Take off your original PCV Valve Hose and vacuum seal it! Save it for show. Make your own replacement for daily use.

 The hose that holds the two PCV valves on a ZR1 Corvette is made out of molded rubber and is in back of the engine next to the firewall. It gets hot and soft, and it breaks, covering the back of the engine with oil. Replacements are hard to get and if you can find one, they are usually going for $300. I decided to make my own. It took a lot of R&D work. I tried many designs. The first was to try to salvage the main part of the molded hose from my son's ZR1. I took a copper pipe and drilled two holes in it and inserted this into the PCV holder with the ends cut off. This worked for a while but the rubber came apart and it blew oil again. Copper pipe fittings seemed to be the answer but how? My first design was to place the PCV into a copper T but that was hard to seal. My son suggested that the T should be the same size as the PCV valve. This made it easy. I bought two Ts and joined them but I had to cut off half of one side of each T to get them at the correct distance to match the top rubber fitting. Next I cut a copper pipe 5/8" to join the Ts. On my son's ZR1, we managed to get a 5/8" gas line hose on a piece of pipe coming out of the Ts. I made one for my ZR1 and used a 1 5/32" piece of copper pipe to join the neck down connector. See the following pictures. I joined the PCV valves to the top of the Ts using 5/8" heater hose which is snug on the T but had to use hand soap to get the PCV valves in. I also clamped the heater hoses twice each. With everything together, I also added a tie strap to make sure it would not come apart under pressure. I made three for $15 and spent about 40 hours going to the store, soldering, checking for leaks (I put soap on the joints and played it like a flute to check for leaks and it did so back to the torch). If it wasn't for the fact that this connects to standard hose and it will last forever, I would rather buy the factory hose. My overall cost, including the cost of my labor, was about $2000. Your cost should be less since I did the R&D!
Also, I am thinking of making this out of aluminum and welding it together. It would be a lot nicer. If there is a demand for this, let me know and I will set up shop.

Pictures tell it all:
This shows all the pieces all cut to size ready to solder. Notice the PCV valves are about the same diameter as the Ts. The Ts have been trimmed to get the correct distance between the PCV valves to fit in the original top rubber. The neck down on the two ends makes it easier to get down to the 7/16" fuel line hose. The original hose is shown also. No, this is not sitting on a ZR1, it is on a '58 Corvette.

I found that if you put all the pieces together in a clamp, it stays straight and does not take as long to solder as doing it in pieces.

This is a top view. If you get the Ts a little off, it will not matter.

This is a picture of the final assembly ready to be clamped. Notice the difference in the length of the heater hose holding the different PCV valves. This one, the first one I made, fell when I tried to put it in and is now wedged so tight between the top of the transmission and the floor board that it will have to stay there until I have to drop the trans. I had to make another one. Make sure you wrap bailing wire around yours, so it can't fall when you put it in.

 by Jim Blanchard
Work Assisted by Wells Blanchard
Article edited by Kay Blanchard