fucked rings?

Ahh I think I know now, the big pipe is angled down beside the front wing, I reckon moisture is getting in there causing the mayo, can't belive I didn't think of that!

So the breather pipe that goes to the standard air box is just dangling now you have a racey filter on? How is the breather working if thats the case?

The breather works just the same, that pipe stop oil being spat into the atmosphere or all over the engine bay. Usually, on a race car they are routed into a catch tank to stop the oil going on the road.

and that would explain sometimes finding a small amount of oil in the bottom of the filter / a oily air filter?

ah , i thought it was fairly crucial to it working properly for some reason.

Yeh and the standard sponge filter should be oiled anyway , its supposed to be a 'wet' filter and should have a film of oil applied after cleaning.

If I'm honest I've never had oil exit that pipe would you belive? Having said that moisture can blatantly get up there, which I obviously didn't think of

rebel,
if your engine breather is working correctly, gasses should only move 'outwards' through it.

My vote's with ben, who recommended that you fit the grille muff.
If you didn't fit that as soon as you should have, the engine oil will not have been reaching its correct working temperature, so water ( just one of the byproducts of combustion) which inevitably reaches the sump past the pistons won't have been driven off.

Even though you've fitted the muff now, the oil probably still has too high a moisture content.

ken

I see, well it's been on couple weeks now but I havnt bothered to check the breather for quite a while, I suppose it's a lesson for me really! I'm changing the filter to original tomorrow, and I'll do a oil change at the weekend. Is a couple of weeks of neglect going to cause too much damage? Bearing in mind I've used it half as much as I normally would due to a duff battery.