Ok...when I bought my car it came with those aftermarket chrome valve covers. The previous owner must have had the same problem as I am having now where the oil cap blows off real easy. I am assuming on stock valve covers the oil cap screws in or is threaded in some way but on these el-cheapo aftermarket ones the bloody oil cap has a rubber trim that just sorta goes in, no twisting or anything involved in putting this cap on. Well my car runs about 210kPa of oil preasure and can sometimes hit inbetween 210 and the 420 mark (assuming thats about 315 or so) so I understand why this little cap gets knocked out. So far I had to replace this bloody thing 5 times at $10 a shot because when its blown off its either landed on my header and cooked itself into uselessness or fell under the car and lost on a street somewhere. Is anyone else out there running these aftermarket chromey valve covers and having the same problem. If you are and have a solution please let me know. I am about to get all ghetto with the next one and tape the bastich down with some duct tape or build my own retaining clip to hold it in. This is driving me insane.

Hope someone out there has a solution...I would put the stock valve covers back on but the previous owner threw them out when he put these ones on...that and I would really like to keep them cuz the chrome is teh sex!

 

Just out of curiousity, how old is your PCV valve?

 

definately sounds like you're not running a breather or PCV valve on the other valve cover. and 5 times at $10 i would ask about this a long time ago. although for 2 times at $10 i'll give you the answer...it'll save ya in the long run.

 

My breather cap just pushes in, and I've never had a problem with it coming out.

 

It's not oil pressure blowing your oil cap out, it's crankcase pressure. Do you have a working PCV system on those valve covers?

 

Crankcase breather was bought last year and the PCV Valve was just changed when I did my annual tuneup. Could there be anything else that I should check?

 

Maybe check the valve covers? Just a thought. Those seem to be real close to the source of the problem.

Why not put stock ones back on?

This is why I HATE aftermarket valve covers. They very often do stuff like that. Just because they bolt on, doesn't mean they work right.

 

How about the tube from the PCV, and the fitting on the throttle body? Anything plugged up? Unless you have some really nasty blow-by you shouldn't be losing the oil cap.

 

I've seen the vacuum passage in the throttle body (TBI) that feeds the PCV become completely blocked with carbon and crap... pull your pcv valve out of the valve cover when the engine is running and make sure you're getting vacuum from it.. If not, that's probably what has happened...

 

yeah,i've seen new pcv valves that didn't work.
blow thru it then toke it,should be open when you blow and closed when you toke(sorry,didn't want to say suck).
is it installed backwards?
Eric B