Anyone know if a vacuum pump off a powerstroke will move enough air to work as a crankcase evac system? I'm getting fabricated valve covers soon and dont really a PCV system. This is on a mainly street car. It might see the track every now and then. If I do this, would I need a breather in one valve cover or could I use the pump to just pull a vacuum on the crankcase?

 

You'll still want a breather.

 

Ok then. Thanks for the quick reply. I guess if I still need a breather, then I'll just do a PCV setup. What I was trying to do is have nothing on top of the valve covers. I wanted it to look simple and clean.

Will the PCV valve work if turned on its side? If I run it out the back of the valve cover.

 

It may, it'll depend on whether the pintle is spring, or if it depends on gravity.

 

If you run a breather you wont draw any vac, you will want a vac limit valve though to keep your seals in place. idealy the motor would be built for this.

WHat exactly do you think you'll get from this anyway? You wont be turning much more than 5K, on a race built smallblock turning 7-8 thousand you might see 5-10 CHP and a more stable ring pack but thats all and you aint running that kind of high end motor.

 

He's looking for a crankcase evacuation system, not a vacuum system for ring sealing.

 

This.

I'm really just after a clean look. I didnt want breathers on top of the valve covers. But, its looking like I'll have to have at least one. I did want some kind of evac system though. Right now I have just a breather in each valve cover and I dont like the smoke that comes out. I know it doesnt hurt anything, but I'd rather something to get fresh air in the crankcase.

 

Just put a PCV valve in one side and it'll get rid of the smoke. Probably cleaner to have a simple valve and short piece of hose than a whole vacuum pump and associated belt and plumbing.

 

Yeah I think thats what I'm going to do. I had thought that with a vacuum pump you didnt need a breather in the other side. Thats why I was asking about the Ford pump. But since I'll need a breather no matter what, I'm not going to mess with the pump. I was looking on Summits site and found aluminum breathers and PCV valves so they should look ok on the fabricated valve covers I'm getting.

 

No matter what you do to evacuate the crankcase, you need a way to let clean air in to flush out the bad. You could use a small breather mounted on the back of the valvecover or something.

 

Same thing, or can you explain a functional difference? And I agree he'll see no ring sealing difference nor windage reduction. The two reasons one would put a motor driven vac pump on a car.

If the op wants to evacuate his crank case then a standard PCV/breather setup will work well enough. Mounting them on the rear of the VC's is a good idea.

 

A factory pump will probably seize up. You can use one of these which is based off a Ford pump.

http://www.gzmotorsports.com/

 

A powerstroke vacuum pump does not have any where near enough volume to work as a evac pump.