Talk Morgan Forums Thread Like Summary - Workshop Note - GDI Oil Breather

This modification was done by SteveT a long time ago, and has been done in one form or another by other GDI owners. The purpose is to intercept crankcase vapours before they hit the inlet valves, where deposits can build up over time.

I always try to do these mods so that they can be reversed, and that they look like a factory fitted item.

For now I'm keeping the closed crankcase system, but with a catch tank, and I'll see how this goes.

Catch tanks are available from performance specialists, and there's a decent choice. I went for an aluminium one to fit into the 'underbonnet scheme'.

The inlets on the tank are 13mm, but the outlet from the cam cover is about 15mm, so a bit of sleeving is needed to get a good seal.

I got the rubber pipe from e-bay and played safe by getting half a metre of both bore sizes.



I made up an aluminium bracket which fastens to the two bolts which also fix my heat shield and the two engine cover stays. The back is lined with Reflect-a-Cool.



This is how it fits.......





Here the original breather hose goes to the left hand connection. It's unmodified so can be put back if required.
The hose on the right hand connection with two red stripes curls under like a pigs tail, and I managed to fit this to the breather on the cam cover. This is 13mm inside diameter and is a tight fit!

Further to the alarming state of the GDI inlet valves shown earlier in this thread, the state of play with my own GDI had to be investigated. Now on 20k miles with 10k under my ownership. A recent rolling road test showed the engine to deliver roughly standard bhp with the graph showing evenly progressiive torque and bhp delivery. There has never been any trace of a hair trigger throttle.

The offside crankcase breather was diverted away from the inlet some time ago and the nearside crankcase breather was diverted more recently.

The video early in this thread proved invaluable. However, removing the inlet manifold proved challenging. There are 6 bolts fixing the manifold to the block, 5 at the top and 1 bolt in an extremely difficult location at the bottom. A 3/8"square drive rachet, extension and socket is essential, as is a magnet on a stick to withdraw and reloate the bolts.

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The stainless steel angled bracket to the water pipe interferred with withdrawal of the manifold, which in the fore-aft direction was effectively locked in. Not wanting to disturb the coollant pipes and hoses, the manifold was eventually withdrawn by levering the pipes clear. The offending bracket was duly cut off and replaced with an aluminium detachable bracket. There are 2 separate plastic christmas tree type fixings that tie a wiring loom to the manifold beneath the intakes and 1 on the outside. These were detached prior to manifold removal. It was not necessary to detach any electrical connections other than the one to the throttle body.


The blue plastic angle bend holds the crankcase breather. The original short pipe was replaced with a single longer pipe which now feeds to a catch tank.



The short breather pipe originally fed into the 15mm ID hole at the base of the manifold. This has now been plugged up. In the foreground is the single fixing bolt location at the base of the manifold casting.


Valves as found. On inspection, all valves were in far better condition than expected. Seafoam was sprayed onto the valves and left for an hour or so before cleaning.


The inlet tract length is just over 100mm. A small softish brush with short rod was inserted in a longer tube for cleaning via the drill before removal with a rag poked down with a wooden stick. At the end of proceedings the brush detached itself from its rod and had to be rescued via a piece of bent wire.


The replacement aluminium bracket made replacement of the manifold a breeze.

Now both crankcase breather pipes have been diverted away from the inlet manifold, there should be no further carbon build up on the inlert valves.

However, from these findings it would appear the valves had very many more miles in them before becomming coked up. Under my ownership the valves were treated to the recommended Seaform squirt into the throttle body a few months ago. The car also gets treated to a trackday blow out every year. Other than that, the inlet valves have had a normal road going existance.

Taking all the arguments of this discussion into account, I am now considerung to re-connect the PCV valve to the intake manifold and buy a walnut blasting device and regularly (every 5.000km or so) do it myself.
If anyone gets to come to Hamburg, just send me a PM if you're interested in some nut blasting

Catch can from here - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/18569811...r=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

ERG/Brake Cleaner. As posted elsewhere on this thread, small wire brushes and picks. Set piston to TDC (spark plugs removed) spray the cleaner in and let it soak for 10 to 20 minutes. Wire brush, pick/scrape heavier deposits, then mop out chamber with rag strips. Repeat as necessary until clean, then repeat process with each cylinder. When valves were open I also cleaned around the rim with dry cloth strips.

On the face of it, this is absolutely the best thing you can do because logic dictates if you're not putting those nasty oily acidic blowby/crankcase gasses into the inlet manifold in the first place, you're not going to suffer the problem.

However, keep in mind the way your GDI engine manages its crankcase pressure will have been very carefully modeled by the engine designer, re-routing the muck somewhere else is all well and good, but you must also ensure in the process you're not altering the pressure balance condition within your crankcase or you'll run the very real risk of introducing other issues. If you're altering any element of the factory crankcase breathing system, even in a small way, you absolutely must ensure your crankcase remains at the correct and balanced negative pressure the engine designer intended.

Ignore this at your peril, fail to respect what the engine designer intended and you'll almost certainly just end up shifting the problem somewhere else. For example I've seen poorly thought out catch can installations cause oil control ring gumming, if your oil control rings start to gum up they will no longer be able to do their job, accelerated bore wear being the inevitable consequence.



It'll definitely work, keep in mind that cleaning the back of the inlet valve is just one benefit of port injection, the other benefit it offers is the fuel cools the back of the valve, keeping an inlet valve cool is always a good thing for longevity. Even if you've solved the gumming issue by removing the blowby/crankcase gasses at source, there are still the valve cooling benefits to be had from adding the LPG valve saver kit. Essentially, it's a crude way of giving your direct injected engine the hybrid port/direct injection solution engine designers themselves came up with as a fix once they realised direct injection was causing valve gumming issues.

I'd use a 50/50 mix of methanol & valve saver fluid, you could also add a splash of ATF as no other light oil has better detergent qualities but I wouldn't use too much as ATF is not intended to be burnt in a combustion chamber like the valve saver fluid is. The elephant in the room for the valve saver kit idea is how it may or may not affect the life of your expensive catalytic converter?

In the same way as altering your carefully designed crankcase breather system could easily introduce other issues, the designers of your lambda sensor and catalytic converter never intended them to see the combusted/vaporised byproducts of valve saver fluid and other substances. My guess is they'll probably cope OK but it is a guess, you can certainly kill a cat in short order just by running the engine on leaded fuel or even using an engine oil containing zinc. The lead in the fuel or ash deposits from the zinc in the engine oil will soon coat a cat matrix covering the rare metals that function as the catalyst, so my caveat remains regarding how the valve saver kit could potentially shorten the life of your catalytic converter and or your lambda sensor!



This is a PITA, I think you'll soon get fed up doing this at 10,000 miles intervals, I'd be looking to do it once with the intention of never doing it again because you've solved the issue at source by sending those nasty blowby/crankcase gasses somewhere else, or fixed it with the valve saver kit. However, while manually cleaning your inlet valves is a pain, it's also probably the least risky way to manage the problem. I would again recommend ATF as a very effective cleaning agent, it'll soon remove carbon and oil deposits.



That's a bit radical, you could however fit a different engine to your GDI Plus 4 like a port injected 2.5 Duratec. Your biggest challenge with this idea is the fact your engine management system is designed for direct injection, if you go with a port injected Duratec dropping the engine in will be the simple bit, what's not so simple is you'll need a suitable ECU and a new engine loom too.



Personally I think you're on the right track, start by giving the valves a good clean so you're beginning at a known base point, redirect the gasses but do try to respect the engine designer's intended crankcase pressure. Then add the valve saver kit, just be sure to monitor your emissions carefully. You will only know if you try it, but keep in mind replacing failed lambda sensors and poisoned catalytic converters could get very expensive indeed.

Good luck with it.

A brief update. Today I eased the inlet manifold away from the head and looked at my inlet valves at 10,000 miles. I didn't take a photo, because acces is poor and it would look the same ar Marks. In fact the carbon deposits on mine are black and shiny, but not as thick. Realistically, because they are buried so far down in the head, cleaning in situ is inevitably difficult and time consuming. So for now it's back together. I decided to use a single port for the valve saver kit, because the manifold is quite a thin moulding, and so making four sealed ports is far harder than a single port just downstream of the throttle body. More on this to follow once installation is completed.

Update time

Petrol engines will coke up. I think the art of decoking has been lost because it's no longer an afternoon's job to lift the head, remove eight valves, clean, grind in, refit and off you go. I watched a Duratec/GDi strip down on You Tube and I'm not even sure taking the head off is possible in the Morgan. And there are complications with the front timing cover and the cams. Obviously it would all be do-able, even at home, but would not be a quick job.

So what are the options for GDIs?

Do nothing. The simplest option, but with an inevitable outcome, and depending who you believe, might be in a little as 30,000 miles. When that day comes, the most expensive option is...........
Remove the cylinder head. Whether this is done at home or at the dealers it will be the most time consuming and expensive option.

The in between options are.... apply a chemical cleaner into the intake. There are a number of products on the market which are squirted into the intake with the engine at fast idle. The theory being that the wetting and soaking of the inlet valves will wash away carbon deposits, which obviously in this scenario exit via the combustion chambers and exhaust, and the cat. There is a test on You Tube of half a dozen GDI cleaners. Each product is discharged into a glass beaker, and the time it takes to discharge is noted. Next a carbon coated valve, each from the same engine, is heated to 400/500c, and immersed in the liquid for the same time as it takes to discharge each product. The second test is to leave the valve for 48 hours soaking in the products. The short version is that none were impressive. None made a significant difference to the deposits.

Another You Tube site suggests putting carb cleaner through the engine intake systen at regular intervals. But the truth is that we don't have a solution. (No pun intended).

The "easiest" way to clean those inlet valves is by going down through the inlet ports and physically removing the carbon. There are eight valves and because access is so tight, and because you need to ensure the valves are closed on each cylinder as you do it, this will take time, and will need just the right tools to make it worthwhile.

The bottom line of course is that our Morgans, well most anyway, don't do high mileages. I've managed 10,000 miles in seven years but it's hardly world record material. So you might just isolate the breathers and carry on enjoying your GDI.

Anyway, down to the nitty gritty.

At 10k miles it's time to get the plugs out for a routine inspection, and to clean the threads and re-apply a whiff of ceramic grease. I strongly recommend you use an engine cover, and these must be handmade unless you chop one around frm a Ford. Without a cover, the engine will get wet, and water may travel down past the coil pack seals. If this happens, you may find corroded plugs. My cover has kept everything dry, and the plugs were in good shape. I use a short length of heater hose to get the plugs out, because my plug spanner doesn't grip well enough.

Here you can see the single fastener which secures each coil pack. The electrical latches work well, and once unlatched, a slight bend downwards releases each connector.



This image shows how buried the plugs are in the head.



And this one shows my hi tech removal & replacement tool.



I decided to stick my neck out and try the JLM Valve Saver kit. After liberating the inlet manifold I decided to use a singlr port feeder nozzle. I did get the four port spider, but the manifold is thin and will be tricky to drill and tap. I didn't really want nuts inside the manifold for obvious reasons. The plastic just downstream of the throttle body is slightly thicker so I went in there. Being so close to the throttle body should get a reasonable distribution across all cylinders.
Here it is, bang in the centre of the image.



The tank must be high mounted and there's really only one place it can go. I made a hanging bracket out of some scrap aluminium profile, and added a leather buffer where it contacts the inlet hose.



The pipe run is quite neat.





And after wiring up the low fluid level warning light, I added the fluid. I intended to mix with Methanol, but a test mix in a beaker showed that it doesn't mix with this product....so it's the neat fluid. (As linked higher up in this thread).
https://lpgshop.co.uk/flash-lube-valve-saver-fluid-0-5liter/



The calibration is 15 drops per minute at tickover and that was easy enough to set up. The requirement is 1ml of valve saver to 1L of fuel, and so it's a bit trial & error until a couple of refuels should sort this out. This is uncharted territory, so we have no idea or game plan going forward. Whether this treatment will stop further build up, of even wash away the current build up, only time will tell, and arguably that will be in another 10k miles
At some stage I will get the emissions checked before the MoT and report back. The fluid is said to not affect catalytic converters, but like everything else in this test, we won't know for some time.

Yes Les, about 2k miles ago......the cam cover has a filter to atmosphere, Blanked off into the inlet, and the crankcase breather is disconnected, and venting to atmosphere. No effect over 2k miles from doing that.

The drip feed has no effect on tickover either.

Hi Les

Filter is here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204507409339?hash=item2f9d976bbb:g:9hgAAOSwpAtjyAKE&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8E8imZI6FwpE2ce6WjucZaxqCIoLTUQDCep5qug7vgAHF3lG6WRwfLE42krdj%2FaBXqe7T6%2B2k3WNXTjBdmwERTfXnvr6RlsYznEXAcs5U1wqka%2BbLOC2bKWW3cX%2FPPtwTZNnlgU7mC9HSKMzGGUOR0%2B3LTYjH2PzvtYO89UcmaSE15RuPI6PEuVtiDm6IIPN0iDmn4Zcfm0XpJNssAwosNQQqUbuHz8wYfP2V2CRBeVZ9rlQ9xhIaWe48qEjLyIu%2BNrR1EVOlwW0BV5vGQEIxjaYmffFw0MlIAcrYuf1hee%2FQsJo1vUT%2FVQD4J8l76EObw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7LUxdr5Yg

So I set that fliter up to look like it's in line, but blocked the end leading to the throttle body with a plastic cap. Don't cut the original pipe, then you can easily go back to original, just get a small extra piece.

The crankcase breather pipe is hanging loose. It's out of sight and isn't dripping any oil. To block the inlet manifold I used a length of hose, roughly tapered, with a bolt and washer stuck inside using silicon sealer. This is a push fit, and being tapered, can't work its way in. The washer is just to make sure.

More succinctly (and clickable) here: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204507409339

We done Carol

I've sorted it now. When I click on the thumbnail to get the larger image, I then have to double click that to get the codes. I've amended my posts, maybe the other posts trying to help me could be deleted now?

Thanks for the assistance.