Hi group,
I see a lot of talk about putting a catch can on a 3.5 to catch the excess blow by ,…..is this a real thing that normal drivers install ?

 

Nope, not needed. Cool to talk about I suppose, some do on high performance race engines, but a daily driver, nope.

 

Thank you , that’s about what I figured ,…

 

They seem more popular on Direct Injection only engines - you have both port injection and DI on your MY 3.5EB, so definitely not needed...

 

They work well on a Diesel that has EGR to help keep the intake clean, but not needed on the 3.5, even the Gen 1. My Flex has 178K miles on it and the intakes valves are still clean. Now on a VW/Audi DI, yeah, needed, they clog up nasty.

 

Add BMW to that mix, and others - anyone watch You Tuber "I Do Cars"? Most all his DI only tear downs are nasty on the backsides of the valves... I think Toyota, closely followed by Ford figured out to add back in the port injection (dual injection) to solve the: "no it's not a problem" thing... As I understand it: Ford was offering a "cleaning" service, until they started having to replace turbos 100 - 1000 miles after that service. We have a DI only Benz that we bought used. At the MB dealer we brought it to for service, the first couple of times they offered a BG Intake Cleaning service. And then stopped - they too were replacing turbos and their fix for a carboned up intake valve was to Replace the heads! $12K was what I was quoted for that, but there just aren't a lot of problems posted on the MB forums, so perhaps their oil control for the PCV is "better" than others...? They also were late followers to the dual port injection - likely for the same unmentioned reasons....

 

May not be needed but Ford actually sells one now.

 

Having never looked under the hood of one of these trucks, I'm curious if the intercooler gets build up of blow by moisture and snotty oil. Has anyone looked?

 

The 15+ is not as bad as the 14 and under but yes.
The older were helped by a 'weep hole' being drilled into the lowest point of the intercooler to help evacuate the crud.