Next week (Dec 4th - Dec 9th) I'll be in San Jose at the IETF meeting.
If anyone would care to drag me out of the hotel room for a brew or
two at the local pub and talk LBCs, I could be persuaded. :-) I'll be
at the Fairmont Hotel at 170 South Market Street, 408-998-1900. Send
some email (I'll be reading remotely :-) or call the hotel if anyone
is interested in a getting together...
I've done some more testing with the TR6, low compression, cam saga...
Some fantastic responses from folks out there have practically convinced
me that I have a cam timing problem. I tried a wacko test, which was
fun, but not sure it unleashed any new info.
First, I tried opening the valves a bit. Intake lash set at .012 and
exhaust set at .018. The compress went up just a little bit, but not
enough for my taste. Secondly, I tried a hotter set of plugs. These
are Champion RN14Y plugs, two steps hotter than stock. They helped a
little, but no enough for a smooth silky idle.
I then tried this little wacko test. Removed the pushrods from the
exhaust valves, and tried a compression test. Compression was the
same, but I was hearing a POPing sound from the engine. What was
happening was the intake was opening while the piston was coming up on
the exhaust stroke and blowing air out the intake! Pretty fun eh?
This actually could be normal, due to the overlap of the cam.
However, I was surprised at the intensity of the popping sound. After
thinking about this, I know that if I move the cam timing, I'll want
to set the intake valves opening later. e.g. retard the cam. If
anything, I'm getting an education!
Two more tests should be done. 1) A leak down test. This would be
very informative, and I'm trying to find a tester. Actually, I should
ask the rocky mountain triumph group if they have one. They probably
do... 2) Open the valves really wide. like .020 on the intake and
.030 on the exhaust. Just to see if the idle would behave a bit
better. The effect of doing this should have a similar effect to
retarding the cam, with the exception of less air being allowed in/out
of the engine. Gosh this stuff is confusing. :-) Debugging a core
dump with emacs would be easier. (!)
In case anyone is wondering, the Buja Daimler is back on the road.
I'll let Lawrence expand on the details, but he's out of town till
sunday. But success was ours at 2:00am last week. Once we got the
plug wires sorted out, the car started right up. A couple of valves
are ticking, but once things heat up and cool down a few times, we'll
reset those, retorque the head, and go for a nice drive.
Cheers,
-Scotty
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