AlbertD
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2016
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- 74
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- 627
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- Location
- Tucson, AZ
- Vehicle(s)
- 2016 GT/PP
I was also there at AMP that day and unfortunately no, the driver side catch can did not fix the issue. If anything, it prolonged the my track time before I started ingesting oil. I had to cut the day short after just 10 minutes into my first session, quite frustrating.
So I exhibit the exact same symptoms as you do. I enter turn 5 and then accelerate HARD coming out of 6... I will burn a bit of oil on that straight, but then after accelerating hard out of turn 8 there is an enormous cloud of smoke at that point and I can audibly hear the car detonating and loosing power. It clears up by the end of the straight.
I have the same issue at East track as well accelerating hard out of turn 1. Will blow a huge cloud of smoke down the straight and then it clears up.
Interesting enough, I don't catch a drop of oil out of the driver side catch can at West track or Indie. Blows my mind.
Here is what I know so far...
1. I have confirmed that the issue is with the driver side PCV system sucking in a ton of oil. It isn't traditional blow-by as the amount that gets sucked in is enormous. I filled up my driver side catch can in just 10 minutes of hard driving. I took a picture of how much the driver side catch can caught...
2. I initially thought it may have been piston rings since I have been tracking the car hard since I bought it new and it now has over 50k miles... figured there must be some accelerating piston ring wear causing a ton of blow by at high rpm. Well I just did a compression test today and all cylinders were consistent and within 10% deviation from max/min. Service manual dictates that up to 25% deviation is within normal range, so 10% indicates to me that the engine is in great healthy condition.
3. The driver side catch can certainly helped, but it is not the fix. It filled up in just 10 minutes of driving on that track. The amount of oil that is getting sucked in is ridiculously excessive, which leads me to my next thought...
I am starting to believe it may be a design problem with the valve cover baffling... maybe... oil is getting trapped in the baffle during a certain series of high g turns and when you go WOT at that point in the turn the driver side PCV system will suck in a huge amount of oil that may be pooled in the baffle. I am not entirely sure how to fix this if it were the case... I wonder if the GT350 valve covers have better designed baffles? **Update: Just looked up GT vs GT350 valve cover part numbers and they are the same** I have heard of s2ks having this issue and the owners drill holes into the valve cover baffles to allow the pooled oil to drain out before it has a chance in getting sucked out the PCV system. I don't plan nor want to drill holes in the baffling. I would much prefer an OEM equivalent solution.
Today, I bought a Moroso oil pan hoping that the increased baffling and trap doors will aid in reducing how much oil gets sloshed up due to increased crankcase pressures... I'm not expecting this to fix the issue, but hopefully it will help at some capacity.
As far as the catch can setup, I plan to add either of these two things...
a. Add an additional large reservoir connected to the driver catch can drain so that I can run a 20 min session without the catch can overfilling.
b. Make the driver catch can drain into the Moroso oil pan
Option a prevents contaminated oil from reentering the oil system, but I starve the engine of that oil since it is no longer circulating through the oil system... although with the increased oil capacity of the Moroso oil pan, may not be a problem.
Option b allows the engine to utilize the full amount of oil capacity as oil will enter back into the oil pan, but the oil may be contaminated with condensation, fuel, etc... which, is not ideal.
So long answer short, unfortunately just doing the driver catch can is not enough.
Here is what my current setup looks like... I custom fabricated a mount to the fuse box out of aluminum and mounted two universal "large" Moroso air/oil separators. Pretty happy with how it came out. Next time you see my car out at the track, you should come by and say hello. I am typically out with ProAuto every month.
So I exhibit the exact same symptoms as you do. I enter turn 5 and then accelerate HARD coming out of 6... I will burn a bit of oil on that straight, but then after accelerating hard out of turn 8 there is an enormous cloud of smoke at that point and I can audibly hear the car detonating and loosing power. It clears up by the end of the straight.
I have the same issue at East track as well accelerating hard out of turn 1. Will blow a huge cloud of smoke down the straight and then it clears up.
Interesting enough, I don't catch a drop of oil out of the driver side catch can at West track or Indie. Blows my mind.
Here is what I know so far...
1. I have confirmed that the issue is with the driver side PCV system sucking in a ton of oil. It isn't traditional blow-by as the amount that gets sucked in is enormous. I filled up my driver side catch can in just 10 minutes of hard driving. I took a picture of how much the driver side catch can caught...
2. I initially thought it may have been piston rings since I have been tracking the car hard since I bought it new and it now has over 50k miles... figured there must be some accelerating piston ring wear causing a ton of blow by at high rpm. Well I just did a compression test today and all cylinders were consistent and within 10% deviation from max/min. Service manual dictates that up to 25% deviation is within normal range, so 10% indicates to me that the engine is in great healthy condition.
3. The driver side catch can certainly helped, but it is not the fix. It filled up in just 10 minutes of driving on that track. The amount of oil that is getting sucked in is ridiculously excessive, which leads me to my next thought...
I am starting to believe it may be a design problem with the valve cover baffling... maybe... oil is getting trapped in the baffle during a certain series of high g turns and when you go WOT at that point in the turn the driver side PCV system will suck in a huge amount of oil that may be pooled in the baffle. I am not entirely sure how to fix this if it were the case... I wonder if the GT350 valve covers have better designed baffles? **Update: Just looked up GT vs GT350 valve cover part numbers and they are the same** I have heard of s2ks having this issue and the owners drill holes into the valve cover baffles to allow the pooled oil to drain out before it has a chance in getting sucked out the PCV system. I don't plan nor want to drill holes in the baffling. I would much prefer an OEM equivalent solution.
Today, I bought a Moroso oil pan hoping that the increased baffling and trap doors will aid in reducing how much oil gets sloshed up due to increased crankcase pressures... I'm not expecting this to fix the issue, but hopefully it will help at some capacity.
As far as the catch can setup, I plan to add either of these two things...
a. Add an additional large reservoir connected to the driver catch can drain so that I can run a 20 min session without the catch can overfilling.
b. Make the driver catch can drain into the Moroso oil pan
Option a prevents contaminated oil from reentering the oil system, but I starve the engine of that oil since it is no longer circulating through the oil system... although with the increased oil capacity of the Moroso oil pan, may not be a problem.
Option b allows the engine to utilize the full amount of oil capacity as oil will enter back into the oil pan, but the oil may be contaminated with condensation, fuel, etc... which, is not ideal.
So long answer short, unfortunately just doing the driver catch can is not enough.
Here is what my current setup looks like... I custom fabricated a mount to the fuse box out of aluminum and mounted two universal "large" Moroso air/oil separators. Pretty happy with how it came out. Next time you see my car out at the track, you should come by and say hello. I am typically out with ProAuto every month.
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