"Clean" Valve Cover Breathers?
 

I have a "Cleavor" motor with the Ford Cleveland valve covers with the push in breathers that came with the valve covers. They both leak oil out of teh brether vent holes when cornering. Can anyone suggest better breather assemblies, etc. to fix this? I see that some companies like Moroso offer weld in breather kits with baffled supply tubes. I was curious what other people have done to fix this before I go ahead and start welding in new breather assemblies.

get solid valve covers, and connect a intake manifold breather/pipe fitting and hose to a puke tank on your firewall.

B&B performance makes baffled breather tubes in steel or aluminim. www.stefs.com

Or, if you want to save some money, here's a "cross over" method. We use this on our sprint car. Road racing would work the same way.

Other than making your engine dirty, with oil leakage, I have heard that some times, especially with the FE design, as the blowby gases escape through these breathers, with the gasses passing up from the crankcase to the heads, through the openings where the oil drains back. At times, if there are enough of blowby gasses, and the oil return passages are too small to handle both the blowby gasses and the returning oil going in opposite directions, you can end up with excess oil retained on top of the heads, being retained by the blowby gasses. If you run solid valve covers, and the engine blowby gasses vent through the intake, then the oil can drain easier from the top side of the head back to the pan.

I have had similar results with my 351-W........What I did was add/weld about six inches of thin walled steel tubing, I think about 1.25 inches in diameter to the breather holes,but when you weld them in,set them so they are straight up (vertical) on the valve cover when the motor is installed in the car, also I added a baffle,nothing more than a small piece of Z-71 rear quarter panel in the shape of a V, I inverted the V and put it in the tube from the bottom and welded the two ends in the tube,solved all my problems.........

Got the idea from the original 289 Comp car vavle covers.......what was happening was the vent worked great,but after shut down a little oil/mist "pooled" in the K&N breather and since it was at an angle it dripped out the side of the breather element on the headers instead of draining straight down back into the engine........

I have seen pics of the old 289 comp car vavle covers,but can not find one now,maybe computerworks can find the photo and post it,it will give you an idea of what I'm talking about............

notice the photo FUNFER2 posted and you will see the vent tubes with the breathers stand straight up,so things drain straight down back into the system and not all over your motor........mine are very similar,except I welded a tube to each vavle cover coming straight up and use similar breathers.......

the other thing is to route the vent to a catch can...............

David

Gt350 Type[IMG]http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...icture_405.jpg[/IMG]





Cobra FIA type:
[IMG]http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...86P1010135.JPG[/IMG]


One of the problems the 289/302 encounters is the comparatively small crankcase has difficulty venting when the engine is in a stroker configuration. A small piece of fuel cell foam stuffed into the vent tube on the valve covers will prevent the oil spray & vapor from escaping under high rpm. THis works well.
[IMG]http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...010135-med.JPG [/IMG]

The GT 350 Type came after the ones with 2 vents on each cover. I'm not sure why they only used 1 vent per cover????

Flash!!! Information was forwarded to me from Cal Metal who was able to have this clarified by Phil Remington. His response was that the ring sealing technology and materials had improved to the point that there was considerably less blowby and consequently only one vent tube per bank was required.

Mike;
A lot of drag racers stuff a piece of scotch brite or copper pot cleaner in their breathers. It lets the air pass but not the oil, and it's cheap and easy. I would make sure you have a baffle in place so you don't crap up your heads.
Bill Stradtner

I have the baffled high rise Branda covers. I was leaking oil on high rpm. More of an annoyance than anything else as it would leak down onto the wires and heads. I had a bung welded on and setup a Jazz Can as a remote breather. No problems since.

http://www.priveye.com/dls/jazcan2.jpg

Roscoe

Try a set of Baffled Breather Grommets from Summit. It'll only cost you $5.00.
http://static.summitracing.com/globa.../mor-68775.jpg

Thanks for all the ideas. I ended up ordered a new set of valve covers without any holes, then a Moroso kit that is everything you need for the "Cross Breathers" that FUNFER2 suggested. Motoro makes a kit for this (part # 68762).

Mike, that's the way old Bud Moore Trans Am cars(Boss 302) were orig. You've got a clevor engine, very simalar design. I am still trying to get some time to look you up. All this rain is getting rediculous!! Did you move? I thought you were in Powder Springs? Good luck, Matt Need any "Home repair" that be a good excuse to get out to your house!

Mike- I think it's a good choise plus, it's just cool looking. When I have time, I plan on doing it too my motor with a custom look. I have all "cool flex" hoses so, I don't really want to have any rubber. I'll weld a bung into the valve covers and it will be a slip joint for the alum. tubing and drill & tap for a set screw. (all polished alum.) This way it's all alum. tubing, no rubber and I can simply loosen the screws and pull the hole assembly out when needed rather than have to remove the valve covers. It seems like a cool idea anyway ?
Thanks,
kev

Just stumbled across this older thread that I started. Thought I would post a picture of the final breather arrangement.

http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...Breather_1.JPG