smooth 1

Put this together over the weekend. I really liked how this turned out, so i took a few pics to post.

smooth 1

I've been emptying my catch can regularly. I've drained about 9 ozs. total of this light brown, grey liquid stuff. It smells of concentrated petroleum. just 3 ozs of this stuff stunk up my whole garage! When you leave it sit for awhile it separates into this clear liquid with the grey/brown matter resting at the bottom. Out of curiosity...I poured some into a small container and tried to burn it....nothing. it's all water based.

so this brings up a couple questions...what is this stuff exactly? Where does it come from? why does the PVC system feed it back into the cylinder? why don't car mfgr's put catch cans on instead or in addition to the PCV system?

SchwarzS6

Most cars will accumulate some moisture in the oil. As the car cools it draw in air from outside and if that air is humid the water will condense. As the engine heats up the water boils/evaporates and normally would pass through the PCV system into the intake and out the exhaust. Your catch can could be catching this water in addition to a very small amount of oil. If your catch can is catching oil in addition to the water it will create a layer of oil on the top of that water. If you are not getting any oil on the top of the water (it should be very obvious) then all you are catching is water and some combustion blow-by (carbon and other exhuast products). If this is the case then there is not much point in keeping the catch can since you installed it to catch oil.