Does Your Corvette Track Car Need an Oil Catch Can?
Corvette catch can shows that most surprising thing about it is how often you’ll actually have to drain it.
Breathing clean air is nice, but some of the emissions-related devices slapped on our engines are a bit burdensome. Engines are making more power, and aren’t choked like the L48 engines in Corvettes of yore, but there’s another problem, and that lies with the PCV system. For most drivers, this is a non-issue, but for track drivers it’s worth consideration.
What happens is the vacuum from the intake manifold pulls a small amount of air in from the crankcase in order to keep it from evaporating into the air. While that’s an earth-friendly setup, it’s not the best for your engine. Putting a catch can in that PCV line, like Youtube personality ZentRose has done in the video above, essentially acts like a filter so the oil still gets collected, but in the catch can rather than get deposited in your intake. Most surprising is the volume of oil it will catch, even within 1,000 miles of use.
Rose covers his catch-can install from start to finish, and uses one made by ADD W1. The unit is compact, but also clean and even comes with its own dipstick to determine when it needs to be emptied. The install seems very straight forward with some simple mounting brackets that allow it to be affixed to a few different LS engines. Since Rose is often found at a track, adding the catch can was a no-brainer.
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Do you need a catch can with the dry-sump system on some newer Corvettes? That very question was a topic discussion on our forums. The answer is: that depends. Some may argue that the dry sump itself works as its own catch can (even though the two systems are unrelated) and some say it’s even more important on the direct injection engines. That’s because there’s no fuel to clean the oil and gunk off the valves before it heats and cakes on.
Just be aware though, if installing a catch can on a newer engine, this may have complications on your warranty since you’re altering an emissions-related system.
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