The seperate sump breather filter does not work well with these engine and will always breath out some oil. - quote from Cats Citroen Net
All the engines I have run always blow oil/fumes/white gunk etc.....

I have had the Ecas breather on my D*lly for the last two and a half years and have had no problems with it what so ever.No exesive oil in the air filter housing or oil leaks.I have used the car every day sinec I put it on the road.Maybe the problem is somewhere else?

Hi Chris,I have never had white gunk in my engine .In a water cooled engine,it normally means the stat is stuck open,causing over cooling

Lifted from Cats

Air filter.
Fit a high performance air filter. Make sure it's fed with plenty of cold air either directly from a bonnet opening or using a tube. These filters don't have built-in sump breathers. The sump breather coughs out hot oily air which you don't want to feed into the engine inlet. The cheapest solution is to feed the sump breather back into the engine inlet through the airfilter (as per original). A better solution is to use a separate filter purpose made for sump breathing systems as can be bought from most performance airfilter manufactures. But these filters never keep oil the oil inside, especially on our boxer engines. The only truly satisfying option is to use an oil catch tank. This is a reservoir that catches the sump breather fumes, lets it breath with the outside world but directs the oil back into the engine (sump). Putting a high flowing airfilter onto a otherwise standard engine will normally not increase power.

The reason for the pipe connecting the breather to the air cleaner is to draw any oil mist/fumes back into the engine.A set up common to most engines,as there is a reservoir moulded into the base of the aircleaner housing,it would seem that in their wisdom Citroen expected some oil to settle out there hence the design. That being the case I wouldn't expect a large enough volume of oil to leak out over the engine certainly needs investigating

If you are getting mayonnaise then the engine is not getting hot enough to evaporate the combustion by products OR there is a problem with rings/bores.

Yes there is always a slight oily sheen to the inner air box it certainly shouldn't be pouring out like Viking is getting

Next week I'll expect to tip less than a table spoon of oil out the catch tank after24hrs hard driving.

We've had this talk before about these engines over cooling with people blocking up oil coolers etc. With a normal oil filler/ breather open it in winter (engine off) and I bet a lot of people wil see white gunk - emulsion on the cap

If the ECAS breather is producing the correct amount of vacuum in the crankcase, then it's doing exactly what it was designed to do.
If it's producing more vacuum than an original breather, then you can expect more oily vapour to be pumped towards the air filter and hence more oil in the 'sump' inside the air filter box.
An excessive amount of oil in the air filter box always indicates a problem with the engine, most probably due to excessive blowby, so rings, bores and pistons need to be checked...

Also, is this an 8.5:1 or a 9.0:1 engine?
The results of the compression test suggest it's 8.5:1, but that's if the test was carried out with a hot engine and wide open throttle.
A 9.0:1 that was in good order and tested as above should give closer to 175 psi.

ken

Excessive blowby would reduce the vacuum, yes?

Been running for a while now with hose disconnected from the air filter housing and hardly any oil is dripping on the chassis. When connected the goose neck is flatten when I block the air intake (single bore carby)

Is it possible that with your setup, the carb is creating such a vacuum in the air filter that it's pulling oil out of the engine? ie, creating too much negative pressure?