TOPIC: New to the Gadgetman groove

that's great news for Kev. Very happy it's not one of my worst-case scenarios.

Let us know how the PCV re-route mod affects your truck's performance, please.

For sure guys but with this cold weather, I'm not doing it any time soon lol

why not this weekend? windchill is only gonna be -10 on Saturday...positively tropical!

Kev007 wrote: I like using Ultramar but I find the only good one is in the north end. I also find using the premium grade I do get better mileage on a tank.

Ultramar Super 91 Octane does not contain Ethanol, that's why. Same for PetroCanada's 91 Octane, but only at stations that do NOT have Ultra94 for some reason (their email was terse and confusing...I should read it again). I saw something online that says Shell and Esso don't put ethanol in their highest octane offerings either, but I have yet to hear back from them with confirmation of that.

All the so called "high grade" gas has no ethanol but I think the regular gas is just watered down high grade gas. These big oil companies are just out there to make money and rip us off, same with the Government. Both Government and oil companies work together to bleed us all dry. If I had the money I would hide a horse down town Toronto just to prove a point, that this guy is tired of all the horse crap that these bastards keep feeding us lol

Kev I see I think what you're sayin' about the dry sprinkler pipes, but remember that system when dry has no air or water flow in it, so those low-point drains will work w/ condensation. W/ the PCV/crankcase breather system, you have dynamic gas/vapor flow, and it's changing a lot under different engine conditions. So the Euro-type cyclone AOS separators, and my metal water bottle one use that flow to benefit. The Cyclone separator has a tube opening at bottom as a drain, I add a hose on it to a catch bottle. The water bottle AOS acts as it's own accumulation reservoir, it's plenty big enuf for that. I also looked at the hose routings,and hose ID's to effect flow speed and rate, I tried to route the hoses in hi/low points to further effect vapor drop-out from the gas flow. Sometimes I find it useful to really really look at stuff and think hard of what's going on.
If my pics here in the Index won't work for ya, look on ebay or otherwise for BMW cyclone air oil separator, or just oil separator for that matter, I spent hours looking at search results for "oil separator" before I did my stuff.

Tracy G

Hey Tracy
I took your advice and looked up stuff on line. Bmw cyclone separator and how it works plus how some people made there own separators. I also forgot to mention on the low point drains in a dry sprinkler system, there are drum drips that catch a condensation from the sprinkler system. With a dry system there is always air in the pipes and most the time it's at 30 psi. I'll try to draw one up so you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about and thinking. Ok now I seen on here that you did a reroute on a f150 5.4 and I was up all night thinking about something. The hose you installed the tee on, that the hose that runs into the driver side valve cover. Doesn't that side bring fresh air in?

wow Kev, up all night...! IF I recall the F-150 5.4, yes that is a PCV re-route, where the man. vac. source for PCV valve is capped, and the hose from PCV valve is re-routed and tee'd into the fresh make-up breather hose. Briefly, this is to preserve man. vacuum, but still allow the crankcase, which must never be sealed, to vent and breathe. Don't ever just cap off the PCV valve! There has been a LOT of mis-understanding of this mod.

I did put one AOS on my friend's Nissan Maxima, it's the little gray one originally for a Jaguar in the pics. For a cyclone type AOS, I feel the BMW type ones are the best, if you look on ebay there will be several styles, I look for the taller skinny ones w/ a drain nipple on bottom, and two other larger nipples towards the top. I just fashion a catch bottle from PVC 1" or bigger plastic parts from any hardware storee, then drill one end and tap and screw in a nylon hose fitting to accept the hose I put on bottom of BMW cyclone separator. I think the BMW piece was about 25-30 bucks on ebay. I've put here a few pics of my homemade metal water bottle type. I've written up and added pics in more detail of all this in the Index. Were you able to access that stuff in Index, Kev?

In hopes of further explanation, I re-route the PCV to the breather make-up air hose, then add an AOS of some type to that breather hose. An AOS of course can be spliced into an otherwise-stock PCV hose as well. this is what is on Subie now, except the PCV hoses have been restricted and lengthened, and use larger ID hoses. IT's confusing to explain, the Subaru PCV system is laid out kinda weird. I will mod this system as I think fit on a case by case basis. Ya gotta understand the crankcase ventilation system before you can mod it.

Tracy G

Ha I did see the reroute you had done on the index and I have already bought all the stuff to do it except for "AOS". I'm still reading up on that and looking online on how other people are making them. I was just wondering about the fresh air hose hook up. To me is seems running that pcv too that hose and venting into the fresh hose would kind of just recycling it back into the crankcase. I was thinking just running the pvc line into the air intake in a different spot. This is just an idea I had. Remember I'm still new to this and just want to pick at people brains and get some feed back.

Kev007 wrote: I was just wondering about the fresh air hose hook up. To me is seems running that pcv too that hose and venting into the fresh hose would kind of just recycling it back into the crankcase. I was thinking just running the pvc line into the air intake in a different spot.

Sure, yes, some of the PCV gasses will be sucked back into the crankcase, and some will be sucked into the input air stream, enriching it with unburnt (light) hydrocarbons that didn't get burned the first time through. (put in that perspective, and this is where some people's confusion as to the legality of this mod arises, it may SEEM as if the Positive Crankcase Ventilation gas is being vented, but it's not; it's simply going back into the engine in different places than the designers first thought, in a way that benefits our purposes of maintaining or boosting engine vacuum). Adding an AOS here removes water vapour and byproducts of combustion that are harmful to the engine for proper disposal.

Kev, glad to see you're doin' yer homework, and that the Index has helped. I've talked this subject to death here in the forum! Physically, sure you could tee the hose from the PCV valve someplace into the main air inlet duct, it doesn't HAVE to go into the crankcase make-up Breather hose. Ron simply advised to connect to breather hose to simplify it as an Installer I believe. Heysoundude is correct in his observations on all this IMHO. One philosophy on all this would be to do the re-route, and study results. Watching for oily or water and oil mixtures in the hoses, oil fill cap, dipstick, can give clues of what's up.. For an AOS, there's a bewildering array of stuff out there, some will spend a (to me) stupid amount of $$ for a pretty one, I wanted effective ones, that don't hurt the wallet so much. Seems the Euro. OEM's were ahead of Detroit in addressing this issue. My metal water bottle design is functional, effective, and can hold a lot as a reservoir, extending drain intervals if a lot of crud is being separated out. The BMW one I used has advantage of being smaller to fit underhood well. Currently, I have the water bottle as a primary, it's output hose leads to the BMW cyclone as a secondary AOS. My Subaru has just enough room underhood to fit both. Another idea for ya, is use a section of clear vinyl tubing spliced into whatever hose, you will be able to see what's going thru- though it needs kept away from higher temps. Cheers!

Tracy G

Hey guy
It's been awhile and hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for all the info and feed back from everyone. I finally got my AOS done and hopefully I can get it hooked up to my f150 tomorrow. Here some picture I took to show how I rigged it up. Enjoy