Water in catch can
12-24-2018, 01:12 AM
#1
Instructor
Thread Starter
Water in catch can
So idk if anyone has had this happen to them, but i just recently noticed something funky with my car, not so long ago for some reason the car was started up without the oil fill cap in place and noticed white smoke which i thought was excessive blow by.
Fast forward to today, i found out its condensation/vapor, how i found this out well i currently have a mighty mouse catch can, with a oil fill cap fitting going to the can, i decided to drain the can and nothing but water came out, no oil. The car was previously porcharged making around 800hp on stock bottome end and heads, but i got tired of the headaches and ripped everything apart, it currently is still a stock bottom end but new cam, head gaskets etc and around 3-4k miles since it was all installed. Any ideas?
Fast forward to today, i found out its condensation/vapor, how i found this out well i currently have a mighty mouse catch can, with a oil fill cap fitting going to the can, i decided to drain the can and nothing but water came out, no oil. The car was previously porcharged making around 800hp on stock bottome end and heads, but i got tired of the headaches and ripped everything apart, it currently is still a stock bottom end but new cam, head gaskets etc and around 3-4k miles since it was all installed. Any ideas?
12-24-2018, 01:55 PM
#2
Safety Car
So idk if anyone has had this happen to them, but i just recently noticed something funky with my car, not so long ago for some reason the car was started up without the oil fill cap in place and noticed white smoke which i thought was excessive blow by.
Fast forward to today, i found out its condensation/vapor, how i found this out well i currently have a mighty mouse catch can, with a oil fill cap fitting going to the can, i decided to drain the can and nothing but water came out, no oil. The car was previously porcharged making around 800hp on stock bottome end and heads, but i got tired of the headaches and ripped everything apart, it currently is still a stock bottom end but new cam, head gaskets etc and around 3-4k miles since it was all installed. Any ideas? Some condensation / oil vapor is normal, as long as coolant is not part of it.
Fast forward to today, i found out its condensation/vapor, how i found this out well i currently have a mighty mouse catch can, with a oil fill cap fitting going to the can, i decided to drain the can and nothing but water came out, no oil. The car was previously porcharged making around 800hp on stock bottome end and heads, but i got tired of the headaches and ripped everything apart, it currently is still a stock bottom end but new cam, head gaskets etc and around 3-4k miles since it was all installed. Any ideas? Some condensation / oil vapor is normal, as long as coolant is not part of it.
Last edited by Mike's LS3; 12-24-2018 at 01:58 PM.
12-24-2018, 02:01 PM
#3
Instructor
Thread Starter
a pretty good stream, i wish i had a way of measuring but I dumped it into a bucket that already had stuff in it, since i last checked it I probably have driven a good 1k miles or so, i usually drive it fairly easy. The car smokes from the oil fill hot or cold it doesn’t stop which is my main worry i know its vapor/condensation.
12-24-2018, 05:52 PM
#4
Drifting
Sounds like a blown head gasket to me. This would be confirmed if you are losing coolant without any visible sign of coolant loss to the ground. If you aren’t losing coolant, then I have no clue.
12-24-2018, 07:14 PM
#5
Instructor
Thread Starter
i made a small marking on the coolant reservoir while cold just to keep an eye for any coolant loss
12-24-2018, 09:30 PM
#7
Instructor
Thread Starter
12-25-2018, 12:16 AM
#8
Safety Car
Well heck, it’s Christmas! No doom and gloom. We don’t know how much water you are seeing. Hope for condensation. 
12-25-2018, 12:43 AM
#9
Instructor
Thread Starter
12-25-2018, 09:46 AM
#11
Instructor
Thread Starter
12-25-2018, 02:15 PM
#12
If your running a meth kit, half if it is water that turns to stream on fuel ingintion and the steam will get past the rings to collect back in the oil. If the oil is kept hot enough, then the water is vaperoized out of the oil ,and just pushed back through the PCV system for the engine to burn up again. With a catch can, the steam/vapor cools off a touch and collects in the can as small amounts of water.
So the question, is how much water in the can, and is it just the water from the Meth kit that is blowing by the rings to get to the oil and vapored out of the oil, or do you have a major radiator water leak problem to the oil and why the excess of water in the can instead. Hence get the motor warmed up, the pressure test the radiator system to make sure you don't have a problem/leak of it in the block isntead.
Simply, meth kit will produce a touch of vapor out the tail pipe, but if you blowing white smoke, you have a radiator system leak problem into the motor that needs to be checked via pressure test instead.
So the question, is how much water in the can, and is it just the water from the Meth kit that is blowing by the rings to get to the oil and vapored out of the oil, or do you have a major radiator water leak problem to the oil and why the excess of water in the can instead. Hence get the motor warmed up, the pressure test the radiator system to make sure you don't have a problem/leak of it in the block isntead.
Simply, meth kit will produce a touch of vapor out the tail pipe, but if you blowing white smoke, you have a radiator system leak problem into the motor that needs to be checked via pressure test instead.
12-25-2018, 02:25 PM
#13
Instructor
Thread Starter
If your running a meth kit, half if it is water that turns to stream on fuel ingintion and the steam will get past the rings to collect back in the oil. If the oil is kept hot enough, then the water is vaperoized out of the oil ,and just pushed back through the PCV system for the engine to burn up again. With a catch can, the steam/vapor cools off a touch and collects in the can as small amounts of water.
So the question, is how much water in the can, and is it just the water from the Meth kit that is blowing by the rings to get to the oil and vapored out of the oil, or do you have a major radiator water leak problem to the oil and why the excess of water in the can instead. Hence get the motor warmed up, the pressure test the radiator system to make sure you don't have a problem/leak of it in the block isntead.
Simply, meth kit will produce a touch of vapor out the tail pipe, but if you blowing white smoke, you have a radiator system leak problem into the motor that needs to be checked via pressure test instead.
So the question, is how much water in the can, and is it just the water from the Meth kit that is blowing by the rings to get to the oil and vapored out of the oil, or do you have a major radiator water leak problem to the oil and why the excess of water in the can instead. Hence get the motor warmed up, the pressure test the radiator system to make sure you don't have a problem/leak of it in the block isntead.
Simply, meth kit will produce a touch of vapor out the tail pipe, but if you blowing white smoke, you have a radiator system leak problem into the motor that needs to be checked via pressure test instead.
12-25-2018, 02:58 PM
#14
Melting Slicks
Member Since: Jul 2010
Location: Tacoma, Wa/Surprise, Az
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Maybe Dano can chime in here, but with the head gasket replacement, were the heads every retorqued after replacement of the gaskets? I don't know if that is an issue with aluminum blocked engines, with diesel engines it is because diesels run a hell of a lot more compression than even our high performance gas motors. My thought being a small leak may have developed, but then again, pressure testing the cooling system with a hot engine would be a determinant.
12-25-2018, 03:02 PM
#15
Instructor
Thread Starter
Maybe Dano can chime in here, but with the head gasket replacement, were the heads every retorqued after replacement of the gaskets? I don't know if that is an issue with aluminum blocked engines, with diesel engines it is because diesels run a hell of a lot more compression than even our high performance gas motors. My thought being a small leak may have developed, but then again, pressure testing the cooling system with a hot engine would be a determinant.
12-25-2018, 04:46 PM
#16
Drifting
When I first answered back in post #4, I was visualizing a large cloud of steam, which normally indicates a blown head gasket. But with your subsequent posts saying no coolant loss, plus carefully re-reading your original post, it now sounds to me like you don’t really have large clouds of vapor. So it may be just condensation of some of the water vapor that’s always present in exhaust gas. All the hydrogen atoms in gasoline end up as water vapor in exhaust, so exhaust is roughly 15% water vapor, 15% CO2, and 70% nitrogen. Combustion of meth gives you about double that amount of water vapor, which is probably why Dano523 mentioned it as a possibility. But the point is that burning either fuel results in non-trivial amounts of water vapor in exhaust gas. That’s why you see some steam coming out of exhaust pipes on cold days. Normally, I’d expect a catch can to be hot enough that the water vapor would stay in vapor form, and not collect as liquid water in the catch can. But if it’s just a small amount, and you’re not losing coolant, your particular catch can installation must for some reason run cool enough to condense some of the water vapor out of the PCV gases. Since the PCV gases running through the catch can are just piston blowby, they have essentially the same composition and water vapor content as exhaust gas, and if you aren’t losing coolant, condensing that water vapor is the only other potential source of water.
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Mike's LS3 (12-27-2018)
12-25-2018, 05:06 PM
#17
Instructor
Thread Starter
When I first answered back in post #4, I was visualizing a large cloud of steam, which normally indicates a blown head gasket. But with your subsequent posts saying no coolant loss, plus carefully re-reading your original post, it now sounds to me like you don’t really have large clouds of vapor. So it may be just condensation of some of the water vapor that’s always present in exhaust gas. All the hydrogen atoms in gasoline end up as water vapor in exhaust, so exhaust is roughly 15% water vapor, 15% CO2, and 70% nitrogen. Combustion of meth gives you about double that amount of water vapor, which is probably why Dano523 mentioned it as a possibility. But the point is that burning either fuel results in non-trivial amounts of water vapor in exhaust gas. That’s why you see some steam coming out of exhaust pipes on cold days. Normally, I’d expect a catch can to be hot enough that the water vapor would stay in vapor form, and not collect as liquid water in the catch can. But if it’s just a small amount, and you’re not losing coolant, your particular catch can installation must for some reason run cool enough to condense some of the water vapor out of the PCV gases. Since the PCV gases running through the catch can are just piston blowby, they have essentially the same composition and water vapor content as exhaust gas, and if you aren’t losing coolant, condensing that water vapor is the only other potential source of water.
12-26-2018, 10:46 AM
#18
Drifting
i wish i could post a video of what im seeing, its good enough to be seen in person, but not to much where a camera will pick it up easily, its basically just some steam coming out of the oil fil hole, it doesn’t go away when hot or cold which is why i worry, the reason why i think it becomes into liquid is because i have a -10 where the oil fil cap would go running into the catch can, and a -6 going from intake manifold to the can as well, so the vapors are constantly going in the can none stop causing it to turn into liquid, i have the can located behind the battery. It might not make sense or a difference but i do have 80lb injectors on right now, and im only on some bolt ons cam as of now making about 460, it also has a really bad exhaust fume smell to the point it sticks on to clothes. I bring it up because you mentioned the hole gas thing. I also deleted the evap.
12-26-2018, 12:17 PM
#19
Instructor
Thread Starter
Not knowing the full layout of your system, I have trouble following your jargon in post #15. But rather than digging into that, I’ll just add one other thing that might be relevant. If the “vapor” that you are seeing is in fact just a few wisps rather than a cloud of vapor, it may not be water at all. It may be a bit of oil mist. A fine mist of any liquid does that. When you see water “vapor” as in a cloud or fog or a plume coming from an exhaust pipe on a cold morning, you are not actually seeing vapor. You are seeing a fine mist of very teeny liquid water droplets that have started to condense out of water vapor. When I say you could be seeing oil mist, the mechanism would be different. It wouldn’t be liquid oil droplets condensing from vaporized oil. It would be a very fine mist of oil droplets created when larger drops or globs of liquid oil were hit by rapidly moving crankshaft, pistons, and rods, thus smashing the large drops of liquid into a fine mist of liquid. But visually, it would look very similar to water fog/mist. If that’s what you are seeing, it’s a normal condition within the engine, and creation of such oil mist is why some insist that catch cans are needed. Of course there’s still the inconsistency that if that’s what you are seeing, why isn’t your catch can catching oil rather than water. But without knowing way more about your system (including removing evap which could do odd things with vacuum levels), I can’t comment on that, and I don’t think either of us wants to get into that level of detail. But the bottom line for me is that with no coolant loss, the water in the catch can must be coming from condensation out of exhaust gas blowby. I can’t say whether the fumes you are seeing are water or oil, and if they are oil, I can’t say why your catch can isn’t catching any. But perhaps knowing the fumes could be either water or oil, and both in modest quantities are normal, might help you diagnose your situation.