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Engine First Run


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One for the real petrol-heads out there,

 

Being a industrial & marine diesel engineer I'm no stranger to rebuilding, commissioning and initial load testing of diesel engines but, petrol engines I have very little experience of.

 

Gave my rebuilt CP engine it's first run today, static timing set fairly accurately it started on the button with no fuel enrichment applied. Engine run up 2-2.5k as advised, ran a little lumpy but that's to be expected before finer tuning is carried out so not concerned about that at the moment.

 

Anyway, regardless of what the temperature gauge reads it seemed to me the engine got really hot really quickly, is this typical of petrol engines ran off-load at that speed or should I be worried about more serious things like valve timing set incorrectly, that's been a worry of mine as I have been told I may have been supplied with the wrong installation data.

 

Had to stop the run-in after 5mins when an almighty coolant leak erupted from goodness knows where ( no second man present to keep a watchful eye on things while I operated the throttle pedal ).

 

The getting hot quickly issue is what concerns me most at the moment.

 

Any help & advice most gratefully received.

 

Regards,

Richard.

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Air in the system, put the wheels on some ramps so that the rad is higher than the rear of the engine refill with coolant and run the engine. With the rad cap off until the thermostats opens then put the cap back on and bob is your mothers brother!

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Thanks for those idea gents, however, I filled the engine & cyl head before fitting the thermostat and cover, then topped up again via a brass plug on the thermostat cover.

 

Geko, the engine never ran long enough for the fan to kick in.

 

I'm more concerned about the amount of heat was radiating from the engine and is it normal for a petrol engine under the conditions I described above, I'm not convinced it's a coolant related issue, I may also be worried over nothing.

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"I'm more concerned about the amount of heat was radiating from the engine"...

 

That's what happens when an air lock prevents the water filling the waterjacket...it gets hot...quickly

"and is it normal for a petrol engine under the conditions I described above"...yes see answer listed above.

 

elmclems post above is a good way of helping "burp" the engine, when filling it in any number of other ways results in an airlock.

Why not give it a go ? it's easy, cheap and in my experience always allows any air to be discharged from the engine and water to take it's place, which then works as intended and your engine won't overheat.

 

If it still overheats (check it with an infra red temp gun on the surfaces) we then know for sure that we can dismiss air locks and come up with other ideas.

 

Mick Richards

Edited by Motorsport Mickey
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