I am getting oil out of the oil breathers on top of the valve covers. They are located towards the front of the engine near the intake on both passenger and driver's side. The valve covers have baffles in them.

Specs: 1969 Dodge Charger, 540 cui Hemi, Megablock, 4.375 bore x 4.5 stroke, Internal pickup for oiling, Miloden oil pan with windage tray, Indy 426-1 Aluminum heads, Solid roller cam, Valve lift .61 intake and exhaust, Indy cast aluminum valve covers, Open oil breathers with baffles, Fresh build, maybe 2,000 miles on it. Some track time. Block was worked, gone through by my machinist, and final torque honed. Rings were file fit according to the instructions.

I haven't done a compression test or leak down test to know if it is blow-by. I was wondering if there was anything else I should check (consider) while I'm at it?

I did not put in the oil restrictors in the heads because I had read horror stories about not enough oil to the top end on Hemis. I was thinking that it was on the safer side to have more oil than less? Should I put them in?

Do not put oil return restrictor in your heads
Do you oil the rocker arms full time with your roller cam?
How big are the baffles under your breather caps?

When did this start? What change (if any) was done before that?

That is a big engine so it will have a lot of blowby and that long stroke will stir up the oil in the pan. So no surprise that you're having oil blow out the breathers.

One thing to try is high quality breathers such as the ones that Peterson makes. They screw into a #12 bung so you might need to weld bungs to your valve covers. The other thing to try is to put the breathers on a remote tank. On the dyno I use a two quart Moroso tank with a breather and then run a line from each valve cover. That setup never leaks a drop and it doesn't blow out any oil. I've used the same type of setup in a car by mounting the breather tank up next to the radiator. I'll attach a couple of pictures.

If it was OK, and then it was not, something has changed in the engine. Leak it would be the first thing to do.

Just went through this on my 470 BB in my Dart and it was hazing my windshield while testing a carb under a hard load and it turns out a vacuum line to my pcv valve was leaking and sucking air causing ring flutter..........replace line no more oil and I removed and cleaned the K&N breather and all's well now...........

An open breather will always steam and have a little oil in it. I was thinking of just tying mine together with a piece of surgical tubing with a slot cut in the top. Like you would on carb bowl vents. I've seen some breathers set up with aluminum tubing arching up in front of the air cleaner with one or two breathers at the top of the arch. Ford??? You could also set up a PVC system or a vacuum pump. Andy's breather tank works but don't go too small with the tank. Guys used to run those evac systems to the headers. I personally never liked those or tried using them.

I like that set up although a bit large as far as packaging.........

Have you pulled the covers off yet to see if
the baffles have plenty of clearance.. if they
get pushed partly closed from the rockers then
you will build pressure in the covers

had this happen once, the breather was actually the problem. Where the pinch the seem together, eventually started undo'ing itself and leaking oil all over the covers.

I think you did the right thing by not restricting oil to the heads. I usually groove the #4 cam journal to get more oil to the heads on a street motor with stiff roller cam springs. I've smoked too many rockers and push rods to not.

As for the blowby, I agree with Andy, this motor is going to have some. Work on better baffles.

GOod luck!
Joel

I see both Andy and now Joel comment on the size of the engine "it's going to have blow by". So is a 4.375 x 4.5 Hemi going to use oil due to it's size? See my post earlier on my engine, same size, and oil consumption. Oddly enough I have no blow by, installed a trap in PVC line to check and it never collected oil?

Nothing has changed with the motor. I think that it was always doing this, I just never noticed. I kept thinking it was the valve cover gaskets. I think eventually the breathers got too saturated with oil and it became real noticeable. It always did smoke a little. Was very annoying. It would come and go. Probably just depended on how hard I pushed it. Didn't pay attention though.

This last time it was pretty bad though. It smoked all the way down the freeway. I felt bad for anybody that was behind me. I didn't push it hard at all. Just cruising with my wife and son. That was on last Friday. The motor did seem a little sluggish than usual while this was happening. I did get on it a little to try and clear her out. That did help. The motor seem to come back to life and the smoke went to an instant minimum. Was still a little smoky but not anywhere near what it was. I took it back home and opened the hood to see that both valve covers had an oil stream coming from the oil breathers.

OK, so I was thinking correctly in not putting in the oil restrictors. I oil the top end by the timed #4 cam bearing. I have had the valve covers off a couple of times and the rockers seem to be getting enough oil. The baffles were put on by Indy. They drilled and mounted them for me. They are pretty stiff and seem far enough away. The grommet does not touch the baffle when installed. The breather is a K&N push type breather 1.25 opening.

Andy, I will investigate that setup further. That looks like that is the setup I will need. By the way, I have your aluminum timing chain cover on this motor. Love it!!

Is it a good idea to still do the compression test and leak down test or just focus on getting a better setup for the oil breathers?

I have never tried to post a picture so if someone could tell me how to do that, I would appreciate that.

Oh, wait - I already posted 10,000 words on this, and no one read it.
My bad.

There's likely nothing wrong w/ the motor, just the nature of the beast. That big motor is gonna make a lot of crankcase pressure and there's gonna be a lot of oil mist in there.
I know, my 572" hemi did it the first time I drove it w/ just two open element breathers on the valve covers.
I added baffles and got the Mr. Gasket breathers that sit up above the covers w/ tubes, then added steel wool inside the tubes...which helped a lot, but still ended up leaking oil if you drove it hard.
I eventually put a vacuum pump on the motor, which cured it.
Having said that, I don't think you need a pump to fix it.

My other car is a wedge, but I use a pair of -10 lines from each valve cover that "tee" into a breather tank mounted beside the radiator. This setup works great, no leaks, and much less expensive than a vacuum pump. See pic...

If its smoking that bad you most likely have
a broken ring.. OR the intake is sucking in
oil that would be where I looked

Here is a road race setup from a car that I once worked on. It was heavy and ugly but it worked. We eventually changed it over to dual #12 lines that went to a tank and that worked just as well but took up less space.

The NASCAR guys used to run systems like this before they went to dry sump. With a 8000 rpm engine running 500 miles and pulling 1 g in the corners you need more than just breathers on the valve covers.

I will do a compression test and leak down test for peace of mind.

I don't have the oil breathers plumbed back to the intake. They are just open to atmosphere. There was a lot of oil on top of the valve covers that leaked onto the headers causing the smoke. The oil breathers themselves were soaked with oil.

Here is another setup from a real NASCAR car that a buddy of mine owns. I think this is an early 70's car. Same type of deal with a crossover tube that has breathers mounted on it. That was the standard setup back in the day.

The large diameter of the systems on those NASCAR
will drop the air velocity and IF your pulling
oil out of the breathers it will help a ton.. it
really slows the air down