c16xe breather mod? help please!!!

[dhdev (Oli)]

i had major problems with excessive amounts of oil coming out the cam cover breather on my tb'd 1.6 16v at donington, is there a breather mod that can be done to prevent this, similar to the 2.0 xe mod? i tried rigging up a catch tank (lucozade bottle :lol: ) but it overflowed this after one track session. please help as i'm doing another track day this friday!!!

[NovaGed]

Try on corsasport, a few of them had high spec tb builds with breather mods.

[Stuart]

a catch tank with a sump return would be the ideal way to do it.

CP made a long tube (about 10" long) and had the breather pipe gointo the bottom and then a filter ontop. the tube is long enough to have the oil come out of suspension before it gets to the top of the tube.

just one cheap home made option

[Aragorn]

and the engine wouldnt mind having oil fed into its crankcase breather outlet?

if not cp's idea is prolly about the best cheap solution

his breather pipe was connected streight to the block's breather outlet tho and the ones on the cam cover were blocked off

[Dar]

I had exactly the same problem with mine. There is a breather mod for the 2l engine that elimates this. I would assume that the same mod would apply to the 1.6l engine.

Basically if you take the cam cover off you will see a plate that covers most of the upper part of the cam cover. Take this off and cut it so that you just leave the section by the breather outlet. I am looking for a piccy of this for you.

[Dar]

Found the instructions
http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Info_sheets/Oil_systems/SBD%20Cam%20cover%20breathing%20modification.htm

[dhdev (Oli)]

Cheers for the info guys,

so my best option is to connect a catch tank to the cam-cover breather. the tank should have an inlet from the cam cover and an outlet that tees into the crankcase breather pipe (in order to return the excess oil back to the block). does that sound right or have i got the wrong end of the stick :?:

Dar the design of the plate inside the cam cover of a 1.6 is different to that of a 2.0l but i'm tempted to give it a go.

[Dar]

Another option would be to contact SBD to see what they say. They have race developed that engine so would have come across the same problem and then got around it.

[dhdev (Oli)]

did that this morning and i'm still waiting for a reply!!

[Dar]

Yea I had the same thing with SBD. I don't think they look at there emails that often. It took a few days for them to replay to some of my queries.

[Aragorn]

in cps engine the cam cover breathers are all blanked off

the crankcase breather pipe runs directly to his 10" tube

[dhdev (Oli)]

SBD replied today and they recommend fitting a breather bottle with an inlet from the crankcase breather and from the cam cover then having a return pipe from the base of the breather bottle to the sump, i'm gonna give this a try but won't be able to do it b4 fri.

in order to get a return to the sump can anyone see a prob with replace the drain plug with a fitting to connect the hose to?

to enable me to do cadwell this fri i need a quick fix to stop oil comin out the breather but allow air out, do breather filters stop oil passing but allow air out? as this would be an ideal temporary fix.

[Dar]

All I can see a breather filter doing is getting clogged up with oil and restricting the breather.

Like I said before I had the same problem with my 2l. Before someone enlightened me and told me about the 2l mod, I just had a big catch tank (a 2l pepis bottle IIRC :? )

How much oil is coming out?

Obviously if its emptying the sump to a point that the oil is below min on the dip stick this may not be a good idea, or you just limit the number of laps you do each run so that the oil loss is not too bad. Its not ideal, but when needs must.

[dhdev (Oli)]

you gotta point there dar, top it up to the max do a few laps and see how much i lose, continue emptying the catch bottle and topping up the engine, should see me thru one track day!!! cheers, simple solutions are always the best :D

[Nick]

Crankcase style breather filters do allow oil to pass through them, i.e K&N for an example. If you spray K&N oil on them it passes straight through, they are just good at stopping water and grit passing through.

As Dar said it'd clog up the breather as the amount of oil passing through the filter would be alot less than without a filter, just due to the massive sufrace area's of the filters.

if you couldn't be bothered emptying the catch bottle then you could bung a breather filer on the end of the pipe and have it go into a catch tank. but as stated, i don't know how much of an impact upon the breathing capability there will be.

[Snowface]

SBD replied today and they recommend fitting a breather bottle with an inlet from the crankcase breather and from the cam cover then having a return pipe from the base of the breather bottle to the sump, i'm gonna give this a try but won't be able to do it b4 fri.

in order to get a return to the sump can anyone see a prob with replace the drain plug with a fitting to connect the hose to?

to enable me to do cadwell this fri i need a quick fix to stop oil comin out the breather but allow air out, do breather filters stop oil passing but allow air out? as this would be an ideal temporary fix.

if you run it into your sump plug won't the weight of the oil in the sump stop any oil from your breather getting back into the sump?

[dhdev (Oli)]

the oil level in both the pipe and the sump would be at the same height due to the laws of physics :)

[Snowface]

yeah, i was trying to get my head round that.

[ianofbhills]

this is a well known problem on high revving small block 16v's.

At high revs the oil pump pumps alot of oil into the cylinder head, the cam cover now fills with oil as oil is being pumped in under pressure faster then it can return to the sump. This means that the level in the sump is low and could lead to oil starvation problems, combined this with high g force cornering i.e a track day could actually end up being very bad for your engine as lack of oil to the crank is not a good thing.

The answer to this would be a dry sump system but that is a very costly option for a road car that only does maybe a few trackdays a year.

Pro tec have developed a poor mans dry sump system which collects the excess oil from the cam cover in a tank (simple catch tank) However on the bottom of the tank is a return pipe to the sump. This return pipe is located near to the oil pickup which creates sufficiant vacuum to drain the excess oil from the catch tank and cure the oil starvation problem. Unfotunatly this "poor" mans dry sump is very costly at ?400. The kit uses expensive braided hose and aeroquip fittings i'm sure a copy of this system could be made much cheaper (which is what has already been mentioned by a few people and sbd)

here is a pic of the system fitted to andy hamiltons corsa
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v726/ianofbhills/corsabreatherkit.jpg

protec here

http://www.pro-tecmotorsport.com/listings.aspx?type=new

[scott.parker]

Found the instructions
http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Info_sheets/Oil_systems/SBD%20Cam%20cover%20breathing%20modification.htm

Right i remember reading about this in TV mag ages ago,and i have seen why it should be done when i was thrashing round silverston at trax,nice cloud of white smoke,umm.well so let me get this right they say you remvoe all of the shaded area on the diagram,just to leave that very small amount,then attach it back to where it go's ?? am i reading this right?

And then witch pipe do you block off the small left hand one at the back of the rocker as you look from the front of the bay? then breather the larger right hand one?

Sorry to ask,but you know i wouldnt want to cutting stuff up and f-ing it up :oops:

Scott

[Dar]

Scott,

Yea you remove the shaded part. To be honest I have left a little more on mine. I can take a piccy of it done if you like. You can block off the smaller breather pipe if you like.

Dar

[scott.parker]

Nice one mate,but i take it the bloking off of the pipes is more for when runing TB's or carbs,etc? as till i get some TB's would it be best to just do the plate mod,and leave the pipes alone?

Scott

[Dar]

Yea, I would just do the plate mod if your running standard injection. Its very important to remove all the rubber sealent that seals the plate on before refitting the cam cover.

[scott.parker]

Yeah i read that,not a nice idea having bits fo crap falling into your engine :?

Right soon as the whether stop being crap i will drag my ass out to get doing some stuff,i have quite a few thing now to do to my car,i keep leaving it,and the list is buiding up,lol.

Scott