well.. just got done changing the oil and filter.... and was very suprised of just how dirty the oil was.... first oil change i did was at just over the 1500 mile mark... went to synthetics all the way around... mobile 1 in the engine and redline in the gearcase... now at 6029 miles.. did the next one.... and for a new engine with 4500 mile oil.. it was alot dirtier than i would have expected... so filled the crankcase again.. and started the car.. and my second surprise... the amount of blow-by this engine has is insane... even when it is up to nominal temp.... no wonder the oil was so dirty... seeing this, there is no way i would ever go the full recommended change interval... i guess im back to doing changes every 3k to 3.5k mile.... and im going to look into a oil catch can... that would defenently be beneficial...

i would recommend that you guys check your oil levels about every 3 month... or about half way between your oil change interval... this is my first expirience with an import engine so im not sure if this is normal for these engine... i know every engine will have some blow-by.. but DAMN!!!

 

how did you measure the blow-by? did you see oil in the intake tube?

 

no official measurement.. just took the oil fill cap off and you can feel how much blow-by...

FYI.. don't leave the cap off for too long.. it blows hard enough to spit oil all over the place...

 

i drive 500 miles a week. i do a change every month and a half

 

This is true for any car with overhead cams-- nothing to do with blowby. The air pressure you feel is from the crankcase venting. Blowby would result in smoke out of the tailpipe, not air puffing out of the oil filler cap.

Dirty oil is more feel & smell than look. The dark color of used oil is mostly from encapsulated moisture-- that's normal. Now bad oil... smells stale or burnt, and can often have a gritty (very bad) or slimy (not so bad) feel to it.

 

I think you might be mistaking the pulsation for blowby. All oil gets dirty when used in an internal combustion engine, that's its job. The cars engine is very well engineered and if you have little experience with them, I would highly recommend you don't try to "fix" too many of these "problems" until you fully understand what is going on. This engine design is well proven with an outstanding record for longeviety and reliability and comes with no "problems" that I know of from the factory. If it ain't broke, don't "fix" it!

 

ditto.
no need to get a catch can unless oil is finding its way into the intake tube.

does the tc have some sort of crankcase ventalation valve connected to the intake? i guess its that box attached to the tube. i havent bothered to look around.

 

yes it does. search for "PCV EGR discussion" in power hungry. there was a previous thread about this very topic.

 

wow.. guys.. do you guys undestand what PCV is for and why it is needed...? and what blow-by is..? and why oil gets dirty...? i have been around engines all my life... and let me impart some info .... because i DO know what is going on ....

PVC.. Positive Crankcase Ventilation... this is to help remove gases from within the engine... and where would these gases come from.. OIL..? cams..? the only gases in the engine is from the cumbustion in the engine... ALL engine have blowby.. some cumbution gases get by the rings... some engines have more than others.. i never said that there was anything wrong with the engine,.., just that i was suprised at how much this engine had...

the oil gets dirty because of mostly blowby.. which is burnt fuel.. these particles are picked up by the oil and filters out as much as possible... yes.. the oil is heated up.. heat me discolor the oil alittle... but not turn it brown unless it is burnt.. and that would happen in a overheat situation... oils 2 purposes is to lubricate and to remove contaminants by trapping them and passing it thru the filter...

and here is something to think about.. this enigne has 2 ventilation hoses... there is one "directly" attached to the intake manifold and to the bacl left corner of the valve cover.. you can't see it unless you remove the plastic cover.. and there is the one you can see that is on the right front corner of the valve cover that goes to the intake tube.... and these are both providing SUCTION!! which is tellimg me that they."the engineers" of these engines knew that they have enough positive pressure in the crankcase to neccessatate 2 ventilation areas..... there are people that are running catch cans from.. well.. let me tell you... there is oil in the can after a few hundred miles... not enough to cause smoke in the exhaust... but enough to dirty the intake track..... so can enough tel me how that oil got there..?

i checked the lub in the gearcase aswell... and guess what.. it's clean... very clean... why..?? even though there is heat in the gearcase... there are no cantaminants as there is in the crankcase... i do not doubt that with time.. there will be alittle discoloration due to heat...but i do not ever expect to see the gearlube BROWN like the one coming out of the engine...

 

the only reason you would have any discoloration in the tranny would be from internal tranny parts going bad(ie. slippage). Or else it will be clean because it is a closed system, there is no way for fuel or oil to get into the transmission. So, not to knock or anything, but there is no correlation between contaminates in the tranny and contaminates in the crankcase.

 

I am so late to jump into this and bring back a dead thread, but just wanna ask... isn't the tube going from the crank case to the intake manifold the actual PCV line? and the one that's going from the valve cover to the intake tube the breather hose?

The way I always kinda figured (and I'm probably wrong based on the above), is that the breather hose isn't a second PCV line.. but it mixes with the recirculated crankcase gas so that the unburnt fuel that blows by to the crank case has that extra air to mix and burn with when it re-enters the intake manifold. That's why boosted cars sometimes need a catch can, because there's so much blowby with the boost that the PCV pressure is enough to reverse the flow in the breather hose and shoot oil into the intake tube.

Someone please verify and straighten out my thinking on this.