the timing chain cover and I lot of black smoke out the tailpipe.

 

Which of the three cars in your signature are you having the problem with?

 

Well, there might be more of a pull on the crankcase with the tubes hooked up as opposed to a freer flowing breather on the valve cover, and if you have a slightly leaky engine, maybe with some mileage on it and a little blowby, you might make things worse by getting rid of the vacuum. It's just a guess and you could only prove it by using a sensitive pressure gauge to see if there is any difference with the breather vs. the stock setup. You could even be splooging oil out the dipstick hole in the block or the back of the engine, etc. If you don't like the stock setup cause of a little oil getting in the intake & TB, maybe you could put a small oil separator in the line cause it is kind of ignorant the way they have it right at the back of the valve cover and it's not really baffled too well..

 

The red Z28 which is vortech supercharged.

 

My setup is similar to yours. What are you using? Where is the tube from the passenger side VC going? And where is the PVC tube going on the other side?