Ok, in the process of stripping down my engine bay. This may sound like a stupid question to some of you, but I'm just learning engines, and my friend who's done numerous swaps, etc. and just completed a rebuild on his 3.0 grand am can't answer it either.

Took apart the intake today. Plenum has been apart for a few weeks, but we got the lower intake and the fuel rail off, but when we revealed the valve covers, there's where we found a problem. My driver's side valve had the pvc running from it and the oil cap. My passenger side had nothing! There's a hole there, but we don't know what's meant to go there. Can someone help me out? I have a camaro parts and illustrations catalog that seems to indicate a vent, part# 25043843, but I want to be sure. Can someone help me, or provide pictures?

Mathius

 

If you are asking about the hole on the passenger side valve cover, in my '91 Bird motor (3.1), it goes to a metal tube that connects to the flexible air intake hose that goes between the throttle body and the ducting for the air cleaner.

 

I agree with zoom, their is a vent tube that goes from pass valvecover, to the air intake tube.

 

I've got two in my 85 engine
one hole on each valve cover, one I know is for that air tube, but I have no idea about the other one...somebody suggested that it was maybe for pcv, but this extra hole isn't there on the 89 engine.

 

OK, on my 91 3.1 on the driver side valve cover there are two holes, one is the oil filler the other is for the PCV. On the passenger side I have only one hole...see my previous post.

 

Ok, I think I see a picture of this in my Haynes, it's an elbow looking joint coming out of the valve cover, and leading to a hose that leads... where? In the air box? Does anyone have any pictures, detailed pics, of this? It would be most appreciated.

Mathius

 

You have a 3.1..which means... Check the flex tubing coming directly off your throttle body. You know the black, ribbed, flexible rubber piece? Look on the passenger side of it..it's got a hole and a fitting in there. The elbowed plastic piece sleeves into the flex intake tube, and then goes into the valve cover with a special fitting. This is the PCV return tube...not the actual PCV valve. The PCV valve is on the DRIVER'S side, as zoomzoom mentioned.

You can barely see it here...but it's on the left side of the photo....

And by the way...don't use this intake setup. This is a photo of an old experiment of mine. Worked great. Til the car got warm.

 

Ok guys, I found it. Somehow it slipped down behind the alternator when I disconnected the air intake. Must not have been fitted well into the valve cover I've got them soaking in karosene right now, hoping to loosen the rtv sealant off the gaskets so I can get them off, paint'm and re-install. I'm going for an antodized blue.

We've got most of the engine apart and disconnected. I'm learning a ton, but I'm nervous as hell that we'll forget where a wire was supposed to lay or something and not know how to re-connect something.

We had several plans, we were gonna do the engine bay a piece at a time, but I decided I wanted to do the wiper cowl and the doghouse black as well, so we started thinking about how we would paint the sections, and decided we better mask everything at once or we'll get a seam in the paint.

We were gonna label everything on the wiring harness, but it seems as though everything almost has its own special connector for the most part. The hard part is making sure we can remember where every section of the wiring harness lays, in order to jog our memory on where the connectors go.

Mathius