Burger Motorsports N54 Oil Catch Can Review

Those who know and appreciate the N54 platform also know it suffers from a significant oil blow through problem. Oil leaks passed the turbos and into intake system of the car, coating the inter cooler, charge pipe and ultimately the intake valves. This leads to heavy carbon deposits forming on the intake valves, reducing performance and leading to rough idle. Physical maintenance must be done every 100,000 km or less in the form of medium blasting the valves. To reduce the oil clogging in the system, the valve cleaning service interval, and to a lesser extent, improving the octane level a catch can should be installed. After researching the products available on the market and realizing many were generic catch cans that were simply retrofitted to work on the 335 I settled on the Burger Motorsports (BMS) OCC as it was designed from the ground up for the n54/n55 engines.

An example of fouled 335 N54 intake values at ~ 98,000 km

Installation

The installation itself is relatively straightforward however you will need a few things to make the process smoother.

A heat gun will make it much easier to heat the ends of the rubber hoses to get them on the PCV valve nipples (see red circle around end of hose that needs to be heated with heat gun). From personal experience it is practically impossible to get them on without one or even with a hairdryer. Also if the hoses still do not fit even with a heat gun, email Terry at BMS as you might have an improper fitting hose. I had a hose that wasn't fitting properly and Terry shipped me one for free; BMS customer service is stellar.

Pictures Installed

The catch can sits under the cowl for a super stealth look.

Performance

It is hard to say to say exactly what percentage of the oil in the intake system the OCC is catching however it does seem to be collecting oil from the system. Below is a picture of the amount of oil that was removed from the catch can after 4,000 km of driving. Its easy to see that after 40,000 km a significant amount of oil would be prevented from entering the system. Do I expect it to be a 100% solution to the problem, absolutely not, but it is definitely doing its job and reducing the fouling that occurs.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

More than a mod this is almost something that should have come on the vehicle from the factory, and is something that every enthusiast should have on their car. It in no way compromises the performance of the car, in fact helping its longevity and reducing the performance degradation.