[Todd W. White]

Well, thank you for your reply, but my answer is, "not quite".

My rebuilder is a friend of mine. He has been a professional rebuilder for over 50 years. His firm is one of the largest and most well respected rebuilding companies in this part of the country. I have absolute confidence in his work. My engine does not burn oil. It never has, other than during the early break in period. I now have about 20,000 miles on the rebuild, and it still doesn't burn oil, in the classic sense of the term. What little that does make it to the plugs now will, I'm convinced, be eliminated as soon as we replace the valve stem seals.

I think the problems came, primarily, from a failed PCV valve. And, while the valve stem oil seals on the passenger side may have contributed to the problem, the failure of the stock PCV valve is, in my opinion, definitely the main cause of the problems with the carburetor, and resultant mileage issues.

You are not correct about the catch can. Without a PCV valve, and just the catch can, it performed far better than the stock PCV valve did before it failed. However, as I said, it was not enough. When I used it with a new stock PCV valve, my performance suffered, because the PCV valve didn't match my engine performance characteristics. When I put a brand new stock PCV valve in, bypassing the catch can, my performance also suffered, even though the carb had been cleaned and rebuilt. When I put the adjustable PCV valve in conjunction with the catch can, my performance improved dramatically. The new style PCV valve works well by itself, also. Therefore, I chose to keep the catch can and the modern PCV valve, even though I can return it and get my money back, because using the stock one alone with the corrected other measures, or the stock one with the catch can, just doesn't work as well as the combination I have now. Perhaps the catch can will be of far less use once the valve stem seals are replaced, but I think I will have to look at that once they're done.

At this point, I'm staying with what I have because it works for me. Proof of that is my latest guess Philip and mileage, which I did today. On the tank I just used, it was quite a bit of city driving, but also a very different use.

Yesterday, my 2001 Saturn blew a head gasket, and the water pump failed at the same time. My son had to drive my truck from my home to where we were stranded in Tulsa, which is about 25 miles. We worked on the Saturn, going back and forth to the parts house a couple of times, until we determined that it could not be fixed there. So, we hooked it up to the truck and towed at home (25 miles).

Today, I drove the truck quite a bit, all in our town, and in Tulsa, and then came home. After my son got off work, we hooked up the Saturn to the truck again, and towed it to his house, another 25 or so miles more. Keep in mind that during towing, the trailing car being towed has to be kept from running into the vehicle doing the towing. Therefore, my son had to ride his brake quite a bit, creating quite a bit of drag on my truck, and affecting the efficiency of my truck.

After we got it to his house, and put the Saturn in the garage, I drove back home, stopping on the way to fill up with no ethanol gas at my usual station.

Much to my surprise, my truck got 16.15 miles per gallon! I had plenty of power, no problems with the pulling the car, and am pleased with the mileage, even under such conditions.

Again, this tells me, that my system, as it is, works for me.