I just finished my motor and I have a question about the valve cover breather. I decided to use a valve cover breather instead of the CCV valve because I am running an older design miniram intake and it didn't have enough vacuum ports for everything I needed to run. In order for me to get vacuum to all the other parts I decided to eliminate the CCV valve and run a breather filter instead. That should be fine, and accomplish the same goal right? My question is that I am getting some smoke coming out of that breather. Nothing else is smoking except that. Is this normal for the fumes to be coming from that and should I be able to see them? and is it ok what I did eliminating the CCV for a breather? Thanks

are your valve covers baffled?

I am running stock center bolt valve covers, so are they baffled?

i never used the centerbolts, but as far as i know they should be baffled. i'll check and get back to you. i ran into the same problem with my first camaro when i installed moroso valve covers, they weren't baffled and when i stuck the breathers in, smoke would occasionally come through and under hard turns, sometimes oil would sit on the inside bottom of the breathers.

If you could check that would be great. I would defenitly like to get rid of that smoke coming out. I don't know if this matters either, but I move the PCV to the passenger side valve cover, and installed the breather in the driver side valve cover.

You have it reversed, PCV should be on the driver side and breather should be on passenger side. By setting it up in this manner you are defeating the purpose of the PCV and breather valve

page 2

good call trickster!!! that made me remember that when i was having that same problem i had replace my engine and i switched carbs and f#cked up the vac lines. i had a brain fart

Why would it matter which side they are on??

I would like to know the same thing. Why does it matter which side the PCV valve is on, and which side my breather is on? The reason I did it that way, is because the fuel pressure regulator housing was going to make putting a breather in that valve cover tight. With the PCV there I just had more room to work.

So are you saying if I switch it back, it won't smoke?

I don't think it matters which side they're on (as long as they are both not on the same side!). And the line you replaced with just a breather entire function was to provide cool filtered air, so with a breather there you should be fine with the way it's hooked up.

HOWEVER, there shouldn't be anything coming out of it, it should be going the other way. Check your PCV valve to make sure it or its isn't plugged up. Pull the hose out of the valve cover while it's running and put your thumb over the open bottom end of it. Is there any vaccum pulling on your thumb? If not, the hose, PCV, or intake port is plugged. WIth the engine off you should also be able to shake the PCV valve and both hear and feel it rattling inside.

Pull the breather you put in and look down the hole. Does it go straight to the head and valve train, or is there a baffle just below the top of the valve cover? That's the quickest way to see if it's baffled or not. If the breather is getting pretty warm some oil splash from the rockers could be the source of the smoke, especially if not baffled. Other than that you may have a carboned up valve not sealing or some ring blow-by if the motor has a lot of miles on it. Is is burning or using any oil?

Worse case is put a breather on it with a hose spout, and run the hoseback around and under the grill or out the bottom.

Hope this helps.


- Vern

How do you have the hose routed for the PCV valve and where do you have the hose connected to the manifold?

for best performance, its that way simply because the "wind" cutting thru the motor from the spinning crank goes that way.

that doesnt mean it wont work the other way..... just look at the LT1, it grabs it all from under the manifold......

it really shouldn't matter which side you put the pcv valve on, but if your vac lines are on wrong, it'll screw you no matter what.

My valve covers are defenitly baffled, you can't see down into the valve cover through that hole. You can however see straight down into the valve cover and see the rockers when you remove the oil cap.

I am running the PCV hose to the side of the throttle body. Is this not a good source for vacuum?

I was very limited to my vacuum sources so here is how I did it, and I had nothing to spare. If you see something not right please let me know.

Brake Booster---hooks to port on back of intake
Heater source---hooks to 1 of the 2 ports on the side of the intake
Map sensor & Fuel pressure regulator---hooks to the 2nd port on the side of the intake
Charcoal canister---hooks to one of the ports on the side of the throttle body
PCV Valve----hooks to the other port on the side of the throttle body
Vaccum ball---hooks to the port under the throttle body that was used for EGR on stock setups.

The only other vaccum line is the one that goes to the heater diverter valve. So thats how I set it up, and i have the breather in the driver side valve cover.

This is a new motor and its only run for about 20 minutes total. I had some residual smoke coming off my headers but thats pretty much gone away. I happened to notice that smoke was coming from the valve cover breather and I thought that was a little odd. Its not billowing out but its visible. The PCV valve is working and I used all brand new vacuum hoses. So since everything is basically new what do you think?

Thanks

If your timing is 180º out you will get a blow-by condition also.

are you running a stock TPI throttle body?

if yes, the is only one(1) vacumn port in the side


it is the bottom one on the pass side

is the PCV hooked up to this?

the other is just a port to the filtered air before the throttle plates
there will be a sligh vac here, so hook the vapor canister line here(top one)

Can a motor run 180 degrees out?

I'm running a LPE 58mm throttle body. It has the same ports as the stock one. This is a very interesting point you just brought up. I had no idea they both weren't a vacuum source. I'm actually not sure which of those 2 ports I hooked my PCV to, but I'll defenitly check next time I get to the car.

Now what will be the effect of having it on the other port? Could this cause that situation of the smoke coming past the breather?

Hello David,

If you have the PCV valve connected to the throttle body, you are drawing fresh air from the throttle body and pushing against the plunger in the PCV valve so it won't function. See fig. C13-2 in the attached drawing. In fig. C13-3 of that same drawing, you will see that the PCV valve hose should connect to a nipple that is threaded into the left side of the intake manifold (not the plenum). The breather hose connects to the upper port on the right side of the throttle body.

I really appreciate all the replies. I'm going to need some help in re-routing my vacuum hoses then.

Please understand that I am working with a limited amount of vacuum ports as the earlier miniram castings only provided 3 ports (1 in the back, and 2 on the passenger side). Please also keep in mind I don't want to pull this intake off and tap in more holes, I would like to try and make this work with what I have available to use. I'll list below everything that needs vacuum and I would like to know where you experts think I should run them.

Brake booster
Map sensor
Fuel pressue regulator
PCV valve
Charcoal canister
Vacuum Ball (sits under the driver battery tray)
heater source
CCV vent (but here I was going to use a breather because I didn't have enough porst left.

Now I am not running EGR since the miniram doesn't have provisions for that so the vacuum source on the bottom of the throttle body is now free.

Since I obviously am not hooked up right now I sure could use some help getting this right with the limited supply of vacuum ports I have available.

Thanks

Remember that the port on the bottom of the throttle body is a ported source, not a manifold source..

You'll need a dedicated port for your map sensor. The HVAC and cruise control can be tied together (the factory setup has a 3-port check valve and one vacuum line that goes into the plenum by the map sensor). Might be able to T the FPR off of the HVAC (anybody else see problems with this??).. The brake booster can be run off of the port in the back. The charcoal canister can use its regular port on the side of the throttle body. And ummm... well, we still don't have any left for PCV... Damn, tried my best..

PCV valve ports off the intake manifold on drivers side, not the plenum.

The miniram is a 1 piece manifold, you have the plenum area and then it goes right into these short runners right into the head. It doesn't have that intake part like on a TPI.

There are only 3 total vacuum ports on the entire 1 piece intake, all of them are in the plenum area. 1 in the back for the brake booster and 2 on the passenger side.

So am I screwed or what? There has to be a way to get everything I have that needs vacuum with the amount of ports I have to work with.

Please help, I have worked on this car for a long long time and I'm finally near the end and want everything to work correctly.

T the vac port/line to the brake booster for the PCV, I have had to do this on carb cars, never had a problem

I've heard before though that those vapors can be bad for the diaphram in the booster, any thoughts on this?

I don't see how they could get the the booster, the run to the booster a a decent run(15-20 in.) there should be a filter and checkj valve, plus, the manifold port is the only one that is sucking

There is a check valve at the booster but no filter. Whether or not it would pull any of those fumes into the booster when the brakes are applied I couldn't say

That is exactly what I was going to do from the beginning, but I was advised not to. They had said the same thing, that it would pull those fumes into the booster.

Well it appears that I don't really have a choice, given my limitations of vacuum ports. I might as well try that and see what happens. If I do that and "T" the PCV and brake booster together, I can eliminate the breather filter in the valve cover all together and just run the factory CCV vent to the side of the throttle body.

So at this point thats what I'm leaning on doing unless anybody else has something to say. Thanks again for all the help.

you should just save yourself the headaches and contact TPIS. they have been playing with the setup for many years now, not to mention they make the miniram. their customer service is very good and i think they could help you resolve any other problems you may have with your setup.

I appreciate the reply but TPIS has solved this problem I am having. The new versions of the miniram have an extra 2 vacuum ports on the driver side of the manifold. If I had that I would be golden and wouldn't have to "T" anything. I might give them a call anyway but they probably can't tell me anything you guys can't.

Oh well if I ever have to pull the intake I can always have 2 more ports drilled and tapped. But for now I just have to work with what I got, so I'll try those last suggestions.

dude, i'd just do that. tap out another hole. yeah it's gonna be pain having to pull the intake and all the b/s that goes with having tpi, but why risk screwing something up.

Does anyone happen to have a part number for the ccv on the passenger side? I switched over from a tbi and need that piece. I had a breather cap on my tbi but when I installed the breather cap on my tpi setup, there is a really annoying whistling sound coming from the throttle body. If I try to plug that up, then the engine just dies. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

I wanted everyone to know what I ended up doing.

I ended up using a "T" for the PCV and Brake booster, and I alo put the PCV back into the driver side valve cover. I moved the breather over to the passenger cover and I also plugged that fresh air port on the side of the throttle body until I can get that factory CCV vent in there.

Bottom line, no more smoke coming from the valve covers. I haven't driven it yet to see how the brakes function, but I don't think I will have any problems there. Thanks for all the help.

Oh, Anyone have that GM part# for the CCV vent in the passenger valve cover?

I think you can get the little plastic elbow in Help! at the parts store... Then just a piece of hose to the vent. (not sure of the part number for the official hose though).

I'm pretty sure the CCV is a vent with some kind of valve in it, not just an elbow. I have plenty of vacuum hose so i'm not worried about the hose, I just want to put that factory CCV in the vavle cover, I just don't know the part number to order.

wait, if the ccv goes on the upper port on the throttle body, what goes on the lower port? I can't plug up the lower port because the car will die as soon as I plug it up. It makes a really bad whistling noise from the suction going through it. Can someone tell me what goes there? Thanks.

The lower port is for the charcoal canister.

Anybody got a parts catalog that can tell me the part# for that CCV vent?

Thanks

is the suction on that supposed to be that strong?? it will suck up anything i put up to it.

on the CCV on my car, i used a piece of fuel hose with a clear plastic fuel filter in it, it really helps to cut down on intake sluge build up. you can also put 1 on the pcv valve which helps even more. the filter on the ccv needs to be changed about every 6 months, the one on the pvc hose about once a month or so.

I am just curious, are you using baffles/splash shields on those, because having to change your filter every month seems to tell me your sucking up way to much oil.

yes, i do have baffles/splash shields as i am running the stock valve covers. these filters are the small inline aftermarket fuel filters as are used on a carb motor, they catch the fumes from the oil that gets burned off that normaly gets sucked into the intake, they don't hold much. it's been about 9 or 10 months sence the last time i cleaned my t-plates, there is some build up,... but only about what it would have in about a month of driving without the filters.

Things that make you go hhhhmmmmm! I think I might try the filter thing just to see what it is bringing into the intake from the covers. I have read that in an old post on this subject also. I am moving my pcv to the passenger side will route the hose around back and into the same vacuum port. Then run a standard breather on drivers side.

i forgot to mention the 1 i change about once a month is the 1 on the pvc hose. right now that 1 is off. it had been about 2 months or so sence the last time i changed it & while putting a starter on this past weekend i noticed i was developing some oil leaks. i pulled the pcv valve & had almost no vacum to it. yep, i been lazy about my car the past few months. maybe next week i'll get around to doing some maintance on it.