Too be fair, a cold start's not too much of an issue as the engine'll idle away quite happily - it's just the oil pump (standard one) isn't beefy enough at 700-800rpm to chuck oil to the nether regions of the cams.Shug wrote:Wow - that's a pretty major omission in an ECU! I guess that could cause the horrendous engine reliability reputation - it's the top end that goes on them, isn't it?tuscan_thunder wrote:
On a test drive, (if 2nd hand) check the owner warms it properly: idle it at 1400rpm from cold. (it has to be held at that as there's no cold start facility on the ECU and if it idles at 800rpm the oil pump can't flow enough, resulting in cam wear). Rough guide for oil temps is below 3000rpm til oil's at 50c, 4500from 50 til the oil reaches 70 then it's all systems go.
My (frankly, cheapy for a performance ECU) Emerald has a whole page set aside for cold idle correction... Amazed that TVR consider this to be okay for sale - they could source a variety of proprietary ECUs that do this as a matter of course. Must cost them a fortune in warranty rebuilds....
The engine reliability reputation is, in my opinion, fairly unfounded.
The BMW M3 engine has a FAR worse reputation - it's just that BMW's warranty department is better than TVR's.
The early Speed Six engines did have cam wear problems caused by poor casting but, in fairness to TVR, it was a supplier problem, not their own but, even so, they still sold cars with poor quality cams in. A later car should have no issues, the 3.6 in the T350 should have all the problems resolved.
When the 3.6 and 4litre engines became available (originally it was 4litre only @360 or 380bhp for the Red Rose) the problems were basically solved. (The 3.6 is in all 'standard' Tuscans, Tamoras and T350s from that engine's introduction with 350bhp, and the 4 litre was tweaked to 390bhp and later 400bhp in the Tuscan S) Incidentally, the engines, unlike TVR's own V8, always seem to make on or over their claimed power.
When I think about it, with the changes that Smolenski's been making since he took over, the engine may now have a cold start but don't quote me on that.
