Supples’ Pub

I mentioned in my radar detector hardwire post that I did a couple mods last weekend, and this was the other one. A catch can replaces your stock PCV hose with the purpose of catching any oil blowby. Taken from the Elite Engineering website:

The PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) system is designed to regulate and remove fumes from the engine crankcase, and to alleviate crankcase pressure which could cause oil leaks or seal damage. The PCV system routes crankcase fumes into the intake manifold where they can be burned to eliminate harmful emissions into the atmosphere. The PCV valve controls the amount of crankcase flow volume depending on the engine’s load. With large throttle openings (high engine loads), the more blow-by gases are produced, and the more the PCV system flows oil vapor in to the intake manifold. The PCV valve also functions as a check valve to prevent intake manifold flow from reversing back into the crankcase when there is a backfire, or during periods of high manifold pressure (boost) during forced induction by turbocharger or supercharger.

Of course as a result, the PCV allows oil vapor to flow from the crankcase into your intake and can end up coating things nicely. Oil + intake manifold + valvetrain, etc = bad, mmmkay

To give you an idea, here are a couple pictures posted by other GTO owners of the oil residue left by the lack of a catch can. The residue on the throttle body is not so bad, but you can see the glistening sheen of oil residue all over the stock intake manifold (second picture).

The install is extremely straight forward and it took me about 20 minutes, although I was spurred on by the extreme humidity.

The first step is pop off the original PCV hose, which is located just behind the throttle body on the LS2. You’ll need a medium sized pair of needle nose pliers to get in there, it’s a bit crowded.

See that little silver tube poking out from behind the throttle body? That’s the bottom PCV tube, and the black plastic above it is the top tube.

I chose the Elite Engineering catch can for its highly reputed quality, fit, and finish. As you can tell, it is very solidly constructed and is a nice piece of eye candy. Constructed of a billet aluminum alloy, the two halves are well machined and just ooze quality.

One note: I did pull out the metal difuser from the top half and re-secured it with some Blue loctite. Some users have reported finding it sitting at the bottom of their catch can, so I took care of that.

Anyway, you run the hose from the top of the catch can to the bottom PCV tube and the lower catch can hose to the top PCV tube. Despite the tight quarters for my big hands, it goes pretty quickly and everything is sealed up. The piece of mind was well worth the $125 group purchase price. They are normally $145 shipped and available in four colors, from here!

A picture of it installed:

Pardon the crappy picture, but here’s the contents after ~200 miles of driving and a fair number of WOT & high RPM runs, probably about a teaspoon of oil: