RV8 various problems -HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[perky]

Hi guys

First a bit of background............

I bought a rebuilt short motor (RV8 3.5 - SDI 1977) from a chap who also included with the deal a pair of Rover Vitesse heads and a JE101 cam. The heads looked clean and the chap said they are ok. This I took at face value. I was also told that the block was bored out to +20 and new pistons etc fitted and that the comp ratio is 9 75:1

I then assembled the engine includig the JE101 and also fitted new the following:-

New Timing gear set (standard)
New rocker shafts
New rockers
New hydraulic lifters (standard)
New Mallory Dual point, coil and ballast resistor
New weber 500 carb

All was assembled according to the gospel of haynes.

The engine started first pull of the starter and i was chuffed to
bits. Oil pressure at 30lb at around 1100rpm

I have just now fitted an underslung exhaust so I can hear the engine and myself think (bloody noisy with just the headers), the problems are as follows,

Blue smoke on start up both cold warm, but then no noticeable blue smoke when running/revving

White smoke when ticking over / revving

very uneven tickover, in fact I tried removing plug leads to hear the difference and I could not hear any difference to the 'beat', also I managed to remove all the plug leads from the off side and it still ran although very lumpy

timing has been tried at various settings 8deg and 10 deg BTDC

the plugs tend to be on the black sooty side, but not all.

a compression test revelealed

Cylinder/compression
1 9.8
3 10.2
5 10.2
7 9.9
2 9.9
4 10.1
6 9.8
8 9.9

So can anyone advise what is wrong, could it be that the heads are in fact knackered and that this is the cause ?,

I should add that the engine always starts first time without fail

any advise welcomed

Regards
Dave

' and it was going oh so well '

[TINKA]

Dave, not sure what the compression figures should be to know if they are wrong or not, but as they are all pretty close I would not have thought that this is a problem. If they are all a bit low, what head gasket did you use? If you used the new Improved composite one did you get the block skimmed first cos if not this will have dropped the compression ratio. Also you can work out what car the engine came from originally from the engine number because I think that some engines fitted to land-rovers or Range rovers have a lower compression ratio.
My engine was completely rebuilt by myself and sometimes I get a slight puff of black smoke on start up and the plugs always ran a little sooty but I have recently been on a rolling road and found that I needed the needles changing, so you may find that you will have to get the card set up later.

What happens if you remove the plug leads from the other side? is it the same for both sides?

Hope this helps Martin :tu :tu :tu

[russell_ram]

Dave,

blue smoke on start-up is oil going down the valve guides. Pre serpentine engines ('95) have no valve guide seals at all on the inlet valves and cr*p rubber washers on the exhaust valve (which only stop the worst of the oil going doen the guides). Don't worry about it - not normal for a 'modern' engine but perfectly normal for an older pair of RV8 heads.

White smoke at idle and when reving - most probably over rich. The weber 500 is really a bit too big for a std 3.5 engine and will over fuel untill you get it onto a dyno.

Russ

[russell_ram]

PS - Compression ratio in a Rover is purely a function of piston bowl volume. All std heads have the same combustion volume (68cc from memory)and CR is altered with the piston bowl depth. Only exception is if you fit a composite gasket onto pre '95 heads, the extra combustion volume in the thicker gasket will cost you 0.75 CR ie a 9.75 engine will become 9.0:1. To compensate for this you should get the heads skimmed by 27 thou (the difference in compressed thickness of the old 'tin' and composite gaskets).

Russ

[beanpole]

Dave,

Your compression figures look fine, I also have some blue smoke on startup, don’t worry about it, I have also been told this is common because of the crap valve seals. I once cured this on my pinto engine by replacing the seals, so I can confirm this is the problem, but the rover seals , (what there are), are crap, well on the early heads anyway.

Mine was slightly lumpy but improved dramatically when I adjusted the mixture as per the manual (webber 500). My plugs also slightly sooty .

Don’t forget new bores also take a while to ‘bed’ in and will burn a little oil initially.

Steve


:tu :tu :tu

[osgood]

Contrary Mary

Dave, Blue smoke as Russell says is valve guides rubbers or the lack! My 3:9 has none due to the lift of the cam & also for reasons stated, always chuck's out a bit of blue smoke when cold or pushing it a bit. Run it round for a bit all will be okay I am sure, whats a bit of oil between Friends? Eric

[perky]

GEnts,

Thanks for all reply's looks like if I can sort out the carb and live with burning oil then all should be OK. I chatted to Holly at RPI about this problems and along with yourselves came up with the same result, i.e worn valve guides, he did confirm that the compression test results showed that the bottom end was ok and that the valves were operning and closing as they should.

So thanks again,

Regards
Dave

[osgood]

Contrary Mary

Dave, don't believe all that Chris at RPI tell you, the guy is better at selling vacuum cleaners than RV8 stuff. Eric:}

[perky]

Well Eric that's cheered me up no end !

Who do you suggest I should be buying my RV8 stuff from ? and don't say Real Steel cos in my opinion they have a 'look down the nose ' attitude to RV8 owners, probably cos they think that we should be using Ford/Chevy/Mopar power units.


Dave

[osgood]

Contrary Mary

Sorry Dave did not mean to p#ss on your strawberries, just I had a bad experience re RPI once.

No, I would not recommend Reel Steel either although they are quite local and handy for me. I think they look down there nose at every-one in-fact! Depends which day you catch them on.

D J Ellis & Oselli are in the same class, your okay as long as your wallet is open. Russell Ram is the man to ask re RV8, he deals a lot with Wild Cat Engineering I think.

Try putting in RV8 into Google search there are some interesting stuff there Eric :tu