Been driving around...with the valve cover vents unhooked. DOH!

[fondupot]

Well this is somewhat embarrassing...I was poking around under my hood tonight to check my oil and refill my windshield washer fluid when right away I noticed that BOTH valve cover vents that hook up to the air intake tube were UNHOOKED from the tube.

 

I said some choice cuss words while reattaching the vents but then got to thinking how long I have been driving like this...its well over a month. I remember a back in early October I removed the entire intake tube to see what was underneath, basically just getting familiar with the engine compartment and the engine itself. Just investigating. Well apparently I forgot to reattach these two vents back to the intake tube when I was done. Son of a bitch!

 

So I've been rolling around sucking unmetered, unfiltered air into engine for over a month. Haven't thrown any check engine lights or anything like that, but what kind of damage could I have done?

 

Is there anything I should do to try and remedy this? Or is it too late, whatever damage is done, is done?

 

God dammit....seriously this is pathetic. And to think I consider myself a pretty good (amateur) mechanic.

 

Dont worry, I filled the right hole for the windshield washer fluid.

 

 

 

[crushNchowda]

Don't freak out too much. If it was the springer summer or middle of the winter that would be one thing, but the air is fairly "clean" this time of year. It isn't like you just took the entire thing off and had the throttle body sucking in air directly....I've had over the radiator intakes that collapsed inside their housings before on vehicles and not realized it basically doing same thing.

 

If you're really worried, change the oil and get the throttle body/MAF cleaned.

[1kwik72]

Ehhh hardly anything to worry about. I run my drag car without an air filter and with a vacuum pump on the crankcase. We race in some pretty dusty conditions and even with the super fragile thin ring stack I run I have never had any issues with accelerated bore wear. I pull it apart every couple seasons so I keep a close eye on it. Is it a good thing no, but I highly doubt you did any serious damage. Probably the worse thing it did was kill your mileage a bit if it was sucking warm underhood air.

 

Craig

[fondupot]

Lol. I was even still getting the rated mpgs. I may change the oil tho and take a look at the throttle body.

 

 

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[Joe_K]

I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you were just road driving.

[GMC-AT]

no worries... drive it like you stole it..

[C25A1guy]

Hey, look at it this way, you're not sucking any oil into the intake system clogging all sorts of crap up.

[fondupot]

Hey, look at it this way, you're not sucking any oil into the intake system clogging all sorts of crap up.

 

lol

 

I've been meaning to rig up a catch can, but need to get one with two inlets for both sides.