Provent 200 Filter Replacement
If you are running a Provent 200 Catch can, hopefully you’ll be aware of the need to replace the filter. If you aren’t, you’d better get aware or you will have a ticking time bomb. That, and you need to regularly empty your catch can.
The catch can filters last a certain amount of time and then they will start to reduce flow, and that will put more pressure on the seals in your engine, and eventually you’ll end up with a leak somewhere. Not good.
Don’t buy cheap replacements
Genuine Provent 200 filters are about $85 each, and that hurts. I suspect they make a significant profit margin on this, and you might have seen cheaper units on eBay for under $20. Don’t get them, especially the stainless steel replacements.
The whole reason you have a Provent 200 is because they work, and when you fit aftermarket filters that are not proven or tested, you wreck the entire setup and put your engine at risk. Many of these will not flow the same air rate as the genuine units, and you’ll end up with oil leaks. If they do flow the required rate, they might not last as long, or filter nearly as much out. Its basically the same as putting rubbish engine oil in your engine. It will ‘work’ but not nearly as well as it should, and there are long term consequences of doing so.
How often should you replace the catch can filter?
Getting the frequency of filter change right is hugely important to ensuring they don’t block up, and cause you issues. We do ours at 30,000km, but I’ve seen people recommending anywhere between 20,000km and 50,000km.
If you read through the specifications, they often give an hours recommendation, which is a bit hard to work out on a 4WD. In my mind, you’re better off doing it more often than less, especially with a vehicle that breathes a lot, or runs a larger volume motor (like the 4.5L V8 200 Series VDJ, for example).
Can you wash the filters?
If you look around, you’ll hear people saying they wash their genuine Provent filters using a myriad of different chemicals. This probably does work, but I’d always question how much is left inside, and the risk of having your filter block up is going to cause you a much more expensive problem, so I’ve never done it.
Provent conversion kit
If you have a Provent Catch Can, you hopefully know that they have changed the design of the pressure relief valve. If not, Provent catch cans always used to vent to atmosphere if they over pressurized, and this was the standard design.
This shouldn’t be an issue, because it only does it when its not serviced or something is wrong, but they recently rolled out a conversion which makes it bypass internally. This will come when you order a new Provent filter, and the actual swap takes all of 5 minutes, with a number of YouTube videos stepping you through what is required.
Once you’ve done the conversion, you just keep replacing the filters as you used to, and its all good.
Do you have a Provent Catch Can? How often do you replace the filters? Do you buy genuine ones?
