I decided to locate the engine oil breather can aft of the engine to reduce the potential of fumes making their way into the cockpit. I wanted to use a Peterson Fluid System’s breather because it features a lightweight, high-quality spun aluminum canister, hand TIG welding, proper baffling, etc. However, like most things on this project, it seems like I wind up customizing even the products. In this case, all of the AN fittings were too small and in the wrong location. I called Peterson to order the parts and they refused to sell them. Why? Because they used to do that and their products began appearing with welds that don’t meet their standards which undermines their brand. Wow, they’re willing to walk away from a quick sale to maintain their post-sale quality. They’re also too busy to fabricate custom breather cans. So, I did some begging and pointed the sales rep to some pictures of Abe’s welding on my website, he ran it past his boss, and they sold me the parts.
Reservoir breather tube with Wiggen’s fittings on both ends, custom standoff, and breather can with two -12 AN bungs and a Wiggen’s bung, all welded by Abe — Peterson’s brand was in good hands.
I’m constantly surprised at the number of parts I make or modify on the lathe. This simple standoff for the vibration dampener was made from 1/2” stainless rod. After drilling and tapping it the full length, I decapitated a stainless-steel screw, threaded it part way in welded it in place to form a permanent stud.
One of the vibration isolators is mounted to the rear chassis brace and the other is mounted to the scalloped 2” x 2” chassis rail
Vibration isolator with custom standoff, all of which is hidden by the induction tube.
The -12 bungs are hidden under the rear chassis brace
To mount the breather can, I laser cut a bracket from 1/8” 4130 and welded it to the underside of the rear chassis cross brace. The breather tube for the oil reservoir tank was fabricated from 1” OD aluminum. Both the breather can and the reservoir mounting clamps utilize rubber to provide vibration isolation. Since everything will vibrate at different frequencies, I isolated the breather tube with Wiggin’s fittings on both ends and two rubber vibration-damping sandwich mounts. The brackets for the isolators were laser cut and bent by SendCutSend… fabricating parts that small by hand is awkward.
In a previous post I upgraded the coil packs and relocated them to the upper chassis tubes. This provided an opportunity to upgrade the valve covers to something without the coil pack mounting posts. I found a billet set without an oil fill and -12 ORB breather ports in an ideal location for my purposes.
-12 ORB breather with welded baffle (left side). No chance of it coming loose!
After installing the valve covers, I realized that I have a lot of billet with matching ball-end finish from down under on the engine; bellhousing (Albins), valve covers (Shaun’s Custom Alloy) and intercooler manifold (Harrop).