Crankcase pvc and breather can we settle it once and for all ?

White_estate

Ok after owning this 2.2 for a few months now I've never read so many issues and different takes on the engine breathing than any other engine I've had, so there must be a shite flaw in this engines design ? Or there must be deeper issues with this engine ?

My engine uses more oil than it should but is still meeting vauxhalls 1 litre per 1000 miles lol ! i know this is in my mind excessive as I've done the valves due to the chain having been snapped,I've rebuilt the head minus doing the valve guides but thats the cause of my slightly high oil consumption i believe. My engine has a measly 91000 miles on it so can't see the oil control rings giving an issue surely ? unless there is not enough vacuum in the crankcase to force the oil control ring out into the bore to pull the oil off the cylinder likely situation I'm not sure ? i know that if holes are drilled around the piston compression ring the compressed gas forces the ring against the bore giving a better seal and it increases efficiency at the compromise for increased ring wear so are the oil control rings just a poor design so require the extra vacuum to force the ring out ?
Also i know the sump to head is open from the timing chain side but air can't travel freely with the sump filled up with oil or on banking left slope ect so is it worth having a proper breather from the engine block above the oil level like most engines do to a suitable breather and catch tank ?

patricks

You might find this thread interesting. A pcv mod is on my do list..................not sure if it works or not but one way to find out

https://z22se.co.uk/threads/is-this-how-positive-crankcase-ventilation-works-on-the-z22se.28789/

corsaZ22se

:facepalm:
the amount of miles a car has done means nothing if its not been looked after.
if the 2.2 is service to gm recommended intervals they will go on just fine well over 200k miles.
yours could quite well have worn rings or glazed bores or worst case oval bores.

White_estate

My car has not been looked after, due to me buying it with a snapped chain but i was surprised that there was very little sludge build up when i tore it apart. 12 of the valves where bent which i replaced minus the valve guides so there maybe cracks in the guides letting in a little too much oil is the likely cause.
Its just strange that i see a lot of people adjusting the breather setups and getting lower oil consumption. Im certainly going to have a play about and see if i can make a difference and try to balance sump and head breathing (vacuum pump maybe) not through the engine internally but using a catch tank and vent the top back into the inlet not to atmosphere.

evocarlos

oil scraper rings are gummed its common for the not so well serviced 2.2's
the 2.2s dont have a engine breathing problem in my eyes all the oil vapour is pulled into the inlet where its burnt off in the combustion cycle just like it was designed to do to meet the euro emissions rating
people fit catch cans then go ""no way look at all the crap its caught"" but is going to do that its what a can does if its pulled in to the inlet you will never see it 🙂

side note if you had bent inlet valves you will have cracked guides on the inlet side the ex guides are recessed in the alloy and tend not to chip but the inlets do not that it would cause oil seepage thru the guide its normally just a chip in the end and some head repair shops just drill the guide down till the chip is gone theres still 40mm of guide left for the valve to run in

if your using 5/30 go to 10/40 that will slow the oil consumption down some 🙂

sump is linked to the rocker cover 100% of the time the cover is split in to 2 sections crank case pressure goes thru 4-5 strangers then gets pulled to the inlet before the tb
the pcv in the inlet is linked to 2 strangers in the cover

White_estate

That clears things up thanks for that top stuff, I'm using 10/40 any way and i did inspect the valve guides and did not notice any chips and the valves weren't jammed into the guide when i removed and came out easily. Believe it or not the oil consumption has got less so fingers crossed the control rings may have now worked loose as I'm not to sure how long the car was stood for so they could well have been gummed up will see.