Here's a real surprise when it comes to adding power to your car, ever hear that an oil catch can actually helps? An oil catch can, traditionally purchased and installed to keep you cylinder heads and intake tracts vented and clean, can actually increase power. Believe it or not, replacing a breather filter with a properly engineered catch can definitely bring you some noticeable power gains. But how can this be?



Oil catch cans are engineered to fit between a port in an engine's valve cover an its intake. They also use the vacuum from an engine's intake to draw blow by contaminants out of the cylinder head and into a reservoir where they can manually be disposed of. Blow by contaminants include oil, fuel, and exhaust gas that seeps past the valve seals during combustion. By drawing out these contaminants, they also create low pressure within the head, allowing components to move more feely. This decreases parasitic loss. In many OEM applications, an uncomplicated vacuum hose is placed between the valve cover and the intake. This alleviates excess cylinder-head pressure and draws contaminates out of the cylinder head. Unfortunately, this occurs at the expense of re-circulating them throughout the intake tract; soiling intake manifolds, fuel injectors, valves, and decreasing intercooling performance of force induced cars. Even more detrimental is when those cute little breather filters are used instead, these neither vent excess blow-by pressure as much as a vacuum driven alternative, nor stint the buildup of contaminants in the cylinder head-doubly robbing you of much needed power.

So the purpose of oil catch cans are to trap contaminates, but will an oil catch can really increase your power? You can experiment yourself by installing a quality oil catch can in a very dirty engine, so you can see and feel the difference it will make. You can compare its power output versus an off the self breather filter. To make sure of proper testing accuracy, be sure to put on a designated amount of highway miles with each arrangement before an engineering outfit to test for power changes with multiple runs at each stage. But we've gone thought all that trouble for you already. And here is what we found.

Not only does the catch can generate power, but you can see it actually working. A noticeable amount of blow by sludge will accumulate in the tank after extensive highway driving. And compared to the breather filter, there is no question. Power numbers will be low, as blow by pressure will have a significantly harder time exiting the head than when sucked out by the catch can. The result is the following: catch cans will have an impact on your racing speed. They keep engines clean and vent power robbing pressure from your engine's cylinder heads. The more moving parts that make up your engine's cylinder heads, the higher cylinder pressures increase, or the more your engine suffers form blow by, the more a catch can will help your car.