The Camaro Club (UK)

Guys,

is it worth running a PCV valve setup as opposed to breathers on the rocker covers? If so, should I run a breather one side, and a PCV hose into the air filter/carb?

Cheers

I know many 'experts', especially drag types despise PCV's, claiming they are 'smog sh1t' and slow your car down. Personally, I always use them on my stuff, including race cars and I always build them into every engine/car I build for others too.
Basically, the best system has the PCV in the rear of (usually) the offside rocker cover, with the filler on the opposite rocker cover at the front. This filler is the type that has a pipe running from it to the base of the air filter. Under high vacuum conditions (cruise speeds, motorway running etc) the PCV is open and the engine vacuum draws the fumes from the crankcase and burns them, so keeping your oil clean and boiling away water and other nasty by-products which would otherwise fester in your oil. The hose at the filler passes cool air into the engine after going through the filter first (important!) so air is always flowing through the engine. The PCV also acts a slight economy device as it leans the cruise mixture. Under heavy load, vacuum falls and the PCV closes, so excess gasses now pass the opposite direction up the filler pipe into the air filter, again, to be dealt with by combustion. So you see the system is entirely closed and copes with all driving conditions. The 'open' type breathers do not positively evacuate the engine so are not as effective, plus are not allowed for motorsport. They also often cover the rocker covers with oil. HTH
Cheers, Martin

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Pic below of my engine show exactly what Sportsroof said..
filler/breather front right rocker cover, and pcv routed rear of left rocker into top of carb/air filter..

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

What the racers are concerned about is that all that all that nasty by product/water and some oil mist lowers the octane of the fuel - as it's being recirculated back through the carb.

The school of thought is that not having any kind of PCV setup (just a catch can with breather) will leave all those nasty contaminants floating around the engine, and most likely doing some damage - long term.

Also remember that the PCV itself is a service item, so should be checked every service (sorry if people know this already).

I have done a lot of online research about catch cans, pcv, oil separators and various other methods, and I'll be going for the standard pcv, on the principal of k.i.s.s (keep it simple stupid)

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'68 Camaro