• Vibrant Performance has become synonymous with fabricators, offering a diverse array of components that help builders achieve their performance goals.
• Its turbo, exhaust, and fuel delivery components allow creative builders to circumvent design and packaging constraints that would otherwise compromise their ultimate visions.
• The catch can is the most critical component in the breather system, helping keep oil and fuel out of the intake side of the engine.
• The company’s new Gen3 unit represents a complete overhaul of its previous performance catch can which translates its latest technological innovations into the best possible consumer product.

Our car’s athletic performance is very much like our own. On top of consuming the right nutrients, regular exercise, and tending to common wear-and-tear items, the translation of our effort into productive movement is often restricted by one variable: the air we take in. Often, we brood over the volume of air we ingest, but I’d argue that the quality of air we make available to us, or our engines, is equally important.

THE CATCH CAN

My apartment has a conventional air filter in its furnace, but we have another standalone unit that manages other particulates like pollen, mold, and other airborne chemicals. You can think of the catch can as this supplemental filter. The advent of direct injection and the popularity of turbocharging have created a perfect storm that makes fitting a catch can a requirement to ensure optimal and consistent engine performance.

As I alluded to, catch cans filter additional impurities — in the case of your car, oil — and capturing it, leaving only clean air to be vented and recirculated. This benevolent act prevents oil from misting or spraying into the engine bay, and oil from building up within the intake side of the engine, which can cause operating issues, lower efficiencies, and increased chances of engine pre-ignition and knock.

NEXT GENERATION

Vibrant Performance has become synonymous with fabricators because it offers such a diverse array of components. As you might suspect, one of those valued components is a performance catch can. Its previous iterations have been important add-ons to creative builders already, but Vibrant Performance’s technological advancements led the Canada-based company to propose a radical re-think of its Gen2 offering. The resulting product line — which is a completely modular program with new lid, reservoir, size, and mounting options — was enough to warrant a new designation, called Gen3.

On the outside, the new Gen3 units sport a hard-coat black anodized finish and an incorporated knurl to assist in threading the body off and on from the lid. The benefit of modularity helps here, too; the removable bottom allows the user to flip the reservoir body and place the knurl on either the top or bottom side of the can.

On the inside, the standard integrated filters, a new offering for Gen3, boast industry-trouncing filtration properties that make them valuable assets for lightly modified street cars up to turbo diesel applications with high crankcase pressures.

SIZING AND MOUNTING

Flexibility complements the modularity of the Vibrant Performance Gen3 performance catch cans. The latest generation comes in three reservoir volumes — 0.75L, 1.5L, and 2.0L — and the two and four-port lid options cover all your bases for recirculating or vent-to-atmosphere valve applications. For reference, the catch can that you’ve been seeing in all the photos is the 0.75L, 2-port version (12760) which stands at 4.93” tall.

But there’s more. With the release of this Gen3 catch can program, Vibrant Performance has also added a robust, stainless-steel dual-mount bracket (12779), allowing users to mix a combination of two catch cans for extra fluid capacity and more inlets and outlets.

INTERVIEW WITH VIBRANT PERFORMANCE

Although I could probably geek out over Vibrant Performance’s new catch cans offerings for hours, I thought it best to gather some knowledge from the source. At PRI, I sat down with Dean Griffith, Vibrant Performance’s Major Accounts Manager, for more on the new Gen3 program.

What feasible benefits distinguish the Gen3 variant from Gen2?
As we’ve spoken about already, the Gen3 catch can is a single unit in a modular system of parts, which includes different lids, configurations, reservoirs, drains, and mounts. The Gen3 catch cans now come standard with integrated filtration, unlike the Gen2, which had filtration as an optional extra. The all-new catch can mounts feature a 90° bracket with slots for height and angle indexing. This is different from the Gen2, which had a flat bracket that was difficult to bend.

Even further, the Gen3 catch cans now feature -12ORB ports on top as opposed to the -10ORB ports on the previous unit. This is useful for vehicles with -12 valve cover ports. Thankfully Vibrant also has a wide assortment of adapter fittings for any application.

What was the impetus to completely redesign Vibrant Performance’s catch can?
While the Gen2 catch can was great for the average street vehicle, it fell short in some high-performance and race applications. This became especially true after considering the crazy amounts of power some street cars are putting down these days.

The issues noticed with the Gen2 cans were solved with our Drop-in Baffle; however, we saw that there was more room for more improvements and decided to create an all-new full-featured design: the Gen3.

How have the typical constraints of a creative fabricator contributed to Vibrant Performance’s form factor/design decisions?
Fitting a catch can for every different type of application can be difficult, that is why we’ve implemented a variety of features to help with the different circumstances a fabricator may come across.

First, the different lid configurations provide numerous plumbing possibilities. New Gen3 Catch Cans come in three different sizes, which not only help with different fluid capacity requirements but can also be used for different fitment needs. For example, a small can will likely fit inside the bay better than a larger variant, but the large can may provide better access to the bottom drain when mounted lower and towards the front of the vehicle. We’ve tried to consider a variety of situations in our design.

Secondly, as we’ve talked about, the all-new Gen3 catch cans have a knurl incorporated on the reservoir to assist when unthreading the body from the lid. The modular reservoir body can be useful depending on where you will place the can and where you need to access it.

Lastly, Vibrant offers two different mounting options, a single and a dual mount. Both mounts are height and angle-indexable, and can also be flipped. This allows for numerous mounting options.

Since this setup is designed to offer “something for everyone,” can you talk to us about which catch can reservoir volumes you’d recommend for popular enthusiast applications?
Some racing classes also have specific catch can volume requirements, but choosing between the three volume options mainly comes down to how much oil you can capture before you check on the can. For applications that produce a lot of blow-by, a medium (12761) or large (12762) can might be required so that the can does not overflow between maintenance checks. Going to a larger can also helps to prevent any sort of slosh spillage of a full can during “high-G” cornering. We’ve also incorporated a slosh baffle to assist with this problem.

Can you talk to us about which catch can reservoir volumes are commonly used for different fuel types (i.e. diesel, direct injection, port injection, etc.)?
Smaller cans are often incorporated on smaller engines and street vehicles that produce less overall blow-by. Moving up in size may be necessary for vehicles that produce a lot of blow-by such as high-performing race cars and even turbo diesels. All that said, all catch can sizes have the same “performance level”.

Thank you to Dean Griffith from Vibrant Performance for taking the time to speak with us about the all-new Gen3 performance catch cans. For more information on this and other Vibrant Performance components, please visit its website and follow the company on Instagram.

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