Supercharged 57's or later cars & PCV's

[57AGIN]

I've an interesting question regarding what to do with my 351's PCV valve.  I'm putting a Paxton-Novi 1200-1500 supercharger onto me 57's 351W.  It is going to have a driver side inlet to the pressurized carburetor enclosure.  Unfortunately, the superchargers discharge piping interferes with the PCV valve in the valve cover.  I've talked with Paxton and they say just plug that vent hole and move the vent to the rear of the valve cover and install a breather cap like the one on the passenger side.

What did Ford do with the PCV valve on the F-code 312's?  I don't think discharging a PCV setup into a pressurized system is going to work.  But, I could be mistaken.  Any help out there from the mechanical guru's?

I've attached a couple of photos of the installation in progress.

Bob
57 AGIN

[Ford Blue blood]

Bob, I don't think they worried about PCV in 57.  I have an 08 GT500 and obviouslt it is PCV equipted.  It has the valve in one of the valve covers and pulls air in from the air tube after the filter and MAF but before the throttle body.  I believe the PCV automaticly blocks presure by closing up but will breathe when under vacumn as it does in this car.  You can block it off and draw from the other valve cover but you need to have a place for air to get into the crank case.  The ideal setup is to have the PCV on one corner and the "inlet" on the other.  The early T-Bird with PCV used the very back of the intake manifold (FE series) and the oil fill tube as the inlet.  Just have to remember the seals in the engine are designed to keep oil in and not air or dirt or water out.  Having said all that, let it breathe.  If you pull out of it you got to let air in!

[Hoosier Hurricane]

Bob:

Blue Blood is correct, there were no PCVs in '57, blown or unblown.  They used road draft tubes.

John

[wv 57s forever]

maybe run it to the exhaust.

[ranchero57]

swap the valve covers left to right and run the pcv hose up stream from the blower Campy ranchero57

[Ford Blue blood]

Go to your friendly "problem solver" rack and get a 90 rubber elbow and use an inline PCV valve.  The PCV valve on my CA born 61 Unibody was inline.  A little searching and looking in the parts books will give a super clean looking setup.

[57AGIN]

Thanks for all your replies.  The answer turned out to be much along the lines suggested by Ford Blue Blood.  I've attached a picture of the "fix."  It turns out that Paxton kind of anticipated having to have a fitting available in their carb enclosure box located below the carb.  This allows both a positive crankcase vent and vacuum/boost gauge connection.  The final installation also required some parts searching for hooking up the 57 Ford gas pedal linkage to the carb enclosure box used in the 65-67 Mustang throttle linkage.  It works very nicely and the engine is very responsive to the added boost.  I haven't hooked the boost/vacuum gauge yet, but even when the engine is idling and the supercharger discharge pipe is removed there is quite a bit of air pressure coming out of the supercharger.  The amount of added air is probably similar to a good hood scoop with a direct connection to the carb and the car doing 30-45 mph.  Until I have to car on the dyno and get the carb's air fuel ratio properly measured, I'll keep the engine under 3500 rpm to limit the boost, don't want to have a real lean condition.  The two attached photos show the linkage and PCV setups. 

[57AGIN]

For those interested here are a couple of photos showing the complete installation.  I don't like the flex tubing connecting the s/c discharge pipe to the boost blow-off valve and from the boost blow-off valve to the carb enclosure box, I will have some polished aluminum pieces made to correct this.  I also plan to replace the rubber vacuum tubing with braided steel tubing to be like the other fittings in the engine compartment.  Overall, I'm pleased with what Paxton provided in their supercharger kit and I'm looking forward to see how it performs.

Bob
57 AGIN

[JPotter57]

Very nice Bob, let us know how she runs with the pressure cooker on....Awesome.

[57AGIN]

James:

I think I already responded to this in another thread, but since my memory is going South (No reflection intended re the many club members in the Southern part of our great country.  LOL) here it goes again.  The engine was pretty stout naturally aspirated at 345 hp out of the 351 cubic inches.  After adding the supercharger, the horse power jumped to 472 @ 5700 rpm.

Rick and I are looking into fabricating or having fabricated for me a "from the cowl to the supercharger fresh air setup".  We are thinking of having a short tube going from the firewall into a box attached to the driver side fenderwell.  The box would have a K&N type of air filter inside connected to a tube going from the box to the supercharger inlet.  We think the box should allow access to the filter for cleaning or replacement and a drain to remove any rain or wash water finding its way into the box from the cowl.  Paxton says the entire air intake system should have a minimum diameter of 3.5 inches, which is the inlet diameter to the supercharger (makes sense).  The car as it is right now is still drivable to shows and other fun events, but with the air cleaner currently located right next to the left side header bank serious use of the engine should be minimized (due to sending already hot air through a supercharger which will heat it further and possibly leading to detonation.

All things considered , this is a fun project.

Bob
57 AGIN