PCV valves

Hello there I have a mild big block in my mud drag pickup. I have just been thinking about those pcv valves on the valve covers. I have just some old ones on there with a hoses on them hanging there. How important are these. I know I should have them hooked to manifold vacuum but do they make any kind of differance. I have also seen where they run hoses into the headers from the pcv valves. Does this help. Does it create more vacuum.

I have wndered about this to. I know what they are for, but for a guy like me with a 550hp stroker are they really important? I have 2 breathers on my motor, with the baffles. You catch the smell of oil every once in a while. But I have had no problems running like this. It makes since to me that you would want new clean air being shoved into your intake, not hot old air.
Someone educate us!...lol

yup the vacuum actually pulls the crankcase pressure/vapors out of the crankcase and is able to burn in the combustion chambers.... i've seen cars without a pcv run terrible.... my buddy got a fully restored 66 charger for $2500 because of this... the guy built the car and dumped thousands into it, rebuilt the 440 and everything but just couldn't get it to run right, he finally got so frustrated he sold it to my friend for $2500.... my friend added a pcv to the car and it now runs like its brand new :D

See my problem is I have no place on my intake to run a line to. The only vacuum I have is the large port on the back of the carb base plate. And that is running my power brakes. I dont want to yank the intake to drill and tap it to have a new port. Its funny you say that thesals, my motor has never ran very well, and i KNOW i have some serious crankcase pressure because it is launched out of the breathers at high revs.
So what are some ways I can get a PCV system up and running? Am I going to be drilling that intake for a new vacuum port?
And i cant afford an actual pump to pull that pressure out.

This is my first "real" motor compared to my other toys in the past, so exsuse the ignorance. But even with a PCV valve, will the motor smoke a little bit from small traces of oil getting in the intake? Or does the check ball in the PCV valve actually block liquids?

very very minimal oil will get through and it wont be enough to make your motor smoke..... you could T off on the carb base for running a pcv and power brakes.... vacuum wont drop by splitting a line, its just like electricity... you'll just be pulling more current, the pcv and power booster operate in reverse of each other though, on decel theres not as much demand on the pcv so it wont cause any problems

So do you think if I hook the hoses from my pcv valves to the headers it will be equivalent to hooking it to the intake ports.

I can actually T off the baseplate port for a pcv valve? For some reason i thought that would kill my power brakes. Well good to know. Now I can save that royle purple from burning off my headers after being launched from the breathers.
So should I keep the breathers in the valve covers and a PCV valve. Or just one breather, and on the other valve cover the PCV valve?

1 breather or and 1 pcv.... or you can also do a closed circuit system and have the breather one with a nipple that connects to a port on the base of your aircleaner.... some motors tend to work better like that, some work better with just an open breather

So with the closed system and running the closed breather cap, there needs to be a baffle underneath that breather? Oil in your air filter seems like a fun time...lol

well guys, as always you are very helpful. I didnt mean to hijack this thread from the origional poster, but it is all related.
Again thanks

yup, baffled covers are ALWAYS the best way to go...... and yeah shouldn't really oil up your oil filter.... the cap should have a good filter system... i run one with a triple baffle inside and a filter, and no oil gets past it.... some of the old fords ran a seperate filter where the hose hooked up inside the air cleaner too