Not sure how well they work in this location but I had a set of Corvette VC's with them up front and I think they look the best in that location!
Just my opinion, but I've always thought that most any time breathers are added to vintage valve covers=it ruins them. They almost always look like an after thought. An exception may be M/T covers with matching M/T breathers. I usually cringe when I see vintage finned covers that have been hole sawed and had breathers bolted on. It seems to be a "function over form" affair. I say vent the engine elsewhere or go with valve covers that were pre-made with breather provisions (early Cal Custom, etc).
PML (yourcovers.com) makes a small breather and PVC fitting/grommet that flush mounts on the inside of centerbolt valve covers that are not real visable that might adapt to your needs. http://yourcovers.com/valve_covers_11041.php
dont wanna highyack this thread, but what's the use of them? it"s a dumb question but i just dont know it.
Venting an engine is a must if you don't want to blow seals. It can be done with a crankcase vent in the intake, or with a PCV valve, but it needs to be done to help the engine displace internal pressure. Valve cover breathers work best, but as mentioned they do distract from the beauty of old finned valve covers. Nothing vintage or pretty about my valve covers, so I stuck them in the factory holes:
Vents in the valve covers will do nothing but throw oil vapor out onto the engine if you don't have another opening, i.e. road draft tube or PCV to create an air flow through the engine. Block ventilation is actually meant to enter through the VC vents, not exit. Early SBC's, Ford Y blocks, etc., have openings in the block for draft tubes. Early Ford V8's all had some kind of a provision to vent the engine, through the oil fill tube and block draft tube. In 1964 GM and Ford replaced the block draft tube with a fitting that connected to a hose that attached to the PCV system. Most of the early GM and Ford systems drew air through the oil fill tube cap. There are many variations to the early closed crankcase, PVC systems. I like the early GM, '63-65 and '64 Ford Y block systems. These systems are very concealable, especially on engines with nice aluminum valve covers.. e.g. '55-57 Ford T-Birds/early SBC covers.
This was a good discussion http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=303910&highlight=sp+breathers
If your going to use valve cover breathers they should be mounted on the top (upper) side of the valve cover and toward the front of the motor. The logic is that on acceleration, especially at launch when the rpm's are high, oil is being pumped up into the covers faster that it can drain back to the crankcase and collects at the rear of the valve covers. Mounting your breathers as far away from where the oil collects will minimize the chances of the breathers puking oil on the headers and sending up smoke signals. Terry
Here's the set up on my Starliner. Vents up front on the VC's and a PCV in place of the old road draft tube at the rear of the intake. Simple and clean.
I had this K&N filter/breather on the pass side,and on the other side was a breather/pvc set up. It was a chrome,screw-in deal with a pcv hole/grommet on the middle of it. Always had fresh,filtered air going thru crank case,& never had a problem pulling oil into the engine from pcv side.
I've seen a few threads on here about puting the PCV valve in various places, including the valey cover portion of the intake (or the seperate valey cover, on engines so equipped). I would hesitate to put the kind of breathers in the pictures in this thread in the oil pan as I would expect them likely to overflow on a street car, race only would be a different story.
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