The V8 Owners Forum -

Good evening gents, I have not been active in these forums for quite a while now. The reason is that my 3.9 RV8 broke down (again) and I just got a bit sick of it. So I put aside my SD1 in a shed and, after my girlfriend had nagged at me for 2-3 years to scrap the car, I broke up with her and took m...

Thanks for the vid, Eliot. That's what my carb does now, too! :D The problem was simple: The secondary butterflies hit the manifold, thus they were stuck at only a fraction of opening. We remedied it very easily by drilling the holes that hold the carb in place larger by a millimeter. That way, we c...

Yes, some pictures would be nice to see what it should look like, so I can compare with what it actually does look like.

All the owner's manual says on that subject is:

The Secondary Throttles (1) begin to open when the Primaries are about 65% open. The Primary and Secondary Throttles arrive at the WOT stop at the same time.

There's no mention on how they open, though, or I've overlooked it.

I'm pretty sure it's not lack of travel, as there was no difference between when I had someone push the accelerator for me and me activating the thrrottle at the side of the carb. Anyway, I'll dismount it tomorrow and have a closer look.

I've checked again. The larger butterflies open only a tiny little bit whereas the small ones open all the way. Is there a way to adjust the secondary butterflies?

You can flick the metal vac operated flap out the way and you will see if the secondary butterflies are opening fully or not. Is this the first this engine has ran or has it ran ok before but been laid up for a while? I had the engine running for about 1600 miles last February/March, but the RPi he...

@ian.stewart: I've checked right now. The smaller set of butterflies opens all the way, the larger one doesn't open at all when operating the gas pedal without the engine running.

@ Eliot: how are the plugs supposed/not supposed to look?

Hi everyone. At long last, the 3.9 engine in my SD1 is running again. It starts well and has lots of power. However, it won't revv over 4500 rpm. The specs are as follows: RV8 3.9, CR 9.35:1 RPi Engineering Stage III heads Piper 285 cam Fully balanced Lightened and balanced flywheel Edelbrock 500 cf...

Yes. They sent me a new Real Steel Heavy Duty spring set free of charge. I think I can't complain about that.

Hello, it's me again. I just got news from my machine shop. They told me that 6 of the valve springs of RPi's Stage 3 heads were about 5 mm shorter than the rest. This does not sound very good to me and it does shake my trust in RPi Engineering quite a bit. If they used different types of springs o...

Hello, it's me again. I just got news from my machine shop. They told me that 6 of the valve springs of RPi's Stage 3 heads were about 5 mm shorter than the rest. This does not sound very good to me and it does shake my trust in RPi Engineering quite a bit. If they used different types of springs on...

It could just have been a defective spring, even though its new it doesn't mean its going to be completely fine as if everything new never went wrong you'd never need a warranty. What have Rpi said? I am aware of that, but according to RPi, the possibility of a faulty spring is diminutive. There ar...

Well I bought all my stuff at their place, all in one go, and told them what I wanted when I ordered via phone. I believe them to be professional enough to know that I will probably install all those items in the same engine. ;) Valve lift, cam timing and, again, preload are in my Top 5 of not havin...

Hi @ all. One thing I forgot to mention earlier I think is, thank you so much for all the advice you're giving. :oops: I contacted RPi via email, and I got an answer soon after my last post here. It says that they can't tell why the spring broke without seeing the engine, but they will repair the he...