Rave valves

[Greg5658]

Can someone explain rave valves and what they do and how they work? I have a 08 ptek (my wife's sled) ran ok but impossible to start and idled poorly and smoked like a mosquito fogger, I put it down to using coolant. Long story but it also was run out of oil once, over heated 3 times due to losing coolant. Compression was low so tore the engine down, bore looked fine so just honed and replaced pistons. base gasket and top o rings were fine so we were scratching our heads wondering where the coolant was coming from so pressure tested and turned out the heat exchanger had a small crack at the back. No wonder I never saw a leak anywhere. So ran like crap but wasn't burning coolant. Pulled rave valves off and one tab was broken off but it had still functioned fine when I did the finger test through the exhaust port. Also it has 490 jets in it when I think stock is 480.

Is a rave valve going to fix it or is there something I'm missing here?

 

[kingcat162]

The open as the rpms increase - easier to see how it works from a cut away - get a new rave valve from Bart's parts - he's a beauty I've been getting lots of ptek and xm parts from him - those years are known for a terrible wiring harness - gauge cluster - ECM - dess key - stock single ring pistons are not the best - wossner twin ring pistons are better - and put a 500 jet in it and maybe some needle spacers for midrange - put better scratchers on it - ( ice storm) I've rebuilt 3 ptecs this winter - and I got them all off the xps oil and running the shellbourne oil - because you get more for your $ and it's a 100:1 oil

 

[Greg5658]

Ok but how would that affect how it starts? Started hard. Actually usually used a sniff of ether to help it out seeing as electric start was nff

The open as the rpms increase - easier to see how it works from a cut away - get a new rave valve from Bart's parts - he's a beauty I've been getting lots of ptek and xm parts from him - those years are known for a terrible wiring harness - gauge cluster - ECM - dess key - stock single ring pistons are not the best - wossner twin ring pistons are better - and put a 500 jet in it and maybe some needle spacers for midrange - put better scratchers on it - ( ice storm) I've rebuilt 3 ptecs this winter - and I got them all off the xps oil and running the shellbourne oil - because you get more for your $ and it's a 100:1 oil //uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200410/85c122d894c1f61a83a10941558b6303.jpg

 

[kingcat162]

If you have a new rave ralve in there - and you have good compression (125+psi) it shouldn't be hard to start - steer clear of the ether - it will strip the oil from the cylinder wall and affect your compression - I would be checking compression

 

[cattechsummitrider]

if it fogs smoke and is hard to start it might not be the rave valve ( yours is faulty and needs replacement though ), I would check the cable going to the oil pump they were known for breaking and going into full oil mode

 

[snopro]

Rave valves arent gonna affect starting. If they don't open properly you will see issues around 6500-6800 rpm. The above post about the oil cable is more likely. Like he said that was a problem back then.