V8 cooling heating????

smurphy said:

What with no coolant loss, no over-heating, no over pressurising in coolant system, no sings of water in the oil and no excess steam from the exhaust???

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It all started on the way back home from a straightliners event at Elvington. The car had run faultlessly up untill then, and was running constant 150's+ between 1600 & 2000 metres whilst retaining 70-80 celcius temps. Up untill then it had never lost a drop of coolent, and although the header tank is alloy without a sight glass, it doesn't hold much fluid, so you soon know if you have lost any.

On the way back home, just after I got onto the M1 the temp gauge shot from 70 to off the clock in a matter of a few seconds. I immediantly pulled over and let it cool. Seemed I had split a hose somehow and had lost coolent. I got recovered back home and replaced all the hoses.

That didn't cure it. Nor did flushing the rad, changing the thermostat, the temp gauge sender, fitting a fan over-ride kit, checking the water pump, changing the temp gauge itself.

After the initial split hose, it never lost coolent again, but would take an age to get warm, and when it did it would just get hotter and hotter, but I always used to switch it off at 100'oc. The one day whilst trying to cure it, it did it's best impression of a fog machine. I guess that is when the liner went from being slightly cracked to completely fecked.

And to the chap who asked the differance between the 3.9 and the 4.0's, they are the same capacity at 3949cc IIRC, but the 4.2's, 4.3's 4.5's and 4.6's all had the longer stroke, whilst the 5.0's and 5.2's had increased bore as well.

if you do go down the route of having it top hatted, please make sure that you get all eight liners done, or your likely to have the same problem again in a few months time. I believe that TVR Power do them for £700 each plus the VAT, but if you catch Dom on a good day and get all of them done, he might do you a deal?


Good luck, and welcome to the 'My RV8 is ****ed' club.

smurphy said:

What with no coolant loss, no over-heating, no over pressurising in coolant system, no sings of water in the oil and no excess steam from the exhaust???

Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to add, no oil emulsification untill it started beltching smoke, but that was a fair while after the problems started.

Disco Moneypit said:

It all started on the way back home from a straightliners event at Elvington. The car had run faultlessly up untill then, and was running constant 150's+ between 1600 & 2000 metres whilst retaining 70-80 celcius temps. Up untill then it had never lost a drop of coolent, and although the header tank is alloy without a sight glass, it doesn't hold much fluid, so you soon know if you have lost any.

On the way back home, just after I got onto the M1 the temp gauge shot from 70 to off the clock in a matter of a few seconds. I immediantly pulled over and let it cool. Seemed I had split a hose somehow and had lost coolent. I got recovered back home and replaced all the hoses.

That didn't cure it. Nor did flushing the rad, changing the thermostat, the temp gauge sender, fitting a fan over-ride kit, checking the water pump, changing the temp gauge itself.

After the initial split hose, it never lost coolent again, but would take an age to get warm, and when it did it would just get hotter and hotter, but I always used to switch it off at 100'oc. The one day whilst trying to cure it, it did it's best impression of a fog machine. I guess that is when the liner went from being slightly cracked to completely fecked.

And to the chap who asked the differance between the 3.9 and the 4.0's, they are the same capacity at 3949cc IIRC, but the 4.2's, 4.3's 4.5's and 4.6's all had the longer stroke, whilst the 5.0's and 5.2's had increased bore as well.

if you do go down the route of having it top hatted, please make sure that you get all eight liners done, or your likely to have the same problem again in a few months time. I believe that TVR Power do them for £700 each plus the VAT, but if you catch Dom on a good day and get all of them done, he might do you a deal?


Good luck, and welcome to the 'My RV8 is ****ed' club.

Click to expand...

I don't have any of those symptoms at all just cold heaters if I'm on tick over and the fans on full. If I have the fans on number 2 they stay warm and get hot whilst moving.
Also to scarr if you say that they get hot under pressure then you will get flow from putting a hose though it as that will be under pressure too. The only way to see if your matrix is partly blocked is to open it, same as a part blocked radiator or a flow test.