Is an oil catch can worth installing?

 

Perhaps if you track the car. Otherwise, it's just something that makes your engine look different.

 

I installed one after oil transfer killed the engine of my buddy's s/c NSX (on my watch at the track), but I've yet to see ANY accumulation. That could be because I've got a breather on the front of the block, however, rather than the typical plumbing whereby the front port pulls air from the intake. I think it was CDelena who pointed out that smoothness and good heel-toe may be the reason why some guys don't get any oil sloshing over and other guys do.

CB

 

Actually, a catch can is to pick up oil from the blowby hose. For long run, your engine will runs cleaner because it will not burn the engine oil which spreaded from the blowby hose together with the fuel.

 

FWIW, I had blow-by on my first track experience. As a result I went out and got a catch can prior to my next track day. In the between time, I got supercharged and didn't get the can installed prior to getting back on the track. The first day with the charger on the track I had zero blowby by way of seeing smoke coming out of the exhaust. We elected to not install it.

Unless you are planning some serious RH'ers and are NA, then it's no more than a dress up item... which I like by the way.

 

I too, am supercharged and in the time that I've had this catch can on, I have collected ZERO oil in the cal on a daily driven street car. I have, however, collected a bit of water. I have both front breather and the PCV outlet running into a non-closed system catch can. I elected to leave this on even though I collect no oil because I didn't want the connection between the PCV and the intact manifold to be left intact but I didn't want it to go nowhere, either. The PCV line goes to the catch can and the end going to the manifold is plugged.

 

I forget who pointed this out, but for you to get blow-by, you need (i) a LOT of vaccum in the block to suck the oil through the PCV valve and (ii) oil to physically present at the PCV valve when the vacuum hits. Thus, unless you're downshifting without any throttle blip (i.e., you just dump the clutch without heel-toeing) WHILE you're in a hard corner transition (to get the oil sloshing around the block), you shouldn't see a lot of blow-by anyway. My two cents: it's nothing but show, although I left mine on b/c I had the bracket welded to the bracket that holds my remote oil cannister filter, and it would look odd to remove the catch can... :-)

CB

 

I have experienced two smokey incidents while autocrossing and it had nothing to do with abruptly sloshing oil or bad/no heel toe shifting. One was a long right hand sweeper and the other was a 150 ft diameter circle that was taken clockwise (right) a full 360 degrees. These are pretty much steady state once into the turn. In the first incident one of the organizers came over after my run to inspect the car. There was nothing to be found and I had to explain...

I too also like the idea of preventing all that oil from gumming up the intake.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, here's a link to pictures showing my oil catch can and some of the oil it has caught. This is not just a show item, no bling here.
Oil Catch Can

On Porches, don't know which ones, they have an oil catch can hooked into the PVC hose that drains back into the crank case. This I presume minimizes oil consumption through the intake.

 

I plan on installing mine this winter.