Sky Render's Build Thread

Winter update.

I've been spending the cold months mainly doing maintenance items necessary on a 50k-mile car: changing fluids, replacing wiper blades, cleaning rod ends, greasing poly bushings.

Mrs. Sky Render continued to enable my carbon fiber addiction with a couple more bits:





I've also ordered a set of the Bob's Autosports catch cans, which I'll be installing in the next couple weeks.

Good call on the Bob's. You're getting one for the driver side too?

I have a Bob's on mine. It works splendidly. And it's grabber blue.

Got them for both cylinder banks. Matte black, just like my heart.

Did you get the AN hardware? Or the standard? I cheaped out and got the standard. Regret.

Standard hardware. AN fittings were not worth the $200 premium to me. Plus, the standard hardware is much easier and cheaper to maintain or replace, if necessary.

Just picked up a watson Oil separator, I thought about the bobs as well. It looked like a nice piece.

Changed the oil and installed the Bob's Auto Sports catch cans today. I took a bunch of pictures, so it's time for a review!



Here they are. I chose the matte black ones so they didn't stick out like a sore thumb, but there are a lot of other colors available. The vacuum line nipples are already installed, and they used some sort of pipe dope on them to seal them properly.

With my love of carbon fiber, you may be wondering why I didn't get their hydrodipped carbon finish. Easy: hydrodipped carbon looks like shit.



I'm very impressed with the build quality on these things. The insides are properly baffled using a steel wool. This maximizes surface area and helps to condense all of the oil vapor out of the PCV lines.

You can see the baffling here:



Here's one of the mounting brackets. They're beautifully machined and finished, and already installed.



There is a valve on the bottom of each one for draining:



Onto the installation. The longer bracket is used on the passenger side. You remove one of the ground bolts, and install the bracket there using a longer bolt that Bob's Auto Sport provides.



The next step is to remove the factory PCV line and carefully cut along the side of it to remove this 90° elbow. The PCV valve is already in the valve cover; this is just an elbow to make it easier to route. Note that although the OEM line is hard plastic, those 90° elbows actually have fittings on them for lines. Hmmmm...



Next, you need to cut the vacuum lines they send you to the correct length. This is some high-quality, fiber-reinforced multipurpose line from Eaton. It seems OEM quality and should last a long time. The instructions recommend using masking tape to help prevent the lines from fraying while cutting.



Next, you clamp the line onto one of those elbows you cut out of the stock hardline.



This first line took the longest, because it is extremely short, but I didn't want to make it too short. So I ended up trimming it down several times. Note that the valve cover line goes to the bottom port on the catch can. This is so engine vacuum pulls the air up through the steel wool baffle and out, leaving the condensed oil vapor to fall to the bottom



The next line runs to the intake manifold using another one of those OEM quick-release elbows.



Now we move onto the driver's side. This catch can actually requires removing that stupid sound tube. (Mine's already been ditched.) It mounts to the underside of one of the sound tube's mounting holes using a set of washers, nut and bolt provided with the kit. This thing was a bit of a pain in the butt to mount, simply because I was afraid of dropping a washer or nut and never seeing it again.



The driver's side OEM hardline has this foam heat insulation around it. You cut that off, and it's the exact same as the passenger side's underneath. It's here I'd like to point out that the quick-release fitting on my airbox tube fought me and ended up completely snapped in two. Fortunately, it's a straight (180°) fitting, so I could just clamp the vacuum line right onto the port.



Here are the driver's side lines installed:



And the finished product:

So obviously I haven't driven enough to see how well they work yet, but I have noticed some pros and cons already:

PROS
+Very well-built with proper baffling design
+OEM-quality hoses
+Kit is complete and has all necessary hardware

CONS
-Worm gear clamps look like shit.
-Hose routing gets in the way of the oil filler cap. Although it can easily be moved out of the way while filling oil, it's still a bit of a pain.
-The drains on the bottom of the cans are very difficult to access, and there isn't much room underneath. I think I'll have to cut the bottom off a water bottle and use it as a cup to drain them.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with them. I'm going to try to find some better-looking clamps, though.

Should have went with UPR's kit.

Sky Render said:

So obviously I haven't driven enough to see how well they work yet, but I have noticed some pros and cons already:

PROS
+Very well-built with proper baffling design
+OEM-quality hoses
+Kit is complete and has all necessary hardware

CONS
-Worm gear clamps look like shit.
-Hose routing gets in the way of the oil filler cap. Although it can easily be moved out of the way while filling oil, it's still a bit of a pain.
-The drains on the bottom of the cans are very difficult to access, and there isn't much room underneath. I think I'll have to cut the bottom off a water bottle and use it as a cup to drain them.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with them. I'm going to try to find some better-looking clamps, though.

Click to expand...

I added a short hose nipple to mine to give a better directed flow when emptying. I cut open a water bottle to hold underneath while emptying. Great minds!

Those worm gear clamps were driving me nuts, so I ordered a few of these from Summit Racing:



They're made by Earl's, and they're basically just worm gear clamps with a black cover on them:



Much better.

That does looks professional

travelers said:

That does looks professional

Click to expand...

agreed much cleaner looking

travelers said:

That does looks professional

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Looks much better!

Yeah, naked worm gear clamps look janky.

Whoa. I guess I need to order a couple of those. That does look 100 times better.

Here they be:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ear-900514erl/overview/

Might want to go down a size, though; mine are a little too big.

Sky Render said:

Fender gap isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Huge caliper clearance.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Do you like those Bridgestone Potenza's? Need to do tires and want something decent all around. Costco recommended those

I use them strictly for competition. They're a bit too hard core to use for a street tire.