Some time ago I installed the Mishimoto oil catch can in my A90 Supra. With this unit, Mishimoto recommends checking the contents of the catch can every 1,000 miles after installation until a baseline is established. It’s time for me to do my first drain and I’m going to share with you my experiences to see if this thing is doing anything.
For the check, I had the Supra jacked up because I was actually already doing an oil. Mishimoto says that you don’t have to have the car jacked up but I’ve tried reaching under to get to the catch can’s drain plug and it’s awkward, to say the least. You very likely can do it but things definitely get more complicated if you lowered your car. If you’d like to learn how to properly jack the MKV Supras up, I’ve made a video on the topic here: https://youtu.be/YpMxdVHzJ9k
The Mishimoto oil catch can’s drain plus is directly behind the passenger side front wheel. This is why I said that it would be awkward to get to this thing without lifting the car. You’d have to reach around the tire and do the service at an awkward angle and almost blind. In my opinion, the drain plug situation should’ve been handled better considering it’s something that we have to deal with relatively often.
To drain the catch can, we just use some sort of tool with a 3/4” opening to loosen the drain plug. It’s pretty much the same idea as dumping the oil for an oil change. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. Pretty self-explanatory.
When I checked, I got absolutely nothing. Not a single drop of oil. Not even a trace when I stuck my finger into the opening.
At this point, I thought maybe the car was just producing so little blow-by that as I angled the car up on jack stands, the blow-by wasn’t able to drop down the drain tube which is connected to the center bottom of the oil catch can. So to verify this, I had to drop the car and check the can on flat ground.
Having to do this verified for me that this process sucks without lifting the car. Even at stock height, my Supra is low enough for me to not be able to fit any of my combination wrenches under the car and be able to turn the drain plug. I had to find a short crescent to get the drain plug off and even then it took me a while because my arm is just short enough for this process to really be a pain. Again, I’m at stock height but if your Supra is lowered or slammed, good luck doing this without lifting the car.
I eventually got the drain plug off, I had my catch cup under there to see how much oil was collected, and guess what? Not a single drop, AGAIN!
So, I don’t really know what to say. A thousand miles and not a drop of oil collected is kind of concerning. I realize that there are a few different things like temperature and how the car is driven that can contribute to the amount of blow-by but I would think that after a few months and driving through different atmospheric conditions, I would get something. I know that, for sure, when I was installing the catch can, when installing my intake, and just having to take the various pipes and hoses apart, there was a noticeable amount of oil in these various components. So for none of that to get in the catch can, is just weird to me.
As of right now, I really don’t know what to think about this Mishimoto oil catch can. I mean for around $300, things are a bit disappointing right now. Obviously, I’m not going to uninstall it because that entire process is kind of a pain and it’s already in there so why would I take it out? All I can really do is wait it out, drive the car more, and just see what happens. I’m probably going to stretch the check-in intervals out and not check every thousand miles because that’s clearly not needed. I’m likely just going to check at every oil change interval as I planned in the first place and that likely will be just fine considering what I’ve seen here.
For the Supra owners that watch my videos and have this catch can installed, how’s yours holding up? Are you seeing any oil being collected? Let me know in the comments because I’m really interested to know if my Supra is just the most efficient one or what.
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