The search is not pulling up breather mods for me and I know there are quite a bit of discussions. 1st, my stock breather hose is worn and it dumps into my S&S housing. Is the stock replacement good or is there something better? I want to reroute the breather hose & put the filter I bought & a drain/catch can system in. What size & type of hose do I use? The easiest for me is to do the top & over, but how hard is it to setup lines running downward? Can you give me some pics of the setup you have. My S3 has a nice one that goes over the top & exits in front of the engine and then under. It uses a radiator drain plug at the end. Pictures much appreciated. The type & size of hoses also. Didn't have too much luck getting hoses at Advance Auto & Napa today. Got the filter , T's.
Plus everything is down hill from the top of the engine if you go to the XB covers, and you eliminate the umbrella valves and one set of gaskets so are less prone to rocker box leaks.
Have you done your search in the K.V. for "breather routing"?
The UMBRELLA valves are "CRAP", go to BLAST/XB rocker arm breathers ...
Did mine as soon as the BLAST came out using my OEM valve covers ...
On my S3T "i" put a H-D BLACK 20W50 plastic oil container under my license plate ...
Ran the rocker arm, gas tank, timing hole, and transmission breathers to said catch container ...
FOR "SAFETY" it is very important to run this breather to a catch container, if you say "WHY" well just get oil on your rear tire once and it will make a believer out of you !!!"
The XB rockers are the way to go, but it's a little bit of an investment and time to get it done. I hope to do it someday.
Ain't technology grand? This was easier than posting up a bunch of pictures. Only thing not obvious in the video is how the hoses leave the airbox. The front head breather hose gets out of the airbox using the hole in the back plate that the rear head would go in through. You can see the white plastic t-fitting where they meet and then go over to the other side of the bike. The rest is in the video.
This seemed better to me than having a filter hanging out somewhere getting all gross.
can't find the HD p/n at the moment, then just route a hose to a catch can with a breather in it. i made mine with some pvc pipe and fittings from the hardware store.
I'm not quite sure the point of you guys all putting catch cans for an atmospheric breather.
The point of a catch can is to catch your oil drops (and even vapors if you build a good one), so that way you can run your breather hose back into your carburator and pull a vacuum to your crank case.
actually thats somewhat false logic Buellistic. You must remember, if you are running both of your breathers into your air filter, you are no longer running an open case. Unless of coarse you have a leak in the engine somewhere (then you have bigger things to worry about) the engine will only be sucking in its first few CI's of oil/air charge. After that it is maintaining vacuum, and no longer pulling air. So then you only have to deal with catching the gravity drip of oil, which is what the catch can is for.
When we dyno'ed a couple turbo setups on 240's we found we could get up to 9 hp gain on a properly "non" vented crankcase.
The ONLY difference that makes me wonder if it is worth the effort, is that there is a static crankcase volume on car motors. On a Harley it is a Dynamic Crankcase volume. So basically on every rotation of the crank the motor is Pushing AND Pulling 1200CC's of air through your vent tubes (which is another matter entirely, when talking about running tube sizes). So under vacuum your pulling your cylinders down naturally, but then there is added resistance on the upstroke. Eitherway I think its rather negligible?
It's actually not moving that much air. The pressure changes happen too quickly to force that much air through the breather tubes. The narrower the tube and the longer the tube is the more restriction there will be. Put your finger over the end of the hose...not much happening. It's more of a vibration than wind, if that makes sense.
My breather lines tee together, then tee off again, one goes up to a PCV valve that stays in the air box, the other runs down to a catch can by the shock.
This makes the actual vent path short (the distance from the heads to the PCV valve, but I still have a catch can for the spooge.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the purpose of having a breather filter to ensure you are not sucking up dirt particles into the crank case? So wouldn't either having a radiator drain plug or catch can sort of be the same thing only that the 'can' has a greater volume to hold the puke, while the puke would be held in the fuel line. If you put the filter high enough up or away from the radiator drain I would think there would be little chance to back up & clog the filter (something I would be concerned with. Do I have this wrong?
Bsanorton (love that username!), that's about right. Gravity works best for this as well: if you place a filter on a T into the breather hose, with the filter T heading upwards, then any splooge flow will tend to stay in the straight, lower line of the drain, and not head uphill into the filter.
It would be very strange to have so much splooge in the lines that it could cause a blockage, but if that were to happen, a filter inline would help alleviate that potential blockage situation.
Yes obviously the smaller lines cannot flow 1200cc in the amount of time that the compression happens, but you get my point that it is none the less trying to happen.
So would placing the breather filter closest to the breather bolts & carb be the best? The line in that case would not play a factor in the displacement of air. On my S3T the breather hose runs to the left side of the bike then down to the front & under the bike. The filter is placed upwards, but where the line starts to go under the bike. The line continues to a radiator drain plug.
Either way your biggest restriction of coarse is the small holes in the Banjo bolts... but i was just trying to make a point. Motors usually work better under vacuum.
I am using a cleare 3/8 hose as my catch can . My breathers run to a t with a filter at the top & the bottom is a clear hose with a bolt & clamp , very similar to the oil drain .
Also, have some washers on hand to be sure the holes line up between the two parts of the banjo assembly, to create a nice, straight shot down and out from the bolt through straight through the collar for the oil puke. I needed to fiddle a bit with different washers to get a good alignment.
Thanks Fahren. What do you mean by have some washers on hand. Will I need to replace them after loosening? Or can I get away with loosening them up a bit & rotating the bolts so the spigot faces downward? If I remember correctly from previous HD's, both sides have have copper washers on them. Maybe they can be reused. Locktite on the bolts? Time to look at the parts book, lol!
(Message edited by bsanorton on February 06, 2011)