M400 Oil Breather/Separator tank location??

[Rob_W]

Mine is mounted high up next to the fuel filler cap inside the nearside buttress if you see what I mean. Anybody else got this as I have just bought the ProAlloy tank and it's designed to fit the location at the back of the engine bay and Wayne hasn't seen my version. Could be a mod as some of the pipework looks odd but the rest of the car is basically standard so it seem like a lot of work for what? Any thoughts?

[Rob_W]

Like this

[daddysumo]

It looks to me that it has been moved up there to make the distance from the sump to the seperator longer, thus maybe making it less likely that oil from the sump will get to the tank when the car is cornering hard and so then not filling the intake to the front turbo with oil.
A well baffled one like the Pro Alloy one with the breather going to atmosphere is a better solution IMO.

Steve

[Jim O.]

You still may have problems with oil backing up the drain line, even if your breather can is well baffled and the can vents to atmosphere. Only you get oil coming out of the vent all over your engine bay, instead of going into the intake. We've run into this on the track with some of our cars - we fabricated breather cans with even better baffling, and it still happens. Problem is that the drain from the can to the oil pan goes into the back of the oil pan where acceleration can shove the oil back up the hose. Two ways to fix this problem - first is to relocate the breather can, and drain it back into the front of the pan, since usually you're under hard braking for shorter periods of time than full acceleration. Second way is to install a one-way check valve in the oil drain line.

FWIW, these check valves work great in the rear turbo oil drain line...

[Blu3R]

How about a breather and a separate catch tank? Used to work a treat on the old cossies

[daddysumo]

Blu3R said:

How about a breather and a separate catch tank? Used to work a treat on the old cossies

Ok if you wannt to keep emptying the catch tank !

[Rob_W]

Thanks for the info. so far.

I had come to the conclusion this was an owner mod particularly as the pipework is pretty messy with lots of joins but to counter that the tank and it's mounting bracket look very much like a proper job. To confuse things further I looked for the mounting points in the conventional position (to mount the ProAlloy unit)and can see none. I assume there should be a couple of holes in the top of the cross member that supports the IC housing, have I missed something?

Cheers

[FUNKSTER UK]

The pro alloy tank just fixes on via a couple of the screw holes that also holds the intercooler box on. Two screws in two minutes and it's on

[Blu3R]

My original tank had its own holes with 2 self tappers so I just drilled out the ProAlloy tank to suit the holes in the car. Easy done, but if you've not got holes already its not much more of an issue either.

[Blu3R]

daddysumo said:

Blu3R said:

How about a breather and a separate catch tank? Used to work a treat on the old cossies

Ok if you wannt to keep emptying the catch tank !

They have a tap on the bottom of the drain hose so you can put the hose into an old milk bottle and open the tap.

I used to do it twice a year on both of mine and never got more than about 1/4 pint max.

[Rob_W]

Thanks Funkster and BluR. I was just surprised the pitch of the holes on the tank didn't match any of the spacings on the existing self tappers on the cross member, welcome to the "hand built" world of Noble? I'll get there in the end!