Custom breather box

[JustMe]

Can someone point me to where I can buy a nice custom breather box?

[turbobaja]

This one's pretty good. I like to keep them on the engine (vs mounted to the firewall w/long hoses running to it) so the vapors don't have as much time to cool off and create 'milk' in the breather system, which plugs it up and creates oil leaks. There's a variety of nice ones that mount to the Alt stand similar to this one from CB Performance.

http://www.cbperformance.com/ProductDet ... tCode=1771

[miniman82]

I heard that one leaks...

[gbaker770]

Ron Lummus Racing makes a nice one.

[Steve Arndt]

I heard that one leaks...

Just like all vw parts, they take a bit of massaging.

I ditched the "o-ring" for the cover and used black RTF. Layed a nice bead then let it set up hard before assembling. Seals perfect.

Where the box attached to the stand can leak. I TIG welded mine together so it can't leak. The stand is welded directly to the breather box.

Inside I have three copper pot scrubbers to help the baffling. It slows down adding oil but sure breaths good.

I also recommend drilling and tapping the fittings from 1/4 out to 3/8 pipe.

Here is an older pic of it;
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/716297.jpg

[turbobaja]

I heard that one leaks...

Just like all vw parts, they take a bit of massaging.

Exactly...If you're not already painfully aware of this fact, you're simply not buying enough aftermarket parts for your VW

I did just like Steve mentions about the seal on this box. The ~half o-ring it comes with is tricky to get a good seal with, so just clean up the mating surfaces and apply a nice uniform bead of RTV in the trough of the cover and let it cure before assembling it. The nice thing about this box is you can open it up for service/cleaning. I'm not a fan of venting the valve covers unless your running a very hi-strung drag race only type engine. The case is where the blow-by gases exist, so vent the case. Also I don't like venting these blow-by gases into back into your intake for the engine to consume. Just vent them to atmosphere with a filter (or 2), or route them to an evac-valve in your exhaust.

Here' a look inside one I recently installed. Open the top breather fittings to 3/8" NPT and plug all the others.

[Steve Arndt]

You may Notice that Turbo Karl used what looks like a copper single port intake manifold gasket crush ring.

[turbobaja]

You may Notice that Turbo Karl used what looks like a copper single port intake manifold gasket crush ring.

That's actually a little copper RTV squeezing out of the mating surfaces. I used the single port copper crush ring years ago and it seemed to do OK. This time I tried it w/out and made sure to torque the mounting collar good-n-tight. If I could have, I would have TIG'd it on for good .

[pierrox]

I heard that one leaks...

A leak on my CB Performance breather brought me here. As I'm another victim of the amazing quality of aftermarket parts. Bit disappointing as I had (more) faith in their parts. So I'll proceed to seal it with ATV or equivalent.

But I'm glad I revived this thread as there is interesting info here. The mesh in Turbobaja's breather box looks like a scrubbing sponge, correct? I have a bunch of copper ones laying in the kitchen, good idea? They wouldn't rust for sure... I like the idea of the extra mesh to dissociate the oil from the vapes coming from the case.

And this brings me to my second question: plugging the breather box to the intake puts the case in a vacuum, to "combat" the excess pressure in there. And the baffles + mesh are a system added to make sure the engine just breathes in air with no (or very little) oil, correct? I always assumed the filter was used to filter the air getting into the case (as it's under vacuum from the intake suction), was I wrong all this time?

[bug66]

I would recommend a box with a lot more filtered area.

With a turbo, I would not go under 40mm / 1,5’’ to air.

A simple 3’’ pipe with a 1,5’’ filter on top and a 1,5’’ tube from the generator stand is far better..

My 2 cents