V8 Gems... should i care that my crankcase breather hose does not have an oil separator in it? Never has since i've had it. The exhaust smells a bit at idle, but the car doesn't noticeably burn oil. Just wondering whether I need to buy an over-priced piece of plastic or not?

Pricey bit of plastic indeed Rob, should be -literally- 'ten a penny' ....

Not exactly a critical component though: Its primary purpose of course is to allow oil vapours to condense back into liquid on it .
Over time (years) there is a build of 'crud' within the separator. Without it this all just happens in the breather hose instead ...
(also takes a while but) this possibly causes the hose to rot more rapidly (?)

Incidentally the other hose (on the throttle side) is more critical - at least if/when it falls apart and allows air in instead !

It's the sort of thing you tack onto another order so you aren't paying the extra carriage costs. Unless it has been replaced, it's also worth replacing the breather hose too. The originals were rubber so rot away with constant oil vapour in them whereas the replacements are something similar to neoprene so don't rot.

fair enough... both PCV hoses are good, i replaced them when I changed the HGs earlier this year, but yes, they were not in good shape, and the one on the LH rocker cover had a hole on the underside.

Next in the list of jobs I got spark plugs, and was thinking to clean the MAF and throttle body.

While I am at it, might want to get rid of the oil vapor recirculation on the intake. Does it make sense?
Any options available out there, or just adapt something from some other engine?

Are you talking about the Positive Crankcase Ventilation System? I don’t think there’s a good reason to delete it.

Yeah Harv, exactly that. Well, yes you are right in the Greta sense, stuff for environmental reasons is always good to be in its place. But in some engines is beneficial to run a separate circuit for this, that is why I was wondering. In some others does not seem to be the case ... I remember when I took the pipe off in my old Toyota, engine was running rougher, which meant it was probably designed as a 'closed circuit' from the start ...

I understand what you’re saying (I had a Dodge Dakota that I deleted the cats from, so I can’t be too judgemental about this). In the case of the PCV system, I don’t think there’s any good reason to delete it.