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Oil Catch Can, Eliminate that knock!

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by danlatu, May 22, 2017.

  1. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    Unless you know someone:whistle:.
     
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  2. jzchen

    jzchen Newbie!

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    On my iQ there is an insulating sleeve around the PCV hose. I guess it is there to keep the stuff passing through hot/volatile. With the OCC the goal is the opposite, to condense it out.

    Do you guys think we need a larger EGR tract to compensate for the OCC cooling effect???
     
  3. farmecologist

    farmecologist Senior Member

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    Yikes...I thought your consumption was going down with all the stuff you have tried? Bummer man!

    BTW - I tried an experiment this winter...I ran quite a few cans of Techron through our 2010..and subjectively it seems to have helped. Now that spring is coming I can try to take more objective measurements. :whistle:
     
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  4. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    It had maintained at ~20 ounces every 10k mile oil change. But that has already been consumed in 4K miles this round:(.

    No change in driving route or traffic. It is a bit colder out here, but not like orther parts of the country;).

    I’ll pull it off and update with results(y).
     
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  5. danlatu

    danlatu Senior Member

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    You have excessive blow-by. This is caused by worn out rings, cracked ring lands, cracked piston or worn cylinder walls. The excessive oil circulated/burning oil in your engine from the crankcase is creating a wet seal, helping increase compression:eek:. This increased compression helps with less blow-by:confused:. This is a problem in several ways because now your engine is burning oil into the atmosphere and coking the rings:mad:. The coked up rings prevent fresh oil from flowing around the rings further increasing cylinder and ring wear:oops:. This wet seal gives false compression readings as oil was never intended to be burned in the cylinder. When to much oil enters your intake plenum and into your combustion chamber, you will experience excessive knocking and eventually a blown head gasket. There is no control of how much oil is being distributed to your cylinders creating an unbalanced compression ratio and engine vibration. The oil catch can will not fix excessive blow-by.

    A leak down test would be the most accurate form in finding your problem.


    To test to see if you have excessive blow-by, start engine in maintenance mode and remove oil filler cap. Then place piece of paper over filler cap hole and see if oil/blow-by pushes the sheet of paper up/out of hole. A healthy engine should keep the sheet of paper level with the hole while an unhealthy engine with excessive blow-by will push the sheet of paper away from the hole with oil spraying onto the paper.
     
    #705 danlatu, Feb 28, 2018
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2018
  6. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I doubt it.

    A properly installed, unvented OCC would not impact air quality in anyway. Still, sadly, I think you're right. Any inspector that sees an extra item in the PCV circuit, will shoot first and ask questions later. If at all.

    If you plumb it in below the intake, say mounted on the front cross beam, or just sling-supported somehow, it's probably would not even be noticed in an inspection. The less conspicuous the better.

    Note if you do mount it on the cross beam, that has the front/central jacking point. Accordingly, you'd want to use rubber washers or similar, to make the connection slightly flexible.
     
    #706 Mendel Leisk, Feb 28, 2018
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2018
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  7. jzchen

    jzchen Newbie!

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    Thank you Mendel for the hints/advice!

    The smog check places have THICK manuals with diagrams that show them what everything's supposed to look like. Anything that is connected upstream of the cats, and including changing the cats, can cause a visual fail. They don't need to run the sniffer to fail you, sadly. It is why I look for intakes that have a CARB EO#, which exempts/allows that particular modification. (There are still those not so nice inspectors that may try to give a hard time, even with the EO sticker in plain view).

    I may visit one of my favorite smog check places to see what the guy thinks about these.

    The relatively low use of our cars seems to make them prone to having this blow by, as seen on my iQ forum link pictures. The oil there looked very clean though, in comparison to what has been shown on this thread.

    Curious how quality oil factors in. Both v and iQ have Mobil 1 AP in them, and both running 91 octane fuel. This is the highest commonly found around here in CA. (Some states have up to 93 common).
     
  8. mjoo

    mjoo Senior Member

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    I'm currently testing some TC-W3 oil in the gas. This is supposed to clean out and lube the fuel system/ valves/ cylinders/ rings and provide better compression. It's designed to burn cleanly while removing deposits at the same time. I've used it on 3 previous cars already with good results.

    The TC-W3 oil might be something worth trying. I'm currently on my second tank of 1 oz/5 gal of gas. This ashless 2-stroke oil ratio is equivalent to burning 1 quart of oil every 8,000 miles - without introducing the metals that foul catalytic converters.

    I'll report my progress in the summer months.
     
    #708 mjoo, Mar 1, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 1, 2018
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  9. TheChip

    TheChip Senior Member

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    Make sure you do an oil analysis using that stuff, I'm interested to know the results!
     
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  10. farmecologist

    farmecologist Senior Member

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    So what brand of TC-W3 are you using?
     
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  11. mjoo

    mjoo Senior Member

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    Pennzoil Marine Premium Plus Synt TC-W3. I put it in a sta-bil container. Measuring is then super easy and it doesn't get on your fingers.

    Pixel XL ?
     
  12. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    So I was able to test this today on not only our 2010 with 174 k miles on it, but 3 other Prii that @Pedal Logic had at his place:).

    What was tested:
    • 2010 Prius II with 174 k miles (our Prius)
    • 2010 Prius III with 75 k miles (Marc’s ride)
    • 2014 Prius v with 46 k miles (Marc’s wife’s ride)
    • 2018 Prius c with 500 miles (Smart Pedal test case)
    All cars when started and the engine oil cap removed exhibited the air blow by phenomenon :(.

    Marc confirmed no oil usage on his 2 Prii and the rental c is not using any;).

    So this test seems invalid for the Prius line.

    Open to other suggestions (y).
     
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  13. LasVegasaurusRex

    LasVegasaurusRex Active Member

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    Ignoring the blow-by test thing for a minute and thinking about other stuff:

    check thermostat and water pump, coolant lines.

    maybe do UV dye leak test? cheap and easy, less than $20 for dye + UV flashlight
     
  14. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    Not sure what I would be looking for as I can confirm no loss of coolant or head gasket issue:whistle:.
     
  15. danlatu

    danlatu Senior Member

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    I would do a leak down test if you have the time. I have read a lot on bobistheoilguy and have seen posts where people have shown some toyota engines having excessive blow-by and other toyota engines without. I am just putting my two cents in, blow-by is not good. It pushes unwanted pressure through the pcv system. Hence all the oil in the intake manifold. When two pistons go up and two pistons shoot down, there should be a balance of pressure with a small amount of blow-by is shooting past the rings. I for one do not like this about the engine. I think it a bad part of the design. It is a small price to pay for mpg, timing chain, 80k tire and 120k break pads. The car has the lowest maintenance of any car I have ever owned. I just changed pads today on the 2010 prius and still had some life left in them, maybe 20k worth till the indicators started to make noise. The dealer wanted to do it when they had it in for the side curtain airbag recall. I declined because I ended up changing all four pads (semi-metallic) for $30 and my time. :cool:
     
  16. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    If you can write out (or PM me) what you would like to see done, I’m game;).

    I will have the windshield wiper cowling off in about a month, so I can perform some testing:).

    Let me know(y).
     
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  17. danlatu

    danlatu Senior Member

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    I may do a leak down test on the 2010 soon when the weather and day light saving come into effect. It was 60 one day and snowing the next. Weather has been crazy. I have to clean the egr on the 2010. I have had an occ on it since 80k so I will post pics of what it looks like at 120k.
     
  18. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    Sounds like a plan ;).

    I’ll be ready on Saturday April 6th:).

    If you have something to try by then, I’ll have another set of experienced hands ready to gather more data(y).
     
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  19. tvpierce

    tvpierce Senior Member

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    I'm planning my spring maintenance which will include spark plugs and EGR Valve/Cooler cleaning. In preparation, I picked up this endoscope on Amazon -- it was $13 delivered. It was delivered yesterday, was easy to use and seems to work pretty well.
    I want to be able to see inside the cyclinders because my '13 is burning oil, and I want to know if there is any vertical scoring that would indicated excessive wear. It should also give me a good way to look at the intake valves.
     
  20. farmecologist

    farmecologist Senior Member

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    Interesting..I need to do the same stuff on our Prius v. I should pick one of these up as well.

    Edit: Ordered it...thx for the link!
     
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