Ok, if you guys can help me out with this, i will be sooooo happy! I have a couple of oil leaks, one is from the breather and the other is from the rear of the motor. Now the breather is leaking becuase i have fabricated alum. valve covers that i didnt want holes in, so i made the breather come out of the rear of the intake manifold. it breaths, but there is no baffle in it. is there a quick fix for this? if spits a lot of oil out of it! Also, there is another leak it looks to be from the rear main seal, however i am not sure. is there any way to be sure of this? Thanks for the help!

Quick fix for the breather, put a black wrist band around it if it is the open element type, not the mushroom looking type.

Did that, still leaks....bad.

If you don't want to use a pcv system, try one of the older style intake manifolds that had the oil fill/breather tube in front. The performance is not up to standards, but.... As for the rear oil seal, Chevy went to a one piece seal to avoid this. It's like an old radial aircraft motor, if it isn't leaking oil, then it's out of oil. But first check the distributor gasket, rear intake gasket and oil press. sending unit for leaks. If you haven't properly vented the engine, it will push oil out wherever it can.

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79 Z28 Bought new, honeymoon ride, same wife, same car.

the motor is properly vented, its just spitting oil out of the breather, with the breather where it is, can i use a pcv system? if so how? this motor is a 450hp 383 so im not going to change the intake manifold.

It looks like you've created this problem for yourself. The intake valley has a lot more oil flying around in it than the valve covers, so you're going to need a very effective baffle to keep it from blowing oil. If the breather is clogged with oil, your crankcase pressure will be positive and you will tend to blow oil around around the seals.
I would put some well baffled breathers on the valve covers and dump the manifold setup.

hah. ok, again, NOT going to change the current setup. the valve covers are $400 fab. alum. valve covers with a coating so they dont dull or discolor. NO holes will be drilled in the valve covers. if there is no solution for the current settup that you know of, dont post. Thanks for all the help!

Another "I want it fixed but I don't want to change anything" scenario? You could always install a vacuum pump and an oil recovery system.

valve covers have breathers and pcv valves in them for a reason. Usually low oil pressure present- low volume of oil- carb pcv vacuum tends to circulate air across the entire engine, down one side and up the other.

This also helps to keep oil out of the breather, since that should be an intake. putting a breather and nothing more on the back of the engine simply prevents blowby from blowing off your oil pan/ expensive valve covers.

As has been said.. if you don't want to drill those valve covers... get different ones.. lol

seriously, to be more constructive.. plug that hole you've got and pray that your intake manifold/carb can handle what blowby you have. Venting/ pcv systems are not MUST-HAVE items, although they do reduce the amount of blow-by gases that get sent out into the air.. thats why old engines dont have em and emissions engines do.

my 2 cents.

What intake are you using? An Edelbrock RPM? You could do what they do with OEM EFI setups on some cars and put a PCV valve on the intake manifold. Get a PCV valve and the right grommet and drill a hole in the back (so it's hidden) and that will put a vacuum on the engine internals. That will help a lot. Use a 1987-1993 5.0 Ford Mustang grommet. They use this setup and it seems to work just fine!

Oy. how about a baffle in the intake? just a single baffle like you would have on the valve cover? would that work? its not that i dont want to change anything, its just the fact that i like the setup i have now, and i want to keep it this way. so i am looking to make it work the way i have it. if i wanted to get diff. valve covers i would have fixed the problem long ago. however i dont want different valve covers. i know this way will work. i am just looking for options. again, thanks to those who gave actual solutions and not, "thats a wierd place for this, put it somewhere else".

its a holley dominator intake. also the breather hole has a larger AN fitting on it. so i have a braided hose on it now with a lil filter.

[This message has been edited by White_Boii (edited April 11, 2005).]

I'm gonna say 3 things.. Non is really gonna help you, but still..

1) You must have an in and out pressure system or you will have oil leaks the whole time, from every place you can think of..

2) those $400 fab. alum. valve covers as made w/o holes in them are made for 1 reason only... FULL RACE USE WITH A VAC. PUMP SET UP.. All of them says "can be drilled for pcv/breather use"

3) If your not willing to listen to the guys that knows, been there done that, and not willing to fix the prob the right way.. Then you'll end up with cool looking race valve covers and a leaky engine. Or pay out around $600-700 for a vac pump and recovery system. Add more nose weight to the car, have stuff getting in the way, etc...

You get to pick which you want...