It may depend on your engine, but my LS3 crate motor had 4 steam ports from the factory, 2 of which were already plugged. I tied the two remaining together then teed those into a bleed line I'd routed from the top of my radiator, then all 3 into the top of my surge tank. The ports are all open and there's active communication between all ports and the surge tank at all times.
I added a ton of information about cooling as well as a few links to other helpful sites. In particular the "Pirate4x4" site I linked, and which is referred to in the SLC wiki, has a ton of great information on cooling an LS motor - highly recommend you read my blog post and the Pirate4x4 site for details.
It seems there are a good number of areas I’ve been approaching with trepidation, I’m really starting to sound like a broken record! … well, add to it the engine coolant and air c…
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Here's a quote from the 4x4 site:
Special LS-specific "steam tubes" or "engine vent lines" are installed on top of the cylinder heads. As vapour or steam will always seek the highest point, any steam pockets created by local hot spots, particularly in the
cylinder head exhaust valve area, will migrate up and into the steam tubes which will carry them and a small amount of coolant away and either into a port located at the top of the rad (as shown here) and from there to the surge tank, or directly to the surge tank (depending on application) where the steam is separated from the coolant.
Steve - it looks like you've got quite the motor going there - I'd highly recommend you speak with your engine builder (or a builder familiar with your engine setup) and ask them about how PCV should be routed and setup for your particular engine.
I have a post about PCV and catch cans; there's been some debate about my setup but at the end of the day a properly configured PCV system is important to having a healthy motor. I'm also now a big believer in installing a catch can on LS motors.
With the SLC down for fuel issues I thought it would be a good time to knock another item off my to-do list. Something I wasn’t keyed in on when I originally installed my engine was the fact…
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