Oil pressure / return & breather tubes

I'm wondering if we can improve oil return from the heads by restricting or blocking valve cover breather tubes.

The general setup: blown brad block, brad 4 or 5 heads, P&P dry sump, now with both breathers on the valve covers completely open.
Oil return is slow, which of course is a known issue. More oil will help, but we run 10 second runs at 8000 - 8500 rpm, so there is an end to this as well.
Reducing oil flow / pressure to the engine could be an option as well. Anybody have instructions on how to adjust the P&P units? Is there any "rule" on psi per turn of adjustment and what do you guys consider the minimum (warm) oil pressure?
Connecting hoses from valve covers to the pan might improve, but piston blow-by gas will travel upwards to the breathers and oil has to go against that flow. We of course need some oil in the head for lubrication / cooling, so I don't want to drain the heads, but just improve return flow. The same will probably apply for the lifter valley that will also hold some oil.

Anybody ever blocked or restricted the valve cover breathers to increase 'pressure' in the heads to get better return flow?
Any thoughts / experience on running just a couple of small hoses from the valve covers directly to the dry sump tank, maybe in combination with closed breathers?
It seems to make sense to let the crank case pressure do some work here, but I don't want to experiment too much and blow out valve cover gaskets.

Thanks,
Marcel

 

oil return

what type / viscosity of oil do you run?
how much does the system hold?
Clif

 

Are your rocker gear psi fed? If so then yes I've seen people restrict the rocker gear with Allen plugs and drilling a hole of your liking. Me have had mine a .080 for 5 years and never had a problem. Also this winter I drilled the rear return holes in my block out to match the head. The hole was around .460. Now it's .600. Just like the head. So well see how that works.

 

We have made a big improvement in these type situations with an accumulator. Would strongly advice not to do anything to increase crankcase pressure.

 

We run Brad Penn 70 weight oil. The system will hold around 20 qt.
The rocker gear are psi fed and a restrictor is already in place. Don't know about the size, but have seen it in there.

 

A blown hemi HAS to vent if you block off valve covers its going to push out somewhere else that you won't like !!!!!!

 

vent

Big hoses from the valve cover/head to pan will return oil and equalize the pressure. Ideally vent the crankcase low instead of on the valve covers. If I didnt care about weight and complexity I would have a diiferent setup than the norm.

 

PHP:

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Just about my thought. It seems to make sense, but the norm is just different and complexity of getting things fitted where no provisions are made to fit tubes and such is keeping me as well. For the engine it should'n't make any difference wether it is vented from the pan or from the heads, but I expect that more oil will try to escape from the lower vents, so that will require yet further thoughts and hardware.
Anyway, big hoses will be on the to-do list and we'll see about the rest next winter.

 

vent

Even venting the lifter valley would be better.
My stock BAE setup forced all the crankcase pressure through the pushrod cutouts to get into the valve cover area. I trimmed the headgaskets out to open up more flow area.