Why is my 034 catch can not catching any oil?

I have a 034 catch can that I have been religiously draining for the past 3-4 months. Crawled under the car to see that there is significant oil build up around the inlet/outlet of my intercooler. I pulled off one of the hoses and literally oil started draining out (probably a could tablespoons or so) What gives? Do I just have a bad unit?

*** update 4/10, confirmed that my 034 can was indeed puking oil into my intake... my ECS can just arrived today, and will be getting a new PCV at the same time...should've went with the ECS/APR design all along. There's nothing wrong with my 034 can, it must just be a design flaw with the Africa plate design catch cans.

If there's one lesson to be learned here, the africa plate design is no bueno. Stick to the stock PCV and get a APR/ECS/Forge can and save yourselves the headaches.

Mine hasn't caught any either, perhaps the oil you have was already there and it's not burning or using any? My car burns pretty much no oil.

I have to top mine off just a tiny bit before the 5k mark. The rest of the oil ends up in my intercooler. I installed them both at the same time as I wanted to keep my shiny $900 intercooler free of oil and performing well...guess that didn't happen

zef said:

I have to top mine off just a tiny bit before the 5k mark. The rest of the oil ends up in my intercooler. I installed them both at the same time as I wanted to keep my shiny $900 intercooler free of oil and performing well...guess that didn't happen

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I don't ever get to 5k usually, and rotella doesn't burn like junky castrol does

Oil in intercooler may be blown turbo seals. Catch can takes oil vapour from the crank case so totally different path

Laimface said:

Oil in intercooler may be blown turbo seals. Catch can takes oil vapour from the crank case so totally different path

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I don't think it's blown turbo seals... most people have oil in their boost piping, which winds up pooling in the IC, most of the time it's from having a blown pcv and not knowing it.

I think gravity is gonna play a role here too. The oil is heavier than air so it's gonna still want to pool up, a little, at the lowest point of the system
The catch can can't catch everything

I had the exact same issue. It turned out to be blown turbo seals. No catch can on earth will help this.

Did you trying asking it nicely?

Mk6 Steve said:

I had the exact same issue. It turned out to be blown turbo seals. No catch can on earth will help this.

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Blown turbo seals on which turbo? What kind of oil are you all using? Or what turbos?

GroceryGTIer said:

Blown turbo seals on which turbo? What kind of oil are you all using? Or what turbos?

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If he's had a cunt of a boost leak for years, the heat from overspeeding will fuck any bearings and seals. A friend of mine had a mk5 with seals so bad, the boost from the compressor housing was leaking into the oil feed and pressurising the crank case!

Laimface said:

Oil in intercooler may be blown turbo seals. Catch can takes oil vapour from the crank case so totally different path

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I would be seeing fairly significant consumption if that was the case, no? The car has not been showing any symptoms. I am maybe 1/2 a quart down (if that) after 5,000 miles.

I noticed certain catch can designs like ECS and APR actually connect to the intake whereas the Africa plate designed catch cans do not. Would switching to an ECS/APR catch can do a better job of this, or no matter what am I going to have this issue?

My issues were with the stock K03. I was using close to a quart every 5k miles. After installing an 034 catch can kit and an oil change, several hundred miles later I pulled off the intercooler hose and had significant fresh oil in the pipe!

Mk6 Steve said:

My issues were with the stock K03. I was using close to a quart every 5k miles. After installing an 034 catch can kit and an oil change, several hundred miles later I pulled off the intercooler hose and had significant fresh oil in the pipe!

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No other symptoms other than oil the intercooler pipe for bad turbo seals? No whining from the turbo or anything like that?

Guess turbo upgrade is coming sooner than I thought...

This is my first turbocharged car and after installing a healthy, very lightly used APR K04 I can easily tell the difference now! I never had whine just a lot of oil and some antifreeze consumption that I no longer have after going K04. When I pulled off the K03 and had time to inspect it, I spun the compressor wheel and you can hear “tink tink tink” with every revolution and then it came to an abrupt stop...the K04 compressor wheel did not make any noise and came to a smooth stop. What I thought was weird was the fact that the K03 hardly had shaft play, but then again that was the first turbo that I’ve ever removed so there’s not much for me to compare to. But it certainly had some wiggle to it compared to the K04.

As for my K03 vcds logs I would hit peak boost but it would bleed off quicker than most other logs I’ve seen posted on this forum. And I’m a maintenance freak so all points of possible boost leaks were covered but I could never find this perpetual boost leak. Once in a blue moon I would get a puff of white smoke from my tailpipe when going WOT in gears 3 and up but I attributed that to having a full catch can (almost no water/oil but a lot of chocolate milkshake crap). I did a compression test and all cylinders checked out perfect...hence it was time to go K04! Now power comes on very linear and smooth and when 4K rpm hits holy mother fucker hold on because it’s a beast up to 7K rpm! The K03’s power delivery was choppy but once it was in boost it was great and then it bled boost quickly. This was my experience and I hope it helps.

Ps going from a busted K03 to a healthy K04 is insane. My buddy has a 15’ STI with 525 hp at the crank and we were neck and neck from 60 to 120 with 3 back to back pulls! I should have went K04 a long time ago....