BSH Oil Catch Can Install Video for MINI Coopers

In this video we show you how to install the Oil Catch Can from BSH on your MINI Cooper S or JCW.


TRANSCRIPTION

Hi gang its Brendon McCray for Mini Mania.  And today we're going to be doing an install on our R58 coupe or JCW coupe. We're going to be doing an install of a BSH catch-can. And I don't know how many of you are familiar with a catch-can and what it does. But I'm going to give you a quick and dirty little explanation.  Right here, this is actually an N14 turbocharged JCW engine, even though this is a 2011 or 2012 R58 coupe this one actually lags a bit in terms of the powertrain, because instead of the N18 engine it actually has an N14 engine and what we're going to do is install a catch can.

What's a catch can? A catch can is basically just that it's basically just a small can, I'll show it to you in a minute. We are going to put into the circuit between where this pipe comes out of the valve cover and goes down and feeds into this intake tube which feeds directly into our turbocharger. Now the factory setup is not the most efficient in the world, the purpose of this tube right here is basically to recirculate the crankcase gases that come up out of the crankcase, they come up out of the valve cover through here to the PCV valve which is a one-way check valve and then they're basically reburned by coming through the turbocharger and then into the intake system. Now, why is that a good thing and why is it a bad thing? It's a good thing environmentally in that you're reburning any of the blow by gases from cylinders and instead of shedding those to the atmosphere like we used to do your reburning them and you're making for a cleaner exhaust out of the tailpipe.  And why is it a bad thing? Well, on a normally aspirated engine it's going to work very well and it's going to provide a very clean exhaust. All things being equal, but on a boosted engine like this they can be something of a real nightmare.

On a boosted engine like this you're going to be putting more pressure into your crank case more pressure and the more boost you're going to be putting into the crank case the more blow-by you're getting. And you say what is blow-by? Well imagine each one of the cylinders here, the fuel and air mixture that goes into the top of the cylinder on the power stroke detonates with the spark and as the piston gets shoved back down any of the gases that are within that chamber that get passed slip past the piston rings inside the cylinder and go into the crankcase that's where your blow-by is, that's literally the definition of the blow bias those gases.

This tube is supposed to effectively bring those gases up out and back in and reburn them. The trouble is with a boosted engine is you have more blow-by than you would on a normally aspirated engine and therefore you're going to get more oil vapor that is going to be going into your intake system it's never a good idea to have oil go into your intake because then of course you can see exactly why that's a problem. Turbochargers right here this is what's coming out of your crankcase. Now the idea is is that those are going to be reburned coming through here and into your intake wall this is going to do is it's just going to foul your intake, you're going to be introducing oil into your combustion chamber you're going to be introducing oil into your turbocharger which is a terrible idea, and especially if you have a heavy right foot, if you're a track-day guy, if you have a lot of modifications back to right, you really like to drive your engine hard eventually you're going to notice the first time that you take out you know either your intercooler or your throttle body or your intake manifold you're going to see a lot of oil in there and you're going to be wondering why do I have all this oil in here well this is that this is the reason why.

So effectively what we're going to do in or to eliminate this issue in order to add longevity to our turbo in order to add longevity to everything from the intercooler to the throttle body to the intake manifold we're going to basically open this tube up and we're going to be we're just going to open the circuit and we're going to add a catch can that's basically going to take all of that oil vapor that comes out of the crankcase and it's going to let it settle into a can where it doesn't get reintroduced into your intake side. Literally save you hundreds and hundreds of dollars in repair costs for turbos and other nightmares down the road. It's definitely something that you want to do if, if you have a turbocharged vehicle.

All right this is what you have in the kit, that is our catch-can we've got a couple fittings we've got a bracket, we've got some button heads, we've got some rings, we've got a bracket to mount the catch-can, and we've got some links of hose and the first thing actually we're going to do is we're going to mount the catch can itself and then we'll be installing those two black hose fittings and I've already got two o-rings on that that one fitting I'll put the other two on there and then I'll add some white lithium grease to them and then I'm going to mount that bracket on to the catch can follow along.

That is a four millimeter allen head socket for those of you who are keeping score, we have that and we're just going to do this temporarily, that's all set up to be mounted. Got two fittings this fitting here is the one that's going to go into the valve cover, this is the one that's going to go on the the other side of the pipe the one that has the sensor on it. Like I said, now add some o-ring 's come with the kit, the two are already on the other fitting, got a little spray white lithium grease I'm just going to put a little on a thing here and I'm just going to get happy with it, all right, there spray this directly on if you want I just don't want to make a huge mess, it doesn't need a lot just needs a little bit those are done.

I've got a hose cutter here and the hose is actually going to the very last thing of course that we put on and the location of it of course will dictate the length so we'll do that last, but let's go and put on our catch can. And I guess we'll do the fittings at the same time. Well there's two possible locations that you can mount the catch can if you're going to be eliminating the sort of fresh air factory fresh air intake there's a little spot right here where you can put that through the frame and you can mount it there but I'm going to leave that in place for right now, there's actually this nice little tab back here that doesn't have anything connected to it what we're going to do is we're actually going to remove the little clip because we actually have a nylock nut that's going to go underneath here for that button head screw so we'll just do that and I'll get a get another wrench to tighten that on a little bit better later, that's effectively where that's going to go this is your input this is what's going to come from here and then this is your output and this is going to go right into there the next thing we're going to do is we're going to remove this tube, I take that pipe off in order to get to this part you can pretty much just grab and pull just be careful you're not pulling on anything else, sometimes it'll come out sometimes it won't, there are tabs on this piece right here and if you just kind of get in with a screwdriver on the bottom you can usually kind of push that upwards and then take that right off and just give this a yank it will come right out just like that.

If you've got a Cooper S you may notice that you don't have a band here on our 2007 Cooper S, we noticed that it's basically the same hose on the Cooper S versus the JCW and 14 but on the JCW it has a band clamp on the other it didn't and I don't know if that was removed at some point it didn't look like it ever had one but here we're going to have to cut this off. There you go, and this one's going to probably take a little bit of persuasion just to be safe I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to take that plug out while I'm working on this, and i praying any of the electronics screw up the sensor. I'm just going to pull this out and take it out see that's where the sensor is basically this piece of course is going back in it's really just the tube part we're going to remove this just makes it a little easier. It's got enough on there by itself okay so that's taken off, this is going to go right back where it goes, positively seat that in there as best I can.

Alright, now in the instructions you're going to get from BSH they're going to say to basically undo this entire bit of pipe here undo it here undo it here take this off remove this do all that, you don't really need to this can pretty much just stay in place. Next thing we're going to do is we're going to take our fittings, this is the one with the large flat piece this one's going to go right in here into our valve cover so you can see fits right in there, and then we have this piece here this one is going to go right in here, might need a little bit more grease on there actually in fact I think we are, hold on one second. There we go, got one, there we go we're all in now what we're going to do is we're going to go get our hose that's supplied with a kit we're going to connect from here to here and we're going to connect from here to here, meantime I'm going to plug our sensor back in.  Alright there's one side, there you go, alright and there you go alright.

Okay and there it is installed, and the kit does not come with clamps, it doesn't come with hose clamps, and the fit is pretty good by itself you can see that it actually bulges out the hose over on this side anyway so you really shouldn't need to have those clamps on there. Obviously you can do it if you want to but it's not going to be under so much pressure that you shouldn't, should have an issue with it. If you do, add a hose clamp and that's it. So now what's going to happen is all of your blow-by gases are going to vent out of your crankcase they're going to go into your catch can and all of that vaporized oil is going to collect in the bottom, there's a little clean-out bit right here that's the drain hole.

Now what you can do is every time you change your oil you want to check to the can and you want to dump this as well you'd be surprised at how much oil is actually being dumped into your system. Just before we buttoned everything up I went ahead and disconnected this line and I ran it underneath and then I ran it over here at the can underneath both and then over this particular one only because this was sticking up so high it was actually rubbing against see the rub mark unsheathing on the side of the bonnet here on your side of the hood it was actually rubbing against that and actually taking the paint off that line was so I just sort of repositioned it that actually makes it look a little bit more factory a little bit more tidy and there you go.

So if you'd like to order one of these for yourself the part number is below. It's G2 for Gen 2 Mini G2NME4601, and again this is for the end 14 engine there's a separate number that is for the an 18 engine. I will also list that part number below and with links so that you can order it directly from us.

If you have any questions about the install if you have any comments please leave those below if you have any comments for any future videos please leave that for us as well and we take those into consideration for sure. Keep checking back with us subscribe to our channel and if you like this video please click the like button we would definitely appreciate it.