i knew it was a one way valve. and the whole idea of the system is to suck oily vapours out of the crank case.
i can't see how its going to suck vapours out if theres no vacuum applied to the system (which is what the diagrams show in that link that was posted for a turbo setup). essentially its letting the crank case breathe but its not pushing/pulling the vapours into the catch can. the only momentum is from the movement of the crank.
There needs to be some sort of vacuum in the crankcase for the system to work and if the pipe from the manifold is not used then theres no way that the case is going to be vented properly.
I'll have to pull my PCV valve out and have a look at the little guy. I might put an air compressor on the end and pump it up to 10 psi and see if it will hold pressure.
If the check valve for the brake boost can hold pressure then theres no reason why the pcv valve van't hold the same pressure. if the pcv valve doesn't hold pressure then i'll just use a check valve from the brake booster setup in its place and just put a breather on the top of the valve cover. at least that way there will be vacuum in the system at some stage.

