TOPIC: New to the Gadgetman groove

before the bottle got filled up, did you notice a difference in power/mileage?

Maybe the bottle is too small? or narrow?

That's the funny thing, there was nothing in the bottle. It was all in the hoses. On the pcv side and the breather side too.

Maybe the bottle needs to be mounted lower in the engine bay? Closer to the ground, I mean.

Tracy has no doubt run into this before. Worth a call, I'd say, if he doesn't chime in on here.

I think if anything, I would leave the off where it is and maybe just add the AOS

TracyG wrote: 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.

Tracy G

Kevin - is this how you had yours set up? and you capped the vacuum source the PCV hose came off of? And what about the steel wool, did you add a ball of that as surface area for stuff to condense on inside the can?

Kev, If you took pics of the re-route setup it would help to see it. There has been a lot of misunderstanding of this mod in the past. I understand it perfectly. Short trips, cold wet weather can cause this. Sorry, I forget what engine/vehicle you are working with. I assume there was no previous sign of crankcase condensation, no milkshake goo under oil cap, etc. Yours might be similar to my Subie in it's generation of condensate. In the end I went w/ a modified setup, w/PCV connected to man. vac. as stock, but w/ hoses modified, a catch can and cyclone separator, and hose I.D.. to man. vacuum restricted. This together kept water condensate out of the crankcase, while restricting/modding the system flow rate and volume.
This PCV re-route mod is simple in warm climate, but in cold/wet conditions condensate issue can surface. Again assuming no pre-existing issues.
I will probably empty out my catch-can and cyclone catch bottle this week, measure the liquids and post pics of it, we are basically in Spring here now.

Kev, I'd like to see more of your setup, maybe we can learn something!

OK I came to the thread straight from my email, sorry I missed the posts above. OK it's a Ford 5.4, and you made a catch bottle, and installed it. My short answer to this is- In winter, keep PCV connected as stock, but install the catch bottle between PCV and man. vac. nipple, maybe try to get the bottle in a low position to get gravity on your side. In summer, switch things 'round to have Man. vac. source capped, and run hose as PCV-catch bottle-breather hose tee. It sounds like there wasn't enough flow through your re-routed system to make the catch bottle work.

I encourage you to copy my design for the catch bottle, in my posts of it in Index. I really thought it out, having the Mopar valve cover breather filter on it, and putting the pot scrubber in the bottle, it really seems to work well like that. I also went w/ one size larger hoses, and lengthened them, plus routed them and the catch bottle/cyclone AOS so that output from the bottle/cyclone went uphill a ways before the manifold vac. nipple. Longer/larger diameter hoses-this slows down the flow speed of crankcase gas/water vapor mix. To promote separation/"drop out" of entrained vapors from the total gas flow. This adds time in the AOS'es to any volume of flow. Make sense? Finally I did the restriction right before the man. vac. nipple, by cramming in a short piece of smaller diameter hose into the existing hose, my hoses are much bigger than most cars have, in the 1/2" 5/8" 3/4" range.

I think I'm going to finally have to get a video cam. and video my rig to help explain it, it's too crowded in there for pics alone I think. Anyhow I hope this helps some.

Tracy G