blueshift
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| posted on 22/3/04 at 07:47 PM |
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Got our V8 running :)
Finally got the V8 running in the test cradle today, after rebuilding the starter motor, replacing the distributor, buying the *right* fuel pump
relay, arsing about with wiring for days.. etc etc..
anyway, it was great  ear-splitting noise, turned that off quick and put my ear defenders on. mmm burble burble
seems to be blowing a lot of smoke, but only run it for a few seconds at a time so far as there's no coolant in it yet (that's next, for
an extended test run). I'll wait and see if the smoking settles down, maybe it's just burning off some oil or something?.. can you tell
I've never done this before?
anyway. happy day
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Berwyn
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| posted on 22/3/04 at 07:53 PM |
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congratulations mate !
I remember the first time i fired my engine up. BIG GRIN for days 
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not
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craig1410
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| posted on 22/3/04 at 09:26 PM |
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Blueshift,
Well done mate, give self pat on back!
If the car hasn't been run for a while then the piston rings may be sticking a little bit. If I were you I'd check the compression using a
compression tester (halfords). Make sure you remove all the spark plugs to let it crank at a good speed first. Then to loosen up the piston rings
I'd try some "Redex" or similar treatment. Basically you just squirt a little into each plug hole and then crank the engine with all
the plugs still out for a second or two (only) to distribute the stuff. It will get onto the bores and work like WD40 over a day or two. Then just
crank the engine again to blow as much excess Redex out as possible before refitting the plugs and firing it up. It will be a bit smoky while the
Redex burns off but it might help to reseat the rings. After running it a bit check the compression again and see if it has helped. Repeat if
necessary until you get no more improvement.
Another thing, is it white (petrol) smoke or blue(oil) smoke. If it's petrol smoke then you may have a fault in your fuelling or maybe your
coolant sensor is disconnected or something and making the engine run too rich. Also, if the engine has just been rebuilt then the piston rings may
not be bedded in yet. Hopefully the bores were honed and so they should bed in quite quickly. It could just be oil lying around in the bores but that
should disperse within a minute or two. Could be the valve stem oil seals although this is usually most noticeable on the overrun when you come back
onto the throttle. The high manifold vacuum pulls the oil through the inlet valve seals.
Anyway, don't worry too much until you have taken the engine through a few hot-cold cycles, the main thing is that it is running... 
By the way, you could run it a little bit longer if you were to fill the block with water (bleed the air out of the highest point) and just blank off
the top and bottom hose connections with bits of old rad hose. Make sure that the water pump can circulate water by having the heater/inlet manifold
circuit connected correctly. This should allow you to run it for a good 5 minutes but be careful all the same. Make sure that your temperature gauge
is working by dunking it in water from a kettle first. (Not the gauge, the sensor that is... )
Cheers,
Craig.
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blueshift
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 01:17 AM |
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Thanks chaps, my back is patted
between it not running ok and today, when I cleaned the plugs I did a compression test. all cylinders 10-10.6 bar or so apart from cylinder 2 reading
11.8 bar. not sure what that's all about. engine is nominal 9.75:1 compression ratio, and as I understand it's low compression
that's the bad thing, so looks pretty good, right?
Not sure about what kind of smoke it is. Dirtyish maybe, grey or blueish rather than pure white. I was a bit too excited to note the colour, then
concerned about where my next lungful of air was coming from.
As for cooling we've got a civic radiator and fan bodged onto it, just need to hook up the expansion tank and stuff, put in a thermostat
(bizzarely engine came without one in) and then do a proper run maybe next weekend, if we can figure out what to do about the exhaust and get the run
complete before the neighbours call the police.
Thanks for the advice!
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blueshift
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 01:19 AM |
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By the way, listen to it run here: http://leetfighter.com/~jon/mooshift-v8.mp3
overloaded the mic rather, but you can make out the growl
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Julian B
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 08:10 AM |
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Thats excellent news, well done.
I remember after i got my old engine running for the first time. Grin factor 10 for days and days and it really does give you an enthusiasm boost.
So if your misses asks you "was all that noise really necessary?" you just have to say "Yes, Completely"
Cheers
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pbura
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 11:58 AM |
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Doesn't sound bad at all! Hitting on all the cylinders, at least.
If this is the first time you've run the engine since you've owned it, and you have good compression, I wouldn't worry much. Might
even have had an extra squirt or so of oil in the cylinders to preserve it.
Congratulations! 
Pete
Pete
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craig1410
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 12:58 PM |
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Blueshift,
The high reading on Cyl 2 might indicate that it has a dose of oil in there. Have you tried cranking the engine without the plugs to clear any excess
oil and debris? It wouldn't take much oil to raise the compression by this amount as the combustion chamber is only about 36cc IIRC and total
combustion space must be about 45cc (3528/8/9.75). Hence only a few cc would make all the difference.
As Pete says it seems to be running fairly well although it is always difficult to tell how smoothly with no exhausts. I'm kinda in the same
boat and am unsure what to do about exhausts. I heard my engine running in the donor car and it sounded very much like yours but I'd like to get
it running for a good 10 or 15 minutes with even just a temporary exhaust on it to get a better idea of what it's like. That will mean fitting
the exhausts and cooling system which might take a bit of sorting out...
Cheers,
Craig.
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ady8077
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 01:12 PM |
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Hi All
Dont forget the engine needs to be warm for an accurate compression test, and hold the throttle fully open whilst cranking
Hope this helps
Adrian
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derf
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 01:58 PM |
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I dont know how old the engine is, but is it possible that there is enough carbon buildup in the chamber that it is causing higher comression?
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blueshift
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 05:37 PM |
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derf, possibly, although the engine was rebuilt before I bought it, I'd assume the rebuilder would have taken the opportunity to scrape any huge
amounts of crud off the pistons / combustion chamber.
craig, when I did the compression test all the plugs were out and it was turning over on the starter, if anything was going to come out of the
plugholes it should have happened then. #2 cyl was the last one I got to.
I'll assume it's oil or something and do another compression test when it's warm after a proper run next weekend that should burn
off any oil.
just wonder whether to warn the neighbours first, and if so how much warning to give them.. not too long, or they might be able to get someone
official to stop me
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craig1410
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| posted on 23/3/04 at 07:48 PM |
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Blueshift,
Let's just hope that the guy who rebuilt the engine didn't fit a 10.5:1 piston instead of a 9.75:1 piston for #2...
Why not try to get an old exhaust silencer or two from your local "thick-twit". They sometimes have half decent back boxes which have
enough life in them for your purposes. It would certainly make life more pleasant for you and your neigbours! Do you have standard SD1 cast manifolds?
If so then you could knock up some suitable pipes in no time to connect them to the back boxes. I think I'll end up doing this too unless I can
find some decently priced 5" diameter silencer boxes.
Have you guys started building your chassis yet by the way?
Cheers,
Craig.
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blueshift
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| posted on 24/3/04 at 01:11 PM |
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I might think about a silencer. I'm not too bothered about the noise, to be honest it's quite fun also I'm not sure how easy it
would be to make something to mate a pipe to the sd1 manifolds as they're 4-2 manifolds, so you have 2 pipes coming out.. suppose I could bodge
something up but it wouldn't be as simple as just welding a flange to a pipe.
vee shall see.
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Simon
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| posted on 25/3/04 at 12:16 AM |
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Blueshift,
Bit late, but congrats.
I trust you started it at a sensible time
Not like me - 10.30pm Boxing day
ATB
Simon
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sgraber
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| posted on 25/3/04 at 03:58 AM |
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A little late too, but simply wanted to proffer my congratulations! Wohooooo! Gotta love it!
Top Notch.
Graber
Depending on how long you have run the engine, you could be seeing smoke from the pre-lube used to assemble the engine. I know that my L28 was
assembled using a lube that smoked for quite a while after the 1st startup.
Steve Graber
http://www.grabercars.com/
"Quickness through lightness"
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mackie
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| posted on 25/3/04 at 02:35 PM |
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I was thinking the exact same thing about residual lube left over from the assembly process. It has literally only been run for a few seconds at a
time so hopefully once we have coolant in it we can run it for as long as possible so it can clear it's throat as it were.
It sounds f**ckin' brilliant
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blueshift
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| posted on 26/3/04 at 01:16 PM |
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hehe. thanks all. proper run should be tomorrow, we'll be videoing it and I'll try and get another sound recording that isn't
horribly distorted. perhaps from the other side of the street.
have decided to give the neighbours about half an hour's notice, enough to get out / hide under the duvet / let them know what's going on,
but not enough so they have time to get anyone here to stop me..
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craig1410
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| posted on 26/3/04 at 09:24 PM |
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Blueshift,
Just take round your ear defenders and a small bottle of beer. That should do the trick!!
I hope it all goes well and I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I'm looking forward to the next installment of coughing and
spluttering (and I don't mean the engine...)
Cheers,
Craig.
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pbs
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| posted on 26/3/04 at 10:30 PM |
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Well done mate I was the same when I got mine running many years ago, jumping about like a mad thing with a big grin on my face.Mine should be
running and hopefully driving shortly.Iam waiting for the exhausts and tubes for the radiator to be tig welded then she should fire up.
Build your own sports car for £250 my ar5e!!
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blueshift
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| posted on 27/3/04 at 12:59 AM |
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mm.. spoke to my dad tonight and he frowned on the idea of running it for 10 min or so to use the radiator flush stuff, because of the antisocial
aspect.
what do you guys recon? about 2pm on a saturday, running a v8 on the drive with no exhaust manifolds in a quiet little upper middle class
neighbourhood, after warning the immediate neighbours.. bad idea?
it's going to be a case of run it for a few minutes to get up to temp, then either stop or refill the system with coolant flush and run it round
for 10 minutes. what do you think?
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type 907
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| posted on 27/3/04 at 08:25 AM |
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Well done Blueshift.
It's definitely the highlight of the build.
Simon. Xmas day after lunch, and again Boxing day. Had my neighbours round so he came out to help. (left women washing up ). I'd have
phoned if I'd have known
I wasn't the only mad bu**er.
Paul G (still grinning)
Too much is just enough
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craig1410
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| posted on 27/3/04 at 08:19 PM |
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Blueshift,
10 minutes is maybe pushing it with no exhausts unless you have an extremely good relationship with your neighbours...IMHO of course!
It's also perhaps not ideal as it will make it difficult to determine if the engine is running well or not. Isn't there something you can
do with an old silencer just to knock the edge off the engine rasp? I think you said that you didn't have the downpipes from the SD1 which
doesn't help but I'm sure you could sort something out with some gun gum and an exhaust bandage. Just get a piece of pipe which will fit
inside your manifold output pipes nice and tightly and somehow attach this to a silencer can. It doesn't have to be a work of art and you can
form "bends" by just roughly cutting out "V" sections from a straight pipe.
I know it's a pain but it will mean that you can run it as often as you like without upsetting the neighbours. It'll also sound much nicer
with the high-frequency noise taken away!!
Cheers,
Craig.
[Edited on 27/3/2004 by craig1410]
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blueshift
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| posted on 27/3/04 at 11:32 PM |
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I dunno, it sounded pretty good
did one main run, then a second where we monkeyed around with a timing strobe (didn't really work), then a quick one because our friend dan
wanted to have a go on the throttle
there's video.. will put it up when it's edited. some flames, too
damn it sounded good. vvRROOOOMM
edit: knocked up a quick video edit, 25 meg divx 5.1 / mp3 sound. http://leetfighter.com/~jon/v8%20run%20big.avi
enjoy..
[Edited on 28/3/04 by blueshift]
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