So my friend just picked up a neglected 91 DA with almost 200k miles for $850, It’s obvious that the car was used as a daily beater for the last 100k miles, but my buddy wants to freshen her up a bit and get some practice wrenching on Honda’s, while going over the engine bay we discovered that someone, at some point removed the PCV valve and just plugged up the hose leading to the intake manifold and then (not even kidding) shoved a cotton ball in the place of the grommet for the PCV valve which was soaked in oil.
Now we’re going to fab an oil catch can tomorrow but wanted to know what harm this might have done, we read that not having it hooked up to a vacuum source will eventually start blowing seals and causing leaks, but other than a bit if power steering fluid theres no leaks after sitting for a few hours.
Also, do we need to buy another PCV valve for our home made catch can?
If pressure builds in the crankcase, it will need to escape somewhere. I think the original PCV design on this engine is more to capture “blow by” and burn it in the combustion chamber, so I don’t think not having a vacuum would really harm the crankcase, but may screw with your idle speed.
From my experience with a few Honda engines, once the rings start to age and the PCV valve can’t keep up and/or the PCV valve clogs, the pressure will get too high and then your main seals will start to leak. Some engines will also start pumping oil right through the PCV, fill up the catch can and dump it right into the intake (smokey), when the pressure gets too high. Some engines will often times not run correctly if there isn’t a little bit of air flow via PCV, so sometimes people will start to “adjust the idle” to compensate for a blocked off or clogged up PCV, so watch out for that.
I would recommend replacing the valve when you have the option to.
I agree very solid advice, yup I would be a little worried if that had happened or I noticed that on a friends car lol, but yea the part is like 20-25$ bucks Oem I can’t remember wasn’t too expensive mine was broke had to replace it, not too bad with proper tools
