I am in the process of replacing my thermostat housing. While doing this I noticed that there was a lot of oil in the intake manifold. I figure this is from the passenger valve cover burping into the intake but when I removed the intake elbow there was no oil from the driver side valve cover.

My Questions are:
1. Should there be this much oil in the manifold?

2. Is it necessary for the function of the motor to run this to the intake?
3. Could I cap off the vacuum bung on the intake that runs to the passenger side valve cover and just run some sort of valve cover breather or oil catch can?
4. I'm building my own ram air intake box and will do away with the intake elbow.
Can I do with out the vacuum hose that goes from the passenger valve cover to the intake elbow and also run a breather filter here as well?

 

1. yes
2. yes
3. see #2
4. see #2

It's called the "full load breather" if you wish to read other threads about it.

 

Thank you very much. I will be adding an Moroso Air/Oil separator.