I was looking at oil catch can's as alway read about them in car mags but never had any idea what they were. After looking at some more info on the web, i'm even more confused. They are for turboed applications I believe but I can't quite understand how they work, they mention oil usually goes throught the intercooler and plenum, is this right? and catch cans eliminate this somehow. This just happens to be something that I have never really come across on the site so would like to know (as i'm sure other might too) how it all works, cheers.

engine breather hoses usually go back into the intake at sum point, all to do with emissions, this can make ur intake have a film of oil everywhere, catch can simple takes the vapours from the motor and instead of re burning them it "catches" them. and doesnt allow oil to form in the intake

Another name for them is oil seperator .. They work on N/A engines too.. Oil in combustion chamber "can" promote detonation.. An engine with good PCV has cleaner oil / crankcase even better when oil is kept out of inlet system...
They are used on forced induction also due to vacuum line needs to be on turbo inlet side . If its connected as N/A the boost pessure will pressurize the sump / crankcase...

so do you just connect both hoses from the rocket cover to the catch can then block the hoses/holes on the inlet manifold ?

yep

a proper "oil seperator" as ebxr8380 has mentioned, is slightly different to just a plain catch can, a plain catch can just has your rocker vents goin to it with a filter on the top, and usually some sort of baffling to stop oil vapours blowing out the filter..

a TRUE oil seperator, operates using a std PCV system, whereby, you have one rocker cover breather going into it, inside it is usually full of steel wool or similar, this pulls the oil vapours from the air and basically condenses them back to oil... you have the manifold PCV suction hose going into it aswell, off of the bottom of the unit you will usually have a drain hose which returns to the sump, or just some type of manual draining valve, the other rocker breather runs to the inlet pipe prior to the turbo, after the air filter... this setup allows GOOD cranckase ventilation, as while off boost you have a suction on the rocker cover, and the benefit of a catch can stopping oil entering your intake... (NOTE) while on boost, your pcv valve will shut, and any positive crankcase pressure will cause oil vapours to come out infront of your turbo, so you still get an intercooler with an oil coating, and some intake air dilution...

a catch can prevents ALL oil vapour entering your intake, but has very POOR crankcase fresh air circulation, which, if you dont vent oil vapours from your engine, they become acidic and can cause bearing/internal engine problems etc if you dont perform regular oil changes....

i like the catch can because of zero crank pressure buildup, and zero intake air dilution, but i do make sure i change my oil every 2000km

my 2c

Far out! Would you need to change the oil that often? Or is that your personal preference?

yeh, in that picture I had above, he teaches how to make it and mentions putting steel wool in the bottom.

This now explains why there was always a film of oil everytime I took of my old EA's tennis raquet.

so which out of all of these would best suit a turbo 6

link

http://search.ebay.com.au/search/search ... category0=

cheers jarrod

very regular oil changes would HAVE to be the cheapest insurance possible wouldnt it, i mean, for less than $50, you can potential save money in the long run

my personal preferance is less than 2000km, with my car not being a daily driver, that equates to about an oil change every 6months... i guess you could clock 2000km fairly quickly if it was a daily.

when are other people changing their oil in their turbocharged engines??? regualr oil changes for turbos is especially recommended, due to the high temp demands of the oil running through the turbo and generally increased oil temps while producing some of the HP numbers a lot of us are making

i just do a full service every 5000kms and i don't run a oil cooler LOL. o well the engine wont be in there for much longer. it still runs perfect and sounds good tho

i use to run a sealed catch can with my old turbo.

but then when i installed the t04z i couldent stop the vacuum pulling oil out of the catch can. so i just disconnected it and run a filter

Thats fair enough, good point. Better to spend fifty bucks on oil and a filter than spend five thousand bucks on building a new engine and turbo. It doesn't take me long to rack up 2000km's .