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Sighlense
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Right on - I don’t DD mine but can get spirited when I do and mine is usually half full come time to change the oil.
Monopoly
Well-Known Member
This.
[ame="[MEDIA=youtube]PWz6vCnJ4CA[/MEDIA]"]
Basically extra maintenance most people who aren't car enthusiasts would never dump out or care about.
Hell most people don't change tranny, coolant, brake fluid on time or at all before its too late. People just want to add gas and go. Engine oil is hard enough to keep track of.
[ame="[MEDIA=youtube]PWz6vCnJ4CA[/MEDIA]"]
Basically extra maintenance most people who aren't car enthusiasts would never dump out or care about.
Hell most people don't change tranny, coolant, brake fluid on time or at all before its too late. People just want to add gas and go. Engine oil is hard enough to keep track of.
JohnD
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Probably true for most cars that are just DD'ers, but for people who run road courses regularly they are added insurance against air/fuel ratio imbalances. It's not about performance, it's about keeping your engine healthy longer. Catch cans have been standard practice for that reason on race cars since I first started going racing with my old man about 1964.
TheLion
Well-Known Member
I think you have that backwards. Oil vapor in the intake IS NOT going to harm the engine. Ever NA and TDI engine from the factory has oil vapor accumulation in the intake manifold, back of the throttle body and on the intake valves.
In TDI engines it can become an issue in some cars as miles pile on. The intake valves are no longer washed by fuel vapor, so there's no cleaning action as there has always been with Port injection. That's why Ford opted for dual injection setup on the third generation 5.0 (2018+ GT's). You get the benefits of the self cleaning of the intake valves of Port injection with the cooling benefits of direct injection.
Anyway, other than the TDI case, assuming the engine doesn't have a mechanical problem, there isn't enough oil to cause any damage or excessive wear. There may be enough oil vapor to occasionally cause some fuel dilution and loss of power, but it's typically only during heavy usage that's not common for a daily and it's not enough that the ECU can't compensate and pull timing.
Same is true for even a stock 5.0. Car & Driver noted that their 2015 GT PP test car experienced some fade in power during their lapping of the car even though nothing was over heated (oil and coolant temps were within normal range). Nothing was damaged or broken by it. Cars run multiple hundreds of thousands of miles even under heavy usage (when maintained properly) without any issues due to oil vapor inhalation even if the ECU has to occasionally pull timing to stop occasional knock.
BUT, the car is NOT making it's rated 435 HP...it may be making 425 or even less depending on how much knock is occuring. My guess based on how my own GT has experienced some power fade during heavy usage, 10 to 20 hp. Most people say they can't notice much less than 10 HP difference and it definitely looses it's edge if I get it hot enough for long enough even though Oil temp is still within the safe region (about 3/4 up on the green in the "idiot" gauge).
I spoke with Ford Performance about this as I've experienced the same issue during sustained heavy throttle even on back roads and they noted it's a common issue that oil vapor dilutes the fuel octane and causes the engine to pull timing. While it's not harmful to the engine, your not making the peak power because you 93 or 91 is no longer 93 or 91 and something less.
Dedicated race cars, running the most aggressive timing possible and high octane race fuels could easily suffer knock from fuel dilution. Now most factory tuning or even factory hot tunes like Ford Performance are designed well enough to prevent damage, but they aren't going to make peak power either when they have to start scaling back timing.
In my experience with Ford Performance so far, they generally don't offer solutions to non-existent problems. They seem very selective in what they offer. I'm not suggesting they know everything, but they certainly know the 5.0 extremely well due to owning several variants of it, their access to Ford engineering and Ford's own team drivers and pit crews and they acknowledge that issue.
Running a low boil off rated (NOACK) oil is probably good enough for your typical street car. But those that track it or maybe even have access to hundreds of miles of obscure back country roads where you can see a lot of on throttle 2nd and 3rd gear pulls, there's a benefit.
The best combination is a low NOACK rated oil that is also Dexos 1 Gen 2 or ISLAC GF-5 Plus rated combined with a catch can. That will keep vaporization to a minimum and the can will catch what does end up boiling off and keep from diluting the fuel, allowing your ECU to run it's most aggressive timing as often as it can.
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5ABI VT
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lol. Snake oil? something that helps filter oil/fuel/blowby from re-entering your intake manifold is snake oil? how about doing some research before spreading bs. There is no downside to a catch can except emptying it out. Some filter much much better than others. Manufacturers don't install them because they require emptying and once full they can prevent the pcv system from functioning. pcv must function by law. Hey you learn something new every day right?
op yes its worth it on a used motor. even at 200k miles.
TheLion
Well-Known Member
Think about it this way. What's the source of oil vapor that causes fuel octane dilution? The crank case. If you add in a filter and the vapor is no longer entering the intake in any sufficient quantities then the little bit that has accumulated in the intake manifold and throttle body already will quickly be burned up and will not re-accumulate now that the PCV blow by is being filtered. So there absolutely is a benefit regardless of mileage.
It all depends on your application and how much you even care about making peak power as much as possible. If your fine with loosing a little timing during sustained heavy loading of the engine or you never really experience "track like" loading conditions then there's no need, at least not on a stock or Ford Performance tuned car.
There may be some added safety benefit for very aggressive after market ECU calibrations (aka shop tunes) that could cause damaging knock (more or less the calibrator is running timing so aggressive the ECU can't scale it back fast enough when knock does start to avoid damage). In that rare and user induced case (which is very foolish in my opinion), it could add to the longevity of the engine. And if your into breaking records that's the way it has to be, but that's not most of our goals, at least not to that extreme.
I like reliability and any modification that has a significant negative affect on reliability is a no no in my book. But aside from that specific case it comes down to 1. Do you want to make the most power the engine is capable of during the most severe conditions but at the expense of slightly higher maintenance (periodically emptying the can) or 2. do you want to keep maintenance to a minimum and sacrifice a small amount of performance temporarily in a very specific condition (one which many never even subject their cars to)?
Oil in your intake isn't a "permanent" condition. Once you go back to normal driving, vaporization rates will be dramatically reduced and the oil accumulated in the intake will quickly be consumed in the regular combustion processes. Your ECU will adjust timing as this process occurs and eventually run maximum timing again. So the take away is that catch cans work and they certainly have benefits, but they are for specific applications and they do require a little more maintenance.
Most people report they can go an entire oil change interval without the can being close to full. Running a low NOACK rated oil would certainly help facilitate that and it's easy enough to remember to empty it once every oil change, but it is an extra step and forgetting to empty it could cause seal damage and heavy knock or even plug fouling and misfires if it over flows because you neglected to empty it, which is why they are not on factory cars (but oil separators are as they are maintenance free).
I do enough driving and under severe enough conditions at times that I've added a JLT 3.0 oil separator to my car. I've used UPR in the past on my ecoboost but found it also caused an excessive amount of condensation to accumulate inside the catch can. 2/3 of it's contents was water and living in a 4 season state I was emptying mostly water and very little oil and doing it almost every 1k miles. I became a neussiance and didn't seem to make any noticeable difference in that particular application. A different design of catch can may have yielded better results, but I turned to LSPI resistant oils instead and from my data logs had consistent performance.
JLT and Ford Performance seem to have better filter designs that avoid substantial water accumulation and catch mostly oil. JLT's newer 3.0 design does a better job than their original design due to added filter media (honeycomb web allowing further oil accumulation), the tripping of it's capacity also allows for much longer intervals before emptying.
I'm not sure if the Ford design uses anything similar to a honeycomb web or if it's chambered etc, but both JLT and Ford Performance use a fine stainless steel wire mesh as the primary mechanism to condense oil vapor (the original JLT actually used the same wire mesh as the Ford Performance unit). Ford Performance had recommended I use something other than their separator because theirs is not directly compatible with their Power Pack 2 and the JLT design fit the bill.
The trick in oil separator design is balance filtering with dwell time. Too much dwell time in the separator allows excessive moisture accumulation like with the UPR design I had on my Ecoboost. It was more or less just uselessly filling with water while catching minimal oil vapor. I was emptying it every 1k miles and most of it was water (not only that is their quick disconnect fittings didn't seal very well and I had a nasty fuel odor int he cabin that went way once it was removed).
Not sure how their newer stuff compares, so I can't comment on that, but simple is good when it comes to catch cans and both JLT and FP do a decent job, enough to make a noticeable difference when the car is under sustained heavy throttle as that is where they come into their own and help keep your timing values at their optimal levels, stock or otherwise. Track is probably the most brutal form of racing unless your into big power FI on the drag strip, but thermal stresses are often more likely to damage things than mechanical stresses when NA.
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