[E92William]

The idea I had creating this thread was just to see experimentation aswell as solutions to folks that might have oil consumption or have had disas damaged from oil getting on them which seems to be quite common or wanna prevent it. I can hear oil slushing around inside my failed disas

I see no reason why this can't work just fine since car manufacturers vented to atmosphere for ages before this was frowned upon by emissions regulations and activists.

I wouldn't call the stock system great, it seems to fail quite often I personally had to replace the oil separator on my old 325 because it was all clogged inside and such is the case of the one in the 530 I pulled the 3im from. The valve cover in my 328 had the pcv get clogged aswell which required an entire cover replacement at 105k miles. Engine is super clean inside so doubt it's due to lack of service.

[hassmaschine]

Originally Posted by E92William

The idea I had creating this thread was just to see experimentation aswell as solutions to folks that might have oil consumption or have had disas damaged from oil getting on them which seems to be quite common or wanna prevent it. I can hear oil slushing around inside my failed disas

I see no reason why this can't work just fine since car manufacturers vented to atmosphere for ages before this was frowned upon by emissions regulations and activists.

I wouldn't call the stock system great, it seems to fail quite often I personally had to replace the oil separator on my old 325 because it was all clogged inside and such is the case of the one in the 530 I pulled the 3im from. The valve cover in my 328 had the pcv get clogged aswell which required an entire cover replacement at 105k miles. Engine is super clean inside so doubt it's due to lack of service.

Sure, but those same engines also leaked oil out of every oriface (even worse than a modern BMW), got 8mpg, didn't start easily when too cold or too hot, and made 40hp/liter.

The whole point of a PCV is to keep the crankcase free of pressure because it causes oil leaks (among other issues, like pumping losses). BMWs hardly need any help making additional oil leaks..

[E92William]

I agree, my consensus was the pressure inside the engine if vented to atmosphere would theoretically stay at atmosphere which would be okay and not cause seals to pop. But well not sure about that until tested.

Obviously a vacuum inside the engine is best for efficiency. Might end up at an in between with an inline catch can.

Really didn't care much about this pcv vent thing until I heard oil in the disas in my junkyard 3 stage and they were full of it and sluggish. It's what I'm trying to avoid

[dwashy]

Originally Posted by PhaseP

You have magnesium valve cover, which means the OEM CCV is outside of the valve cover. And that also means you replaced a well designed cyclone separator catch can that doesn't require emptying since it drips down to oil pan, which is the OEM CCV you by passed, with a catch can of lower tech that requires you to monitor regularly and empty. In the process you lost the PCV functionality that is provided by the OEM CCV.

It also cost $30, was a fix for a clogged CCV that would not allow the car to start in cold weather, and prevents that gunk from dripping back into my oil pan. It is easy access at the top of the engine, and I prefer it to the OEM CCV setup under the intake.

I mildly updated it with new hoses, but it functions the same and works well for me and my car. To each their own.

[E92William]

How does the catch can fit with the oem strut bars on? I would think you could have hanged it off the driver side one. That's what I'm thinking of doing

[PhaseP]

Originally Posted by E92William

I wouldn't call the stock system great, it seems to fail quite often I personally had to replace the oil separator on my old 325 because it was all clogged inside and such is the case of the one in the 530 I pulled the 3im from. The valve cover in my 328 had the pcv get clogged aswell which required an entire cover replacement at 105k miles. Engine is super clean inside so doubt it's due to lack of service.

You are talking about the need of replacing a part on 10 plus year old engines. That doesn't fit into a description of "fail quite often". They will be fine another 10 years after replacement. That is basically one replacement per the whole expected life of the car.

Again even lawn mower single cylinder small engines route crankcase pressure back into intake. Reason is emissions, not that they couldn't have vented all that to atmosphere. That was what all combustion engines were doing before PCV systems were invented, and negative effects of emissions were understood.

This may give you perspective:

and a more recent one:
https://www.businessinsider.com/phot...us-smog-2020-4

[E92William]

I understand the downsides to the environment of doing this. My pcv currently works fine so no shame on me merely testing out something that might be an option for those who wanna protect their disas or are having pcv issues with oil consumption.

Either way I think anyone in this part of e90post with an N52 considering or already having headers isn't the most concerned person when it comes to pollution aswell.

Cars only account for 20% of air pollution yet we're one of the most harshly regulated segments. Me venting pcv won't have any effect at all. 99.999% of people will never do it so it's very much negligible. I'm not a climate change denier I just think other industries have a way larger effect and are overlooked because it's easier to keep regulating the private car owner.

[djrule]

Originally Posted by BudVlad

I got the catch can, filter and hoses from ebay. I didn’t want to connect the catch can outlet back to inlet because it’s N53. I guess on N52 it’s OK. However, I don’t smell anything, filter gets rid off the crankcase smell.

I have my N53 vented to atmosphere too. I have a faulty pcv valve and cant justify spending £400 on a new rocker cover! It dose smell quite bad so I've routed mine to come out the bottom of the car. How long have you been running vented to atmosphere?

[BudVlad]

Originally Posted by djrule

I have my N53 vented to atmosphere too. I have a faulty pcv valve and cant justify spending £400 on a new rocker cover! It dose smell quite bad so I've routed mine to come out the bottom of the car. How long have you been running vented to atmosphere?

I’m venting to atmosphere (thru catch can and filter) since I was deleting EGR and find lots of oil in the manifold. It’s about five years.

[mcluvin98]

Originally Posted by dwashy

It also cost $30, was a fix for a clogged CCV that would not allow the car to start in cold weather, and prevents that gunk from dripping back into my oil pan. It is easy access at the top of the engine, and I prefer it to the OEM CCV setup under the intake.

I mildly updated it with new hoses, but it functions the same and works well for me and my car. To each their own.

How does the car like the oil catch can setup? I've deleted the ccv on a bunch of m54s with a catch can and run a pcv with catch can on my n54. I occasionally run a pcv inline to regulate vacuum on the m54 setups since the vacuum from the intake manifold is pretty strong. I'm hesitant on doing it on a n52 since the car is very picky. Ive replaced it with a oem system before and don't really want to do it again. Does it give you any codes or hesitation in the upper rpm range? The car has 250k and I tried an aftermarket brand ccv and it's junk. I take really good care of the car, but I'm not down to drop another $400 on something that's obviously a weak point that can be replaced with a simpler system that's not going to break in 30k miles.

[blingers]

Inspired by this thread I fitted a catch can to help the stock ccv system.

Last year I replaced the stock ccv system (together with the vcg and starter) and found both disas fail from oil in the intake. Opening up the old oil separator found no obvious issues with the diaphragm. So it appears the ccv system is not able to cope with more blow by from aging engines (2006 n52).

I fitted those cheap n54 catch-can copies inline with the vc and oil separator. So far 400km in and no detrimental effects with the catch can. Although it seemed to hold its speed better when off the gas pedal on the highway :

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/pTDSVBtq/20210612-143019.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/vZfZspNn/20210625-085452.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/rsMPDtVc/20210613-163507.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/QCmn1xC7/20210613-163540.jpg[/img]

after 400kms
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/4dCMTSjY/20210625-085815.jpg[/img]

[gT-BMW]

sup yall ive been running this type of $30 catch can for couple weeks now in an attempt to reduce or stop oil from getting onto my brand new used disas rebuild by e92 william thanks bro!

All i did was cut the line from the ccv hose from the valve cover to the ccv and installed the cc in between it and now its kind of like i got 2 ccv working for me now? i dunno but seems to be working though it caught some oil.

[dwashy]

Originally Posted by mcluvin98

How does the car like the oil catch can setup? I've deleted the ccv on a bunch of m54s with a catch can and run a pcv with catch can on my n54. I occasionally run a pcv inline to regulate vacuum on the m54 setups since the vacuum from the intake manifold is pretty strong. I'm hesitant on doing it on a n52 since the car is very picky. Ive replaced it with a oem system before and don't really want to do it again. Does it give you any codes or hesitation in the upper rpm range? The car has 250k and I tried an aftermarket brand ccv and it's junk. I take really good care of the car, but I'm not down to drop another $400 on something that's obviously a weak point that can be replaced with a simpler system that's not going to break in 30k miles.

Sorry just seeing this... No issues, pulls strong to redline

[ornicar]

Originally Posted by E92William

I understand the downsides to the environment of doing this. My pcv currently works fine so no shame on me merely testing out something that might be an option for those who wanna protect their disas or are having pcv issues with oil consumption.

Either way I think anyone in this part of e90post with an N52 considering or already having headers isn't the most concerned person when it comes to pollution aswell.

Cars only account for 20% of air pollution yet we're one of the most harshly regulated segments. Me venting pcv won't have any effect at all. 99.999% of people will never do it so it's very much negligible. I'm not a climate change denier I just think other industries have a way larger effect and are overlooked because it's easier to keep regulating the private car owner.

Hi Phil,

can you please share your feed back of the catch can vent to the atmosphere on an N52?


no issues at idle, no leaks.?

Thanks

[blackknight]

Originally Posted by blingers

Inspired by this thread I fitted a catch can to help the stock ccv system.

Last year I replaced the stock ccv system (together with the vcg and starter) and found both disas fail from oil in the intake. Opening up the old oil separator found no obvious issues with the diaphragm. So it appears the ccv system is not able to cope with more blow by from aging engines (2006 n52).

I fitted those cheap n54 catch-can copies inline with the vc and oil separator. So far 400km in and no detrimental effects with the catch can. Although it seemed to hold its speed better when off the gas pedal on the highway :

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/pTDSVBtq/20210612-143019.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/vZfZspNn/20210625-085452.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/rsMPDtVc/20210613-163507.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/QCmn1xC7/20210613-163540.jpg[/img]

after 400kms
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/4dCMTSjY/20210625-085815.jpg[/img]

how is this going? Any updates?

[Cbeitler12]

Originally Posted by blackknight

how is this going? Any updates?

Personally have had my N52 Magnesium VC swapped 3sim and tuned with bimmerlabs running perfectly fine venting straight to atmosphere. Was having issues with oil within the intake so roughly 1000 miles ago cleaned the intake, vented catch can, and capped the intake manifold port. Quite literally changed the cars performance for the best. My best guess if you're doing this than the oily intake is already an issue so buy a new one or clean it real good.

[blingers]

Originally Posted by blackknight

how is this going? Any updates?

Sorry for the late reply, it didn't collect much oil (~1-2ml?) per 1000km.

I have an issue with the o-ring not sealing well. So looking to change it to a smaller, thinner o-ring that I've seen in other versions.
https://i.postimg.cc/rsH1wH1b/20231118-160042.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/5tztFRwv/Screen...li-Express.jpg

Update: I got thinner o rings 1.5mm cross section diameter and 52mm inner diameter. This should allow a tighter seal in the catch can.

[img]https://postimg.cc/64fKkQwP[/img]
[Img]https://postimg.cc/HcjBGvm1[/img]