There has been some discussion recently on catch cans, do we need them, what type etc so thought i would post this. I had a good search around and looked what was available and to be honest could not see a difference between the high cost well known brands and the cheaper fleabay items. I work with systems that remove oil from air and basically you need a large volume tank or some kind of filter to remove the oil from the air, the items for sale have neither of these and the only other thing coming close are the catch cans with a small filter to air but these are not strictly legal. The solution was to modify a cheap tank by drilling a hole in the side of the tank and fitting a 3rd hose connector

then fill the tank with a filter (lets just call it 4 pan scrubbers)

the two pipes feeding into the top come from the rocker cover and the new one into the intake pipe between filter and TB, the one on the manifold itself was blocked off as its usually under boost so not much use

took it for a 300 mile blast up and down the motorway today and inspected the tank after, there is an emulsified residue in the bottom, not a lot but enough to be seen, for me its a cheap install
catch tank was £25, filter 95p and £4 for the hose, make sure you buy the stainless type pan scrubber that looks like metal swarf rather than the brillo pad type as the later is too fine and you could end up getting bits of it in the intake. I used the metal bracket that holds the coolant expansion tank to mount the catch tank, its removable by 2 bolts so can be drilled out of the engine bay and your not drilling holes in the body of the car.

 

Just to clarify, you tee'd into the hose between the filter and TB?

 

Good mod

I dont know too much about oil catch cans, but i presume at some points oil can be blown through the intake and your modified catch can gathers the oil thus stopping it from being sucked back into the engine. I take it the TB etc would be cleaner too?

How to the brilo pads work they are no poruous does the oil just stick to this and finally collect in the bottom?

So at the end of the day its not a performance thing more a maintenance resulting in cleaner engine parts?

 

Good maintenance preserves BHP.

 

yes tee'd into the pipe between intake and filter
if you have oil mist going into the intake it can cause knock, the ECU detects it and retards the ignition so it could be a performance mod
the filter material disperses the hot air slowing it down to a point the oil can no longer be carried in the air stream so it sticks to the mesh and drips into the bottom of the can.

 

Velocity drop = oil vapour falls out of air stream.
Size of tank no biggie, just needs to slow down the airflow as it expands into a decent volume as you say.

The Dyson vortex design could work well in your application