Has anyone used steedas oil separater or something like it?? Do you guys think it actually works to keep your carbon deposits to a minimum?? Let me know what you guys think about it, thx

 

If you are getting enough oil into the engine to cause a carbon build up then you need more than a oil separator.Oil separators can help avoid detonation because oil has only about a 40 octane rating.It doesn't take much oil to drop the octane rating of your gas to dangerous levels.You can make an oil separator by running a longer hose with copper mesh pot scrubber material inside.The copper mesh gives the oil something to condense onto and if you route the hose uphill as far as you can before going into the intake the oil will run back into the engine.You can use pins to keep the mesh from getting into the intake if you want but it stays in place by itself.

 

Yes, those things work. They are better for a turbo or s/c engine for reasons stated above. While the Steeda unit is nice, you can make one for about $10.00. Although, I belong to the "make my life simple" school and also the "just because I can make something does not mean that I should" school.

 

My cars got alittle over 107k miles on it and i pulled the heads off last year and it had some carbon build up, since then it started detonating under WOT but usually when its hot outside. I was thniking that the carbon is the problem and dont want it to get worse over time.

 

This changes the situation.This sounds like more of a coolant circulation problem than burning oil building up carbon.Do you have oil in the hose going from the PCV to the intake?If so this could be part of the problem but having the radiator and cooling system professionally cleaned would be something to look into.How are the temp.readings?If they seem to follow the ambient air temps.it could be a thermostat or a partialy clogged radiator.You can take your radiator out and have it boiled out by a radiator shop.

 

I dont think the thermostat is faulty because i changed that last year to a 180 degree one, so its pretty new. The temperature stays pretty constant throughout the year.

But the top of the pistons are what had the most carbon on them and that will raise the temps in the combustion chamber, which in return will lead to detonation right??

 

Not really.This will raise compression slightly and combined with higher head temps can cause detonation.You can try a very fine water mist into the intake through the PCV hose or some way so that the engine doesn't die.This will clean out a LOT of carbon.Seafoam works also and I understand you put on one he11 of a smoke show for the neighbors.

 

Ive heard of shooting a very fine mist into it but im afraid ill mess up something...how hard is it to screw things up with this method??
Ive also heard of seafoam, but i read somewhere that its not good for high mileage engines??
Id like to try one of those ideas if they are for sure to clean the carbon up real good.........thx for your help

 

This is a subject near and dear to my heart... About 5 years ago I did a search for problems with PCV intake gunking and I saw a guy that made a really nice complicated system for supercharged cars to take care of the problem and not break under high boost. As far as I could tell noone else in the whole country was producing anything like the "Steeda" Oil Air Separator.

After reading that dudes notes I went about making my own for NA use... in 2001. One trip to Loews got all but the hose. It cost 28 bucks all in. I had just invented the thing but it was just a neat use of an existing technology and not patentable so I posted my designs on my local mustang club's forum for everyone to get a freebie mod (my intent was to help with detonation so you could use 89 instead of 91 on a tuned car). Whereupon I was laughed at and decried as a goob for bothering. Still 2001.

2002 I started offering kits for sale and built a few for friends. I posted detailed schematics and parts lists on my own web site. A little after I started getting wider spread interest in my new invention, Steeda started selling craappy versions of my design. I didn't care because I wanted to give the design to everyone to use but I felt suspicious of the origin of the Steeda design. I admonished my pals to build their own and use the filter spec that I had made or they'd only get 300 miles or so before the filter was effectively useless.

The Steeda unit is half the size it needs to be to be effective. I ran the tests, I knew what worked best and longest and I designed the kit with my test results in mind. The filter is commonly available as an air/water filter for air compressors. If you want it to work then pick the right filter, overall it should be 6" tall, the main filter cup from the base of the storage area to the top of the cup should be 4", and the filter cup should be 2" across. Use BRASS NPT barb fittings or NPT-AN adapters if you're going the AN route. Use braided tubing as I've had lots of problems with conventional high pressure rubber fuel/oil line failing under high vacuum of all things. The fittings better be brass or you'll have cracking problems eventually.

You need to wash the fiber filter with Dawn now and then and frequently empty the filter can for best results.

 

steeda stole your invention..lol, ok

 

I never accused them of anything. They could have had the same idea and marketed it. It just seemed odd to me that right as people started getting interested that steeda came out with one.

I'm just telling you guys to at least pay attention to how it was designed to work originally, by me, before any other less perfected designs came out. I think steeda used the smaller filter to cut costs, otherwise it'd be about 50 bucks retail for them to see a usable profit from it with the 21 dollar retail filter I spec'd.

That is all, please pull up to the second window.

BTW.. roll your eyes at someone else biatch. I did create and market the thing about 8 months before Stupida came out with their ****ty version. I did long term development on it on daily driven cars to find out where it failed and made design changes to fill in the reliability gaps. And from what I can see, I'm one of maybe 3 guys here that knows what the hell he's talking about 90% of the time. So stuff your up you azz and take the attitude to someone who isn't trying to ****** help you.</rant>

 

who are you anyways, you just make random most of the time imformative posts. but ive never seen a pic of ur car, never say where ur from, no mod list, nothin

 

Not that it's been anyone's concern here and I didn't know you had to qualify to be postin' here but:

I'm a computer geek by trade and an NRA certified weapons trainer, hobby astronomer/chemist/physicist/gear-head from California. I'm older than most of the people around here; if grammar and spelling are a measure of age which, I've seen to be largely the case but, we'll leave it at that since I know stoopid sum-b!tches that are just as old as me and can't spell.

I have an 03 GT with a Full MM kit (F&R coil over on bilsteins, plates, forward offset delrin bushed A-Arms, custom MM RLCA's, PHB/TA) and just about everything else you can do already done. I fabricate some of my own parts because that's what hot rodding is all about. I've also invented a super strong and super light rear shock tower brace... don't see anyone denouncing that though. I'll be installing the blower pretty soon but I just don't have time right now. I've been through every suspension architecture that you can stuff on a stang and I know my way around them pretty well. Prior to my 03, I had an 01 that I put about 10K in before the brakes died at a critical moment. Before that, I had more muscle cars than you've probably had birthdays (no offense). I finished my high school education when I was 11, and I find it difficult to converse with even the brightest stars that I find.

I don't think that a pic of my car would tell you much. It looks like a lowered 02-04 V6 in true blue with a set of Forza's and 5 point harnesses frosted with a set of 95R rims. Just like all new edge stangs it's pretty vanilla on the outside. I'll take some pics today and link in the photographic history of the car... maybe you'll like it.

I make random posts because very little merits my bothering. I try to limit myself to correcting the inaccurate, solving the impossible or injecting common sense into the new rodder mentality.

If you don't want to give any credence to anything I have to type, that's your choice (a stuuuuupid choice, cause' I'm ****** smart if I do say so myself). Those that care to pay attention can learn lots from me. I made mistakes five years ago that you'll not even think to make for a couple years.

I don't mean to sound hostile or condescending. Really. I just get sick of people jabbing at me because I tell them the ****** truth and they can't believe that someone did something smart before that shiiit house Steeda came out with a crappier version. I don't buy from steeda because all their shiit is copied and/or inferior to the competition.

 

Ive decided to make my own as soon as its not raining and im not sick....ill let everyone no how it turns out.

 

The Steeda separator is nothing more than a filter that has been used on air compressors for years!!!

$20 at Lowes...don't waste your $
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...106&lpage=none

Specs: 21 SCFM flow capacity at 90 psi; 150 psi maximum pressure - that's as a filter for a compressor. You think your car has a need to flow more than that? Nope - the vac from your car isn't even close to pulling that much.

 

Did you figure out how long the 1/4" model will work efficiently? No! If you read up a little further you'll find that the size Steeda use and that you've linked to is good for about 300 miles before it's too full with oil to filter well.

I spec'd the larger 3/8" and 1/2" and 5/8" for a reason, they filter better for longer. Using the little ones makes them a full waste of 20 bucks. Spend the extra 4 bucks and get the one that's the size of a beer can. You'll thank me later.

The more time you spend in the upper RPM's the more size you need to cope with the added aerosolized oil volume. Thanks for doing the flow math but I've already done it.

 

How much oil is your car sucking through the PCV? Damn!

 

Are you saying that with the smaller size filter that it gets too saturated with oil and is now useless or just that you will have to drain it every 300 miles??

I dont really spend that much time above 3k rpms so I should be fine hopefully with the smaller unit....

 

Depends on how much time you spend above 3K rpm... if you drive on the street, then you need to have at least a 2oz collection capability before you start losing filtration efficiency or it's just too much time spent emptying the filter. That's how I designed it, just trust that I did it right and use the right parts.

FWIW, I emptied 4oz of oil every 1500-2000 miles of hard city driving and stoplight racing. I emtied the container of just over an ounce every week or two. I found the little filters gave me 3 days tops before I had no choice but to empty it because it wasn't filtering much any more. The big ones I use are good on average for 7-14 days before you need to empty them.

The issue with coalescent filtration systems like these is that they rely on chamber volume to provide a big pressure drop which causes the oil droplets to merge and to drop out of the air, forming a pool at the bottom. As the pool grows the chamber shrinks and the unit gets less good at filtering.

My car is a typical example and I've verified this by testing on several cars with owners of variable driving styles, location, mod-level, and mileage. Old dirty PCV valves tend to flow less than newer and allow more oil to pool in the line. New valves leave almost all inhaled oil in aerosolized form. neither was shown to be significant in determining how much oil was collected, just changed where it was collected from.

I've done long term data gathering too.... intake crud buildup with my filter design installed and maintained correctly is less than 1/4 what it was without my filter design after 30K miles.

 

'

Use the size you want. I designed it to use a specific part. If I'd wanted it wor work poorly I'd have instructed you to change my design with that specific modification or I would have specified the smaller filter as acceptable. It isn't and that's the way it is. Use the bigger one and be done with it. The smaller filter is less than 25% as efficient because the chamber volume doesn't provide the needed pressure drop to accumulate the oil in the nothing-time it has before the air is gone.

Each time you drain it, you're acknowledging to yourself that it stopped working well. The drain feature was intended to keep you from having to bother with replacing media all the time.

 

jegs catch can. 40 bucks. perfectness.

 

uhhhh... wrong side of the equation I think. we're talking about the PCV side, that seems to be for the breather side and would require plugging a 5/8" hole in your intake pipe or snorkel. I'm trying to figure out what it's useful for in the way that it's installed in the pic... am I bone heading something simple again and totally missing the point? I've been known to do that once in a while.

 

its for both sides. theres 2 inlets

 

is vacuum maintained on the PCV or are you using it like a pair of breathers or ?

 

i removed the hoses that are there stock and plugged that bitch in. once in a while ill drain a little bit of oil and condensation out of it.

 

I'm still unclear but that's ok... you have a blower which requires a pretty important series of modifications to how I implement the filter.

 

basically when crankcrase pressures become very high they vent into the catch can. it breathes the air pressure out and retains the oil and condensation, and any debris

 

ahhh... now I see. You're counting on the fact the blower and boost oriented ring gap are going to make for more lots more blow by (which it will) and that's what you're treating but the vacuuming of the crank case is a function lost by design... cool.

My blower rig does basically the same thing except there are a couple T's and check valves to shut the PCV system off to boost as soon as it comes on and leave it at atmospheric pressure but stay open under vacuum so the crank case is vented via vacuum. Works the same as a stock PCV system under vacuum, taking metered air from after the MAF from a bung on the boost pipe which is valved to shut as soon as boost comes on, and letting the blower suck the PCV air into the intake pipe. That system requires 2 of the beer can size filters to make sure you get all the goo out of the air. Dirty compressor wheels get inefficient fast. I don't have any service recommendations for that system since blower combos and engine build specs vary too much. Generally I say inspect the system every day for the first week, then adjust as needed.

 

yes. i did not want the intake to suck anything besides the air pushed through the intercooler. my EGR and PCV are both vented elsewhere. EGR isnt hooked up and my PCV is deleted via that catchcan. i havent had any visible blowby as of yet. surprisingly. looks like my block, pistons, and rings are doing their job. which they better damn well be for all the extra cash for file fit rings and cp pistons