Racing Green - buckets anyone?

[andyoleary]

The initial message has been deleted from this topic.

[supercopa]

very interesting. thanks for the report.

[T40ORA]

I've just tested it too and it is really different. The 3k running in limit is a total pain as you reach it so quickly.

The engine just feels so much lighter (which it is) and responsive it is incredible.

I delayed my planned rebuild ( the same unit Andy has) when they told me of this development. I'm waiting on their pricing up the bucket engine package as I really want to be able to afford one.

Fabulous bit of kit. Oh, and the engine runs cooler due to less mass so after half hour driving at motorway speed the oil temp was only 35. This climbed to 65 in traffic, as expected, but an interesting side benefit I would say.

[andyoleary]

T40ORA said:

....Oh, and the engine runs cooler due to less mass..

Simplex chains too in place of the duplex ones,

Andy

[zooooom]

Hey Andy
Sound very interesting, was the engine a 3.6 or 4.0 litre are they offering an increase in capacity as well ?
Any idea when Racing Green will release some official details ? Cannot find any details on their website.

[T40ORA]

zooooom said:

Hey Andy
Sound very interesting, was the engine a 3.6 or 4.0 litre are they offering an increase in capacity as well ?
Any idea when Racing Green will release some official details ? Cannot find any details on their website.

It was a 4.0. Sweet and free rev'ing as the nicest 3.6. There is a 3.6 - 4.0 option (I'm going for that). They won't be going above 4.0l, for reasons which should become clear when they formerly announce the engine and go through the technical stuff.

Which, to answer your question, will be at Britcar. Andy and I were in the same position (although Andy was a little ahead of me) in that we were taking the RG engine rebuild; when they decided on this development they offered it to us as obviously it cannot be retro-engineered, so they didn't want us to be left with a nasty taste in our mouths. We were sworn to secrecy on pain of..., well, something very painful.

BTW the tests yesterday were straight out of the box. 27 miles on the clock in my case, which must have been put on by Andy! No set up or re-maping. Can't wait to go back and try it when it's run in and mapped. Really, really liked it.

[andyoleary]

T40ORA said:

zooooom said:

Hey Andy
Sound very interesting, was the engine a 3.6 or 4.0 litre are they offering an increase in capacity as well ?
Any idea when Racing Green will release some official details ? Cannot find any details on their website.

It was a 4.0. Sweet and free rev'ing as the nicest 3.6. There is a 3.6 - 4.0 option (I'm going for that). They won't be going above 4.0l, for reasons which should become clear when they formerly announce the engine and go through the technical stuff.

Which, to answer your question, will be at Britcar. Andy and I were in the same position (although Andy was a little ahead of me) in that we were taking the RG engine rebuild; when they decided on this development they offered it to us as obviously it cannot be retro-engineered, so they didn't want us to be left with a nasty taste in our mouths. We were sworn to secrecy on pain of..., well, something very painful.

BTW the tests yesterday were straight out of the box. 27 miles on the clock in my case, which must have been put on by Andy! No set up or re-maping. Can't wait to go back and try it when it's run in and mapped. Really, really liked it.

Hi Paul, hope you are well mate,

Lee is right, they are going to be at Britcar and will be able to provide full details then. They've had their exchange unit in the market now for a while (I think most of the components are listed on their parts website actually) but the bucket development is a brand new thing.

I could be wrong but I am pretty sure it can be offered as a retro-fit - the new design is tooled up to sit inside the existing head casting. I did have the first "public" drive but as Lee says it was straight out of the box with no mapping as yet and is solid as a rock. I saw the casting designs and it is clear that a huge amount of work has been put in before they were happy to tell people about this.

Cheers

Andy

Edited by andytuscrr on Friday 12th September 22:37

[TVR_owner]

T40ORA said:

Fabulous bit of kit. Oh, and the engine runs cooler due to less mass so after half hour driving at motorway speed the oil temp was only 35. This climbed to 65 in traffic, as expected, but an interesting side benefit I would say.

Lets just hope its not just another false dawn as so many postings on here about S6 builders (with some notable exceptions).

Unless they can get it to run at some sensible tempretaures and get it mapped properly, that's exactly what it will be....Personally, I think that to get something so basically wrong before letting joe public in the driving seat is a mistake - but thats just my opinion.

Edited by TVR_owner on Saturday 23 August 22:00

[softtop]

TVR_owner said:

T40ORA said:

Fabulous bit of kit. Oh, and the engine runs cooler due to less mass so after half hour driving at motorway speed the oil temp was only 35. This climbed to 65 in traffic, as expected, but an interesting side benefit I would say.

Lets just hope its not just another false dawn as so many postings on here about S6 builders (with some notable exceptions).

Unless they can get it to run at some sensible tempretaures and get it mapped properly, that's exactly what it will be....Personally, I think that to get something so basically wrong before letting joe public in the driving seat is a mistake - but thats just my opinion.

If the oil only reaches 35 then is it ok to push it hard? Is the oil warm enough to flow adequately?

[TVR_owner]

softtop said:

TVR_owner said:

T40ORA said:

Fabulous bit of kit. Oh, and the engine runs cooler due to less mass so after half hour driving at motorway speed the oil temp was only 35. This climbed to 65 in traffic, as expected, but an interesting side benefit I would say.

Lets just hope its not just another false dawn as so many postings on here about S6 builders (with some notable exceptions).

Unless they can get it to run at some sensible tempretaures and get it mapped properly, that's exactly what it will be....Personally, I think that to get something so basically wrong before letting joe public in the driving seat is a mistake - but thats just my opinion.

If the oil only reaches 35 then is it ok to push it hard? Is the oil warm enough to flow adequately?

No its not ok to push hard if you want it to last. The engine is not up to temperature. Its probably not fueling correctly and quietly washing the bores with petrol........but thats just my opinion.

[T40ORA]

Bearing in mind Andy and I were the first people to drive the car, and they'd done nowt to it, we got to see it warts and all.

I know nothing of engineering but I agree, it's not OK to push it at those temperatures. Martin and Woody aren't cocnerned; they feel that it is probably just that the engine is working nowhere near as hard, so losing less energy in heat. I don't think it will be a problem for them to get the oil up to the correct temperature. I just like the fact that it doesn't look like overheating will be a problem with this engine.

[tail slide]

Interesting esp the buckets.

Always good to see creative engineering if it's then proven reliable in ALL conditions, which I've learned the hard way is unfortunately the very difficult/time consuming bit (thank you so much for that, Autocraft).

TVR_owner said:

No its not ok to push hard if you want it to last. The engine is not up to temperature. Its probably not fueling correctly and quietly washing the bores with petrol........but thats just my opinion.

Do agree you should get it mapped as soon as run in a bit and before venturing over 3k rpm, IMO. The std TVR RR map runs a little too much advance and not enough fuel, and what the engine needs also varies between engine specs of course, so bespoke mapping throughout rev range/throttle position is ideal.

Will be interested to hear their solutions to strengthen other areas not yet mentioned, and whether the areas that are ok are left alone

Edited by tail slide on Sunday 24th August 08:41

[andyoleary]

Didn't think it would be long before negative comments started appearing.....

I would recommend anyone with any queries contacts RG and talks to them directly. Myself and Lee are not test engineers and probably dont have 100% of the story between us. However, I know what I saw/felt and I listened to what I was told and shown. Oil temps aren't going to stay low, of course, and we all know that pushing the SP6 hard when the engine is not up to temp is a bad idea - their demo engine was just starting its running in process so there was no way the rev's were going above 3K. Whether or not it needs mapping right now is academic at the moment, they were happy with the initial set-up and are under no illusions that the engine will need proper setting up before they are 100% happy with the fueling/mapping - they're not idiots!

Personally, I can't see the down-side to this development, even knowing roughly what the likely costs are going to be, so good luck to them I say. As with all things, time will tell.

Andy

[T40ORA]

andyoleary said:

Didn't think it would be long before negative comments started appearing.....

I would recommend anyone with any queries contacts RG and talks to them directly. Myself and Lee are not test engineers and probably dont have 100% of the story between us. However, I know what I saw/felt and I listened to what I was told and shown. Oil temps aren't going to stay low, of course, and we all know that pushing the SP6 hard when the engine is not up to temp is a bad idea - their demo engine was just starting its running in process so there was no way the rev's were going above 3K. Whether or not it needs mapping right now is academic at the moment, they were happy with the initial set-up and are under no illusions that the engine will need proper setting up before they are 100% happy with the fueling/mapping - they're not idiots!

Personally, I can't see the down-side to this development, even knowing roughly what the likely costs are going to be, so good luck to them I say. As with all things, time will tell.

Andy

I second all that Andy. One further bit of info, they have a date when thgey will be re-maping it; early September so that it will be properly sorted for Britcar.

[TVR_owner]

andyoleary said:

Didn't think it would be long before negative comments started appearing.....

I would recommend anyone with any queries contacts RG and talks to them directly. Myself and Lee are not test engineers and probably dont have 100% of the story between us. However, I know what I saw/felt and I listened to what I was told and shown. Oil temps aren't going to stay low, of course, and we all know that pushing the SP6 hard when the engine is not up to temp is a bad idea - their demo engine was just starting its running in process so there was no way the rev's were going above 3K. Whether or not it needs mapping right now is academic at the moment, they were happy with the initial set-up and are under no illusions that the engine will need proper setting up before they are 100% happy with the fueling/mapping - they're not idiots!

Personally, I can't see the down-side to this development, even knowing roughly what the likely costs are going to be, so good luck to them I say. As with all things, time will tell.

Andy

Andy,
My comments were not negative, they were cautionary.

Good to see folk suuporting development (it not inovation) but best not do it blindly.

[trackcar]

The bucket arrangement sounds fascinating .. hopefully it has the cam lobes buried in oil constantly so there's no oiling issues at start-up? This is how the AJP8 is and that almost never has top end issues .. this sounds on the face of it a very interesting fit too .. so the bucket carrier fits inside an existing head casting with minimal machining ie a retro fit into an existing casting? amazing if i've interpreted that correctly

[s6boy]

Obviously this question is on behalf of the numpties on here who aren't that mechanically minded unlike myself, but could someone please post a description of what 'bucket' heads are and what advantages they give.

[trackcar]

go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camshaft and look at the animation of the double overhead cam engine .. the cam lobe works on followers directly sitting on the top of the valve stem. The follower is a flat top with straight sides looking a bit like an upside down bucket, i guess that's where the name comes from ?

[zooooom]

s6boy said:

Obviously this question is on behalf of the numpties on here who aren't that mechanically minded unlike myself, but could someone please post a description of what 'bucket' heads are and what advantages they give.

Have a look here http://www.carbibles.com/fuel_engine_bible.html about half way down the page.
It not actually a "bucket head" as such, its the name of the design/layout in which the camshaft opens the valves.

[Whitey]

I understand TVR had developed a bucket arrangement themselves in 2006 before the factory closed. I don't know if it was inhouse or with Ricardo.

I am certainly keen to hear more about RG's version.

It's great to see companies investing in the future of TVR's own engine.