We have been working on an in-line PCV Valve oil baffle on & off for the past couple of months & we finally got around to getting it to the final stage. We have been testing it for a month on three B-series Falcon sixes. One is a clapped-out standard BA-XT, one is a standard BF-xr6 and the other is a blown BA six.
Now the blow-by on the xr6 & the Blown BA was never excessive although on long trips at high speed the Supercharged BA used to bleed a little oil through the PCV Valve into the catch can, it was never enough to be overly worried about. But the in-line baffle stopped oil flow through the PCV Valve completely & in fact after 300 plus kilometers at high speed both Catch-cans on these two cars were dry. We gave the two cars a real high speed work-out over two days.
But the clapped-out BA XT was passing oil through the PCV Valve at an alarmingly high rate. It smoked quite a lot & was fouling plugs often too. It didn't matter what speed you did in it either because it was even pumping it out at idle.

So, the biggest difference we noted was on the worn out XT.
Now since we fitted the in-line baffle to this old girl the smoke stopped pluming from the tail pipe & the throttle body is staying clean also. We have driven the BA xt for about 350 kilometers at all speeds for over three days & this car does not have a catch can. The difference (before & after) is amazing.
Now about this baffle: (its so simple I don't know why someone hasn't thought of doing it before).
Without giving too much away,, the device sits in the tappet cover in place of the PCV Valve, then the PCV Valve fits into it.
So for a start, it doubles the distance that the blow-by has to travel before it reaches the PCV Valve, which is an advantage in itself.. Then the air has to travel through a tightly woven alloy mesh into an alloy tube that has been fitted with thirty small round alloy bars in a tight spiral configuration from top to bottom. The whole setup has been encased in thick fiberglass.

The baffle does not restrict air flow but it does restrict viscous fluid (oil) in a dramatic way. The air passes through the baffle easily but because the oil vapor in the blow-by air has to travel OVER, ALONG, THROUGH & UP the spiral it is stopped by the time it makes it to the second loop of the spiral & drips back down into the head.
We based the design (Vaguely) on the same principal as a (Dairy Farm) milk separator that is used to separate cream from milk. (Dairy Farmers will know what I mean).

Anyway, we are going to test it for a few more weeks to see how it goes in "real world" driving situations.

Nice to see someone thinking/working outside the box.
It sounds quite chunky though?

Personally I've been looking in to the BMW cyclonic air-oil separators that also self drain back to the sump.

No it's not chunky, it's very small & neat. Actually it's not much bigger than the standard PCV Valve. Here is a rough MS Paint diagram:

So it's basically a vertically oriented inline filter with some thoughtful design on the inside.

I'm impressed that it can be so compact but still removes all the oil without restricting air flow.

Doesn't impede on the bonnet? Thinking of E series falcons with the PCV right near the front...

Sounds like all cars should have one as they all get some oil into the intake manifolds and gum up the bottom of them...

Cheers,
Tim

does the oil have much trouble draining back?

We have only fitted them to 6 cyl B series Falcons so far, so I can't answer that question yet.
The top of the BA/BF Firewall protrudes forward & over the tappet cover to the point where it will impede anything that is too tall being fitted in that location. This fits in neatly without touching the firewall or bonnet, it does sit close to the firewall though.

Not in our tests, we designed it so that any oil that is caught is just funneled back down the spiral tube.

The tightly looped spiral inside is what allows the air to pass through & over it unimpeded but this action also traps the oil on the way through. Like I said before by the time it reaches the second row of coils it has done its job & the oil starts to drain back down.

When it's fitted to the car "plain old" gravity slows the upward oil flow & the tight spiral coil restricts, traps & separates any oil that is left in the blow-by vapor as it is passes through it.

We are going to make the next version with an even tighter spiral coil by using finer alloy rods, we are going to try to get at least 40 in there, which will give us another coil in the same amount of space..

At the moment this is very time consuming because the two alloy tubes are being sweat fitted inside each other and we are center punching each hole for the spiral rods & doing it all by hand in a drill press.
Once we work it all out we will be able to buy prefab components which will streamline & speed the process by at least 80% because It is a very simple device. The only part that is difficult is seating & sealing the spiral but eventually we will make a jig for that.

Any photos of it installed?

Quite keen to see how it sits out of the rocker cover, if it looked neat and incorporated a good-sealing one way valve it would be a great addition to any boosted EA-FG.

Cheers,
Jason

Nice work. I'll be watching this with great interest.

This one has been knocked around a little switching it from vehicle to vehicle but it will give you an idea of how it sits in relation to the firewall & just how small it is.
It started out with a nice satin finish but it has been dropped on cement, walked on once & man-handled many times since then.
EDIT: It doesn't need the bracket (in the photo) to hold it in position but because we had that raised hole left over after we fitted the blower we thought we would use it to fill in the screw hole. Also I will be taking it out tomorrow so I will post a photo of it sitting on the work bench & I will try to zoom in down the tube so you can see the top of the spiral.

Last edited by BongoKongo on Tue Sep 03, 2013 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How high in mm does it protrude from the rocker cover?
I'd be interested to see if it will fit on the EF/L series as the PCV port is much further forward. (Possible bonnet clearance issue)
If you can get the measurement I'd be happy to do the old play-dough on top of the rocker cover mock up and see if it clears.

The baffle protrudes exactly 25mm from the top of the rocker cover, & with this PCV Valve fitted the whole setup protrudes exactly 60mm from the top of the rocker cover. But I have seen shorter PCV Valves than this one. You may get some clearance by removing the plastic elbow tube on top of the PCV Valve (they can removed easily) & then just fit the hose directly to where the elbow was located.
It would be cutting it fine,,, but we might be able to shorten it by about 5mm max, but no more. In this instance "length" does matter.

It will clear on the EF/L.. Just!
But I do still have the soundproofing mat on my bonnet, so take that into account as well.

When I pulled the baffle out to take a photo of it for you guys I discovered a major problem with the fiberglass casing,,,back to the drawing board...
You see,, when we first made "The Thing" it was in the middle of winter so we made the resin mix a bit hotter than usual to get it to go off quicker.
But it must have been "way" too hot because the inside layer ( the most important part) boiled.... and you don't want that to happen..
Now, because we used such a tight light fiberglass weave the finished product looks very much like carbon fiber when it's cured,, so that hid the imperfections that were forming in the resin underneath.
Over time a bad mix of resin will get hairline cracks all the way through it & it doesn't ever really cure properly, so it was still kind of soft on the inside & cracking.

now, the only way around it was to split the fiberglass remove & remount the tube & spiral in another fiberglass case.
Anyway if your interested here's a couple of photos of "The Thing" version 2 showing down the tube, this one has 40 rods instead of the original 30. You can see the PCV Valve flat rubber seal in there too (it's about 5mm wide & it's at the top). The bottom photo is just the mesh on the other end.
Sorry about the dodgy photos but my camera has seen better days.