What to look for?

Thanks for all the responses - I grabbed the W/shop manual on-line and that's answered all kinds of questions - should have done that first instead of bugging you! And an Extra Point for TO - I checked last night and it is indeed a slightly noisy injector. This thing is so quiet compared the my HD with road sweepers that I swear I can hear the clock in the Speedo running - and that's electric!

Welcome Bob. I have the 2014 R3T and mine tells me to run on the high octane juice.
I rode a friends Police special Moto Guzzi a few years ago, not sure what year but it was a California Police bike from the '70s. And it did hit pretty hard off a stand still. He rode my new at the time '06 VMax and almost crapped his pants. His bike was fun and I can see why the cops used them back then.

Boog said:

He rode my new at the time '06 VMax and almost crapped his pants.

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The v-Max is one fantastically vulgar bike!!!!

They can pass anything on the road, except a gas station

You got that one right McW! 100-120 miles at the most was all I ever got out of a tank on my Max. But I sure did like gettign to each station

Boog said:

Welcome Bob. I have the 2014 R3T and mine tells me to run on the high octane juice.
I rode a friends Police special Moto Guzzi a few years ago, not sure what year but it was a California Police bike from the '70s. And it did hit pretty hard off a stand still. He rode my new at the time '06 VMax and almost crapped his pants. His bike was fun and I can see why the cops used them back then.

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I rode the Guzzi all over Europe, one time it went onto one cylinder while on the Autobahn, before long I had several bikes stop to help, including a cop, and they were either pulling my bike to bits or drinking wine. Finally I found a coil had drained of oil! They are mounted with the HT cable to the bottom, and one had just sprung a leak. So I pulled the spark plug on the dead pot and rode to the nearest garage and stuck a BMW coil on it. It was still on the bike when I sold it.

Hello Bob and welcome to the site. Keep the war stories coming. Much appreciated.

Gregger said:

Hello Bob and welcome to the site. Keep the war stories coming. Much appreciated.

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Thanks for the welcome Greg - I suspect I am the same as the other war horses here with enough stories to fill a book! But I will try not to bore you all too much!

idk67 said:

Welcome to the great world of the RIII.

First, there are no tappets, there are shims under the cams that may need adjustment. Second, get yourself TuneECU. It will allow you to retune your bike (best done with a dyno and somebody who knows what they are doing - although there are a lot of good tunings available which will be pretty close for excellent peerformance), and also trouble shoot and repair and adjust a whole bunch of other stuff. It is the most essential tool for the RIII, IMHO.

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Hi to all you Owners,
This is my first visit to any forum and it looks like there's a lot of you out there with plenty of good advice to offer. Thanks, idk67, for the link to the 2007 manual; mine doesn't have R3T specific info, so this version is most welcome.
I'm looking at the valve clearances on my 2009 R3T (16,000 miles) and find that 10 (5 each side) of the 12 gaps are oversize. The last two are bang in the middle at .005" and .007". I read in the manual that the R3T clearance is the same as R3 and R3C @ 0.10-0.15 mm (4 - 6 thou) and 0.15-0.20 mm (6 - 8 thou). But with there being so many so loose on my bike, and all by about the same amount (and before I go and order up £55 worth of shims) I'm curious if Triumph has or hasn't opened up the gap on later models to increase the interval between checks/changes. I asked a local Triumph shop, but he (not totally unexpectedly) wouldn't offer any advice. Has anybody heard or read anything on this?

It is more common for the clearances to close up rather than get wider. You didn't state how big the gaps are?

Great information here especially take note of the Software that can allow you to keep track of the engine conditions and help you adjust things like the throttle position sensors and balancing throttle bodies when needed. As for proper octante I would use what is recommended. I believe all used to be 89 octane but some of the newer ones were changed to 87. Proper octane is important for the burn ration the engien is timed at. You will find people the run the 87 instead of what is recommended and say they have no problems. The main problem from running a octane which has a faster burn ration then the engine is timed for is detonation especially at low rpm when you grab a fist full of throttle. detonation is hard on the crankshaft rod connector are and the engien is so big you might not even hear it but it is happening. This is like playing russian roulette and chosing to add bullets to the gun to change the odds. The price difference between the two octanes is not much so why gamble. If you tune your bike to 87 or any other speciffic octane then thats what you should run.
Now shim clearnces they should be right in the specified tolerances. Both sides expand with heat which is why the tolerance is set cold. Myself I believe there is more expansion and wear changes on the exhaust side so I always make sure mine are on the large end of the tolerance yet still in tolerance. Also when I check mine I roll the cam to the proper postion and then actuate the vale a few times to make double sure its seated before checking the gap. I have under the shim buckets now but still checking them is the same.