added a breather

[19dabeast85]

Sorry but here is how the PCV system actually works. This is straight out of the Honda Shop Manual.

Hmm, well dangit, hate it when I'm wrong....

The reason I believed both evacuated gasses is because my f22 has enough valve cover pressure to make the oil cap "levitate" and under this condition it seems impossible that any air could come INTO such an atmosphere. I've also removed the breather tube and it always has vapor coming out of it. Now I think my engine just has an extra amount of blow-by at 235k, likely piston rings. Maybe that's why it idles rough.

[GhostAccord]

Could be blow by. What do your PCV valve and hose look like? The hose can become swollen and narrow with age and oil saturation. Then there is the obvious oil/sludge clogging the valve itself.

[19dabeast85]

Could be blow by. What do your PCV valve and hose look like? The hose can become swollen and narrow with age and oil saturation. Then there is the obvious oil/sludge clogging the valve itself.

Nah, new oem hoses and valve, no clogging. I'm sure it's excessive blow-by.

[Sarthos]

I was referring to the other thing as "that stupid little thing". The PCV is important, the other one not so much.

[dark elf]

omg! it's a breather!get over it! hey Ghosty how you comin along with the ITB set up?

[GhostAccord]

Slowley but surely. Just finished school and I'm not working full time right now. So the engine build has been put on hold. But I've moved onto doing other stuff that I can do myself. White housed headlights, a COP setup using GSX-R pencil coils. I have so many things started but with low funds it's hard to finish any of them...lol

http://ghostaccord.blogspot.com/

[TomQuick]

Back in MY day . . .

Ok, so I grew up driving, and working on Small Block Chevy engines. Now keep in mind that 100,000 miles was about the end of the average expected life on those engines, and our Honda's often run 300,000 miles or more.

It was the norm for those small block engines to have a breather filter in place on them. Even when they didn't have a breather, there was just a rubber hose running straight from the valve cover to the air filter housing, no pre-heating tube was used, so swapping in a breather filter wasn't a big deal.

Our Honda's are a bit different in an important way. The air going into the valve cover goes through a pre-heater tube, which is heated up by engine coolant. There is an important reason for that. When you replace the oem hose with a breather filter, you are bypassing the pre-heater (same thing happens when you swap in the straight rubber hose that comes with most aftermarket intake setups), and allowing cold air to be drawn straight into the crankcase. This isn't a huge problem in the warm weather, but when it's cold outside, the cold moist air combining with the hot gases in the crankcase does some nasty things.

In the end, everyone will make their own decision. To some, looks are everything, and if that is what floats your boat, then go for it. If, however, you want what is best for your car, and want your engine to live a long, healthy life, then I suggest that the breather filter should be removed, and a hose attached from the valve cover, back to the pre-heat tube, and then to your air intake. I suppose you could use a filter attached to the pre-heat tube instead of going from there to the air intake, but I'm not sure that would look very good.

If you are really unhappy with the looks of that hose setup, you might try polishing, or painting the pre-heat tube, and replacing the black rubber hose with either a colored hose, or braided stainless to bump the looks up a bit, without risking damage to the engine.

[GhostAccord]

I'm not sure if I posted that I ran my filter in the -30 winters of the north eastern seaboard. I never once saw any condensation or moisture problems. However, from working in a garage. I know that this type of problem was an ongoing issue, and maybe still is, a problem with all the Chev, GM & Olds 4 & 6 cyl. engines. Milky looking oil deposits on the dip stick and valve cover were common place. I didn't see it so much with the Honda vehicles.

Although I will agree with you that it has it's purpose on the stock intake system. But like other useless things on Honda engines. It's only saving your engine from cold air in the stock setup. You have to realize that this filter sitting on top of the valve cover isn't breathing in cool air from outside the engine bay, as it would be with the stock intake tube. It's sitting right between the heat from the header/manifold and the heat from the exhaust coming up behind the engine.

have you ever actually touched your valve cover after 10-15 minutes of running. That's the air temperature of the air that little filter is sucking in.

[TomQuick]

All things are relative. The temperature of the surface of the valve cover certainly does feel hot to our hand, relative to our own body temperature. However it is quite cold compared to the temperature of the cylinder walls.

As hot as the cylinder walls are, if you do a lot of stop and go driving, they may still often be cool enough, relative to the temperature of the exhaust gases formed in the combustion chamber, to cause condensation of exhaust byproducts. This can happen not only when an engine is first started up, but also after it has run for a long time, if you stop in traffic a lot, or do a lot of stop and go, such a delivery driving, or taxi, etc.

So, while the air directly above the valve cover may well be "warm," on a freezing cold winter day, with outside air temperatures hovering around 15 degrees or so (happens often enough here in NY, and plenty of other places around the world), I would be plenty willing to bet that the air directly above that valve cover, and especially when the car is moving, or cooling fans are drawing fresh air through the radiator, is quite cold RELATIVE to the actual crankcase oil temperatures.

In order to keep the water in the crankcase oil from combining with the oil to produce acids, the oil temperature must remain above 212 degrees (the boiling point of water). So then, if the air above the valve cover is cooler than 212 degrees, it is cool enough to potentially cause a problem. In fact, if you measure the air temperatures in your engine bay, even after you shut the engine off, and all that heat is "soaking" into the underhood air, you'll find that it is uncommon for underhood temperatures to go much above 180 or so. Certainly, with the car moving, and normal air flow through the engine bay, you aren't going to have air temperatures anywhere near that.

Believe what you want, do what you want, but everything I've read, and know myself leads me to believe that using a breather filter instead of drawing air through the preheater tube is going to introduce air into the crankcase which is too cool, and will draw down the temperature of the oil, thus running a significant risk (and especially in cold weather) of producing acids in the oil, and over the long term, causing damage to the engine.

[GhostAccord]

You can continue to read and believe that you want. If you think that those 5" of thin walled tubing preheats the incoming air to 212°. You had better start reading some other books my friend. I will continue to practice what works for me. Oh yeah forgot to mention that I had my oil and some varnish scrapings from the engine walls tested. Guess what, there were no abnormalities found.

[dark elf]

cold air?

i live in new orleans.the coldest it ever gets is 30 degrees if that and never for very long.most times down here it is hot and humid.i believe my little f22b2 will be okay.most time the temp here is between 80 and 45 degrees .also remember honda does everything to restrict their motors for fuel economy. just uncorking the motor a bit.ya know since i have done a little fiddling and modding here and there i may keep my stock motor.i have no delusions of a fast and furious nature.i just want a car that rides well and drives great.hmmm i wonder about just getting it rebuilt with stronger internals,new timing,header,etc...what do ya think fellas?

[GhostAccord]

If you build it.......... Hp will come....

If you want to keep the F and build it. There is some opportunity for good power. All depends on your goals and budget. Most figure an H swap is more worth while, I'm on the other side of that fence. There is potential with the F block at the same price if not cheaper. The F block does not require sleeves to run a set of high compression 86mm forged pistons. The lower end of an F block can be rebuilt for under the price of a used H. It's the B2 head that really sucks. or should I say doesn't suck very well.

[dark elf]

so what can be done about the head? a head swap.or can it be bored to increase flow?

[GhostAccord]

The cheaper route would be to just to swap a F22A* head. The better route would be a PnP F22A* head. The F22B2 head can be massaged to squeeze a bit more CFM out of it. But the port setup and geometry of the F22A* is much easier to get flow out of. It has a straight through flow design.

The F22A system is set up like this. The intake ports are 0-0-0-0 and so are the exhaustports, they run parallel. The F22B has the 0-0-0-0 intake and a 0-00-0 exhaust port design. This design requires curves in the exhaust port. Flow can be maximized with a properly designed header and some port work. However, it's more work than it's worth. The coolant passages in the B head limit the amount of port work that can be done.

[dark elf]

well i shall have to get the f22a head (pnp)header,high flow cat.