what do air breathers do?

 

Breathe air.

 

If you're talking about valve cover breathers, they vent air from your valve cover into the atmosphere instead of back into your air intake.

 

in most cases, pointless

 

most cases, your right..but if your turbo or running super high compression, they do tend to let you know if anything is wrong with your motor, and for the people with super high crankcase pressures, help your dip stick from blowing out. and im sure you already knew all of that so it was kinda pointless to type it all. haha.

 

mine emits huge amounts of smoke. then again pistons 3 and 4 only had 90psi compression when I tested them.

 

cracked ring lands is a mother.ha.

 

yep, i have a 12.2 compression motor in my integra. i have a clear tube hooked up to mine and u can see where a little oil blows out at high rpm.

 

Actually the truth about the Valve Cover Air Breather is this:

It is actually part of the PCV system. It provides atmospheric pressure for the opposite side of the PCV valve. Typically there is a tube attached to it to the air intact tract. This way if oil is to pass through it the oil will be consumed into the combustion chamber. Instead of it making a mess in the engine bay.

You can easily fabricate a oil catch can and place it the place of the orignal hose. Just have a new peice of hose attached to both the inlet and outlet tubes to go to the intake and valve cover.

Or you can get on EBAY and find the GReddy unit for about $50....cheap, has a purpose, BLING!

 

they look retarded i might add. plus that little fluid level thing on the side is pointless. nobody needs a catch can unless they have some serious blowby which means their motor is done for. the best thing you can do is get some bypass valves hooked up to your exhaust to vent out crankcase pressure. which also in turn gives you some hp.