Pinking

[vee8]

I believe I heared my 400 lump pink under moderate load this afternoon. Speed a tad over...well you know. Revs about 3500 in 5th going up an incline. It's not long had a 12000 service at Fernhusts. I use 95RON or thereabouts do you think this is an issue or am I being a bit over sensitive ?

[leetvr]

A lot of the time we THINK we hear things. The joys of TVR.

[GreenV8S]

Those are the sort of conditions where you're likely to get pinking, if you're going to. Sounds as if the ignition is slightly too far advanced for that fuel. Either run higher octane fuel, or get the ignition retarded a fraction. It's a five minute job if you know what you're doing, and if the people who just serviced it are near by you will probably find they'll do it for you foc if you drop by.

[vee8]

Green

Thanks. I'll top up with Tescos Ron 98 and see if ir makes a difference. Cheers.
V

[phlap]

Apologies for fairly dumb question .
What does pinking actually sound like? Im familiar with the term and understand what causes it is but am not sure I have experienced it. I used to occasionally get 2 or 3 slight metallic tapping noises on my old 400 only when giving it some beans at over 4000 rpm but this went away with a service and tune. Could that have been it?

[vee8]

phlap

Pinking sounds a bit like a couple of bolts being shaken well within a tin can, a sort of mid range metalic sound. Taking load off the engine will stop the sound which is pre-ignition. Small explosions where you don't want them

[phlap]

Thanks Vee8. Sounds about right. I was quite concerned the first time it did it thinking it was mechanical but it went away after a tune.

[midlifecrisis]

On the subject of fuel is this possable,my 95 400 chim seems to get a minor missfire if I use opptimax but if I use Tesco 99 ron no missfire. I noticed this after the car was set up on a rolling road and ran very well.

[Lolo256]

Hi everybody,
I have a bad pinging at wot from 3000tr.

I actually try to solve it (fuel filter and pressure regulator on the way) and maybe an advance adjust (for me it seems unrealistic because i use only 99vpower and pinging start from midrange).

I was searching for air leaks. I found out that the valve little hose was cracking and leaking. I also heard that under the passanger side bank of cylinders there is a hose that could leak, any info on this one i cant find it.

I also found something that is maybe too big to be true..but please take a look a these pictures!!! Is this possible these are unused/blocked? Is there something connected there because it seems the air could flow freely out/in of my maf environment. Idle control valve is not supposed to fit there?

[DonkeyApple]

vee8 said:

I believe I heared my 400 lump pink under moderate load this afternoon. Speed a tad over...well you know. Revs about 3500 in 5th going up an incline. It's not long had a 12000 service at Fernhusts. I use 95RON or thereabouts do you think this is an issue or am I being a bit over sensitive ?

I wouldn’t use 95. That’s almost certainly what the root issue is but it may have become apparent because of the current weather. The RV8 has always been prone to pinking under load anyway and the usual fix is to retard the ignition a little. The standard ECU just isn’t smart enough to cater for fuel, air temps and everything so you can’t have the ignition as advanced as you can with a super duper modern ECU. In short, it’s a compromise product etc.

Stick some vpower in it and run it through and then on the second tank see if the issue has gone away. But if it’s very mild then it might just go away when the weather breaks anyway but I still wouldn’t use 95. I’ll use it occasionally in the Rangies but never in a Tiv which is going to be more tuned and more sensitive.

[Steve_D]

Those two pipes are for a heating element under the throttle body and date back to running your Range Rover in the Arctic. Not used by TVR.

Steve

[Lolo256]

DonkeyApple said:

I wouldn’t use 95. That’s almost certainly what the root issue is but it may have become apparent because of the current weather. The RV8 has always been prone to pinking under load anyway and the usual fix is to retard the ignition a little. The standard ECU just isn’t smart enough to cater for fuel, air temps and everything so you can’t have the ignition as advanced as you can with a super duper modern ECU. In short, it’s a compromise product etc.

Stick some vpower in it and run it through and then on the second tank see if the issue has gone away. But if it’s very mild then it might just go away when the weather breaks anyway but I still wouldn’t use 95. I’ll use it occasionally in the Rangies but never in a Tiv which is going to be more tuned and more sensitive.

Hi,
I always only use vpower (some bp ultimate 98 very casually).

[chris52]

Lolo256 said:

Hi everybody,
I have a bad pinging at wot from 3000tr.

I actually try to solve it (fuel filter and pressure regulator on the way) and maybe an advance adjust (for me it seems unrealistic because i use only 99vpower and pinging start from midrange).

I was searching for air leaks. I found out that the valve little hose was cracking and leaking. I also heard that under the passanger side bank of cylinders there is a hose that could leak, any info on this one i cant find it.

I also found something that is maybe too big to be true..but please take a look a these pictures!!! Is this possible these are unused/blocked? Is there something connected there because it seems the air could flow freely out/in of my maf environment. Idle control valve is not supposed to fit there?

Check the front pulley hasn’t slipped on its rubber damper. I have had this happen which makes the timing marks on it wrong so when timed up using a strobe you think you have 12deg at idle when in fact you have 20 plus this will cause pinking at 3,000rpm at WOT.
Easiest way to check it pull no 1 plug out turn the engine until the piston is at TDC (you can use a screwdriver down the plug hole to do this. Once at TDC see where the mark on the front pulley is. Mine was 15 deg out. Dom at Power will supply a new one if you send your old one he will match ballance it and send it back. Bit of a pain to get it off though.
Chrisb

[Lolo256]

chris52 said:

Check the front pulley hasn’t slipped on its rubber damper. I have had this happen which makes the timing marks on it wrong so when timed up using a strobe you think you have 12deg at idle when in fact you have 20 plus this will cause pinking at 3,000rpm at WOT.
Easiest way to check it pull no 1 plug out turn the engine until the piston is at TDC (you can use a screwdriver down the plug hole to do this. Once at TDC see where the mark on the front pulley is. Mine was 15 deg out. Dom at Power will supply a new one if you send your old one he will match ballance it and send it back. Bit of a pain to get it off though.
Chrisb

Ouch...if i get i well, chances are that if i go to a garage to tune the advance timing as i intended to do they will tell me that i m in the norm or tune it to 12 deg and it will still be 20++deg advance?
You said you had 15deg too much advance when the piston 1is a tdc but please what is the value i should normally read?

Edited by Lolo256 on Friday 13th July 12:55

[Lolo256]

Lolo256 said:

Ouch...if i get i well, chances are that if i go to a garage to tune the advance timing as i intended to do they will tell me that i m in the norm or tune it to 12 deg and it will still be 20++deg advance?

Thx again for the tip...if i remove only the first one do you think the engine will "turn" easily by hand or i ll have to remove the 7 others...

[chris52]

It will make it much easier to turn with all eight out but a socket and a bar on the lower pulley bolt turning clockwise should do. When the number one piston is at the top of its compression stroke you should be reading TDC on the markers on the pulley against the pointer on the front cover that you use for timing. Ideally you should use a DTI gauge to find true TDC but as long as it’s fairly close and the marks line up within a degree or two you should be ok as your only really looking to see if it’s slipped. So a long screwdriver down the bore watch it raise until it reaches its max lift then stop and see where the pointer is.

Edited by chris52 on Friday 13th July 22:00

[Lolo256]

chris52 said:

It will make it much easier to turn with all eight out but a socket and a bar on the lower pulley bolt turning clockwise should do. When the number one piston is at the top of its compression stroke you should be reading TDC on the markers on the pulley against the pointer on the front cover that you use for timing. Ideally you should use a DTI gauge to find true TDC but as long as it’s fairly close and the marks line up within a degree or two you should be ok as your only really looking to see if it’s slipped. So a long screwdriver down the bore watch it raise until it reaches its max lift then stop and see where the pointer is.

Edited by chris52 on Friday 13th July 22:00

Ok thank you very much for these precisions, i ll try it before going to the shop to adjust timings

[mk1fan]

Sorry for what might be a dumb question.

On a four stroke engine

Is the piston not at the top of it's stroke twice in a cycle? Or is this only relevant to the valves opening (ie when adjusting tapets or checking dizzy positioning)? So TDC mark on the crank / damper is always [supposed] to be the piston at the top of the stroke?

[Steve_D]

mk1fan said:

Sorry for what might be a dumb question.

On a four stroke engine

Is the piston not at the top of it's stroke twice in a cycle? Or is this only relevant to the valves opening (ie when adjusting tapets or checking dizzy positioning)? So TDC mark on the crank / damper is always [supposed] to be the piston at the top of the stroke?

Yes twice.
When setting up the valve timing one of the TDC will have inlet and exhaust valves closed and the ignition will be set to fire a few degrees before that TDC.

In the earlier post a screwdriver was being suggested to confirm the TDC markings were about correct and that the damper had not slipped. In this case either TDC would do the job.

Steve

[Franky boy]

Hi all, I have read in another thread that the max static advance timing you can achieve is 16 degrees, which equates to 32 degrees at 4000rpm. I need to set mine after stupidly removing the dizzy and not marking the Rota arm position.

If I set tdc by the bottom pulley, assuming this is accurate, if I point the Rota arm at lead one and the car runs, can I put max advance on, rotate dizzy clockwise, and be in the ball park?