I thought this was common knowledge by now Ryan?

 

Haha Ryan, good stuff. Good to know, one more OEM item to keep

 

Heh, yeah all the smart people probably already know better! LOL! :beer:

 

Haha yeah just giving you shit. I remember a couple years ago someone posting about the Autolite PCV valves being garbage.

Last time I ordered some stuff from Rockville they had a special on PCV's so I picked one up then to make sure I had an OEM one in the car.

Didn't help my smoking issue none though. PCV cant do much when the rings are shot. :lol3:

 

Excellent detective work Watson! Redundant...but excellent!

 

I think I remember from the old threads that many of the aftermarket units are set up to flow in opposite direction of what our engines need. Typical aftermarket "same pipe size and thread pitch and same hose bib size= one part# to fit all applications" mentality.

 

Howard this is exactly what Dave postulated on the phone. I guess several 'OE replacement' offerings were indeed oriented in the opposite direction. However, this was not the case with at least this Purolator (Autozone) unit. Although I can best classify the flows as 'restricted' and 'severe leakage', the valve did seem to have the correct orientation, for whatever that's worth.

To anyone who is running this cheap PCV valve right now, let's have a contest. Who can come up with the most creative way of disposing of theirs?

 

I had the same problem after sitting for 20 sec or more, when I would take off it smoked.
Had to order mine from local mitsu dealer.

Bad thing is it don't smoke as bad but still smoke on take off.

 

Thats valve stem seals

 

When I rigged up some PCV valves on my old S2000 in "krank vent" fashion I had to go through MANY different valves at Autozone until I got 2 in the correct size I needed that actually worked correctly. Many of them allowed air to pass through easily in both directions, lol, talk about crappy PCV valves

 

Did you test the purolator as well?

 

Autozone (Purolator) Unit
Blowing the right direction, I noticed it took a good deal of effort to force the air through. With my hand on the other side, I didn't notice much air getting through despite the fact that I was putting some effort into it.

Blowing the wrong direction, I noticed that a decent amount of air still got through. Far from a good seal. Less air than the other direction, but still enough to know it was leaking badly.

 

told ya ryan

 

i use krank vents. those things rock.

 

I tried some of the autozone pcv's waaay back in the day and concluded that they were all junk. I didn't even find one that was worth putting onto the car (air pressure applied via regulated air compressor made each one fail).

I love my krank vents (with no pcv)... In order to drain my oil, I pretty much need to remove the oil fill cap in order to let air into the system

 

I just recently checked mine again, and tested it exactly the same way yours did, it didn't block all the airflow back through the valve, even though it rattled nicely, and let air escape. Whenever I go WOT, and let off, I get a tiny puff of smoke, I'm guessing the PCV system is messed up, not the turbos. All the hoses are hard, and starting to show cracks. The intake bubble has a decent amount of oil in it, too. I'm going to order new hoses, and a new PCV valve as well.

 

Good info! My car has developed the same smoking problem a couple weeks ago. And I too have the AutoZone PCV valves. I always thought that it was the VSS, and it still might be. But this is a much cheaper possible fix.
Thanks!

 

Autozone (Purolator) Unit. Was the purolator in that sentence originally? The way I read it was that you had an autozone PCV valve that was at fault, you bought an OEM one and had a spare Purolator laying around. Then showed testing the autozone and OEM one. Since Purolator is not an Autozone brand, I assumed it was a third valve. Might have read over the parenthesis part.

Climber

 

Hey Climber, actually I may have gotten the PCV valve at an Advance Auto instead of an Autozone. They are such similar stores I can never remember. Please forgive me for causing any confusion, but yes it's a Purolator PCV valve regardless of where I found it.

 

autozone = crap...

 

I don't agree with that. The valuecraft brake pads did very well on our accord. The duralast rotors and tie rod ends did very well on the 4Runner. And haven't had a problem with other miscellaneous parts. Of course for a high performance car like the VR4 I avoid the brands, but it's not necessarily crap.

Climber

 

Woo for Ryan and Dave's teamwork.

 

OK, how about this most of AutoZone = crap.

AutoZone is the last place I go to of the 4 parts stores in my area. They are slow to answer the phone (seriously it rings 20 times before they answer and they are never busy), and don't know jack shit. They tried to tell me they didn't carry something that I found on there website and was told they carried by another AutoZone employee.

There are actually a few AutoZones in the are and the experience has been the same with all of them. Advance FTW.

 

Sounds like a regional problem. AZ is one of the better places in my area.

 

One big problem with Autozone is figuring out what's crap and what isn't. They repackage stuff under their own store brand so that you never know where it came from. That Duralast PCV valve could be a Fram. It could be a Purolator. It could even be OEM. It could be different next month, or from multiple vendors at the same time. Who knows?
One thing's for sure, they are shopping for the best deal, and the best deal for them isn't always the best deal for me...

 

I replaced mine a month or so ago, and had still had fairly obnoxious smoke after 10 minutes of idling, but today I was stuck in traffic at an accident scene for that long and no smoke. Only difference is a new front header. Weird.

The PCV valve replacement was definitely a good thing though, the old one was slightly leaky.