300tdi auto conversion with medium (V8) TC problem

[flashmantv]

Hello from Germany.

My name is Andreas and I`m driving a LR Discovery-Range Rover Hybrid, which I build for myself as Sahara-Desert-Travel-Vehicle. :-)

After searching the web for hours, I decided it might be the best way, to ask other LR enthusiasts in this forum directly.

The story in short words: I`ve tuned my 300tdi with a microprocessor controlled VNT turbocharger, which gives good torque at lower rpms. After having fun with the good R380 tranny, I`m going to convert it to an ZF autobox. - The good old ZF4HP22. But to match the new torque-range of the engine more efficent, I`d like to use the medium torque converter from the 3.9 / 4.0 V8 petrol engine. This TC has the code D19 or partnumber stc3600, if i`m right. Many people suggest doing this, but here starts my problem. Yes, it fits inside the 300tdi autobox bellhousing, like the original small "U17" TC, but the TC bold pattern ist slightly different (smaller, wont fit the 300tdi flexplate) and the "pilot pin" (which centers the TC in the crankshaft-flange) is also much bigger. And I think, the offset of the TC inside the bellhousing is even different. (300tdi = 18mm, V8 = 27mm - according to the 3 digit box code comparison)

Is there a bold-on way to do this? I studied Dave Ashcrofts page, but found only clear informations, that the big 4.6l V8 converter will not fit and it needs the ZF4HP24 bellhousing plus an adapter kit from mdengineering (including new boss plate). But noting really specific about fitting the medium one. I think redrilling the original flexplate, machining the middle pilot pin of the TC and using some kind of 9mm spacers isn`t the answer. Or is it?

Would be nice, If some can help me at this project with some informations.

To illustrate the problem, here the TC differences in pictures.

1. The D19 medium V8 converter (out of a GEMS 3.9l V8 Discovery)

Image is taken in the original V8 autobox, which I will not use for conversion. (wrong bellhousing and shiftpoints)

2. The U17 small original 300tdi TC

(Klick for bigger image. I tried to avoid fullscreen images in the first place)

Thanks a lot,

Andreas

[Paul Woodward]

Welcome to the forum Andreas!

It sounds to me that you have answered your own question.

Re drill the flex plate or better still have a new one laser cut from some suitable spring steel. Machine/adapt the spigot to suit the crank. Make up a spacer ring to to obtain the correct mounting depth.

Oh and we need photo's of your truck!!

[flashmantv]

Hello Paul,

thanks for your replay. I thought about my conversion the whole weekend and decided, to go this way. So I ordered a cylinder of good mild steel to machine a pilot spigot adapter. I even bought a stronger flexplate from mdengineering, just to make sure it lasts longer than a summer. :-)

Sure I will take pictures and post it, since this home-made conversion might be interesting for other enthusiasts too.

About my truck: Its kind of funny story. In 2011, my collegue and I planned a trip to morocco, north Africa. But I needed a suitable "expedition car". In one corner of my garage was a rotten 1981 Range Rover Classic 2 Door pickup (yes, alread converted to a pickup), which I bought blind over the phone from a scrapyard as a project for long winter evenings. But we all know, this evenings doens really exist and in the meantime I started disliking the old 3.5l V8 block due to its many failures in the past.

A few days later, some in my german 4x4 forum sold a crashed Discovery 300tdi. Chassis was unrepairable damaged, but frame and engine where fine. So I came up with the idea, to combine the old RRC pickup chassis with the 1997 discovery frame and driveline. I began in August and finished in early Octobre. And because of regular job, I had only the evenings and weekends to do the job.

First notice: I hope I have to do something like this never again. It was a nightmare and made me completely exhausted. I finished the day before the start and my only testdrive was 3km at rain around the block...Facing now a 5000km journey across europa and of course morocco and its rough desert.

But lets look at some images :-)

This is the RRC pickup from the scrapyard

And this is the crashed Disco 1 (I mounted the 35" tires to make it moveable)

Under the floormats I discovered, it was already a rolling deathtrap. Much more rust

the the 16 year older RRC chassis..

So I removed the chassis in two parts:

Lets shorten it up a bit and jump from end auf August to start of octobre. The RRC chassis fits the much younger Discovery frame 1:1 on the mounts.

Perfect. But the adaptions of steering, clutch and 1000 other things felt like it took ages. In fact, it took several hours and a lot of not so happy moments.

Ready and near the Algerian border in morocco:

A list of features of "stage 1", like you would specify in a classified ad:

35x12.5R15 BFG AT Tires with 30mm Spacers and extended arches

3" lift with TF remote reservoir shocks and mm4x4 springs

Ashcroft driveshafts front and rear, AEU2522 cv joint conversion

Valeo HD clutch from LR 130 defender

new cropped Trailing and radius-arms with rocksliding protection

TracTech TrueTrac Locker in the rear axle

wide angle propshafts F+R

New split case from Defender with VTG 1:1.4 ratio to compensate the big tires

snorkel through hood

Tubular Bumper with 8000lbs winch and Ramsey remote control

ProTrac front skidplate 6mm solid steel

HD steering

Momo steering wheel, removable

in-chassis rockslider on both sides

3 bateries with T-Max Split charge system

2 compressor fridges: 1x Engel MF45 rear 1x Waeco CF35 front

2000W converter to 230V for electric devices

Aluminium construction in the back with galwing-style doors, behind is storage, fridge, 2nd tank accessibility, shower

Fuel-capacity: 190 litre

2m amateur band

sportseats from an Audi TT S-Line (so nice to have proper good seats on long journeys)

Spal e-vent instead old visco-fan

Rigid LED Worklamps front

Onbord air pressure system, using the old clima compressor

A WeTab Win7+Ozi Explorer navigation system

A waterproof HD action-cam, mounted in front of the window with remote control

5000km and the only fail was a loose ground-cable from engine to frame. Everything else worked perfect.

So a year later, we went to tunisia - yes, its north africa again.

I was looking for more power...Particular for more torque. So I developed a microprozessor basesd VNT system,

which does not changed the horsepower itself, but gave massive torque from bottom end of rpm scale. Its

very smart tuning, since you do not not change engines parameters. But this project alone took 3 month,

endless hours of math and physics and resulted in a system, I called "VARL" - Variable Actuator Range Logic.

But to descibe this, it would take more than one post or hour, so lets just say - Its now in the car and it has

a display in front of the driver:

The controller in alpha stadium:

Nearly ready:

Oh, there is a flippable dish / table on the back, with sandbords on the outside.

It uses no straps to hold, instead its working with heimjoints and stoppers. Very stable, perfect for cooking.

I even throw out the clima compressor for a second alternator. Which gives redundany for power and a very good

vakuum. So I could remove the "knocking" vacuumpump from the block. A good constant vakuum is even needed for the N75 VNT modulation

and yes, it gives much better brake performance support the the stock pump.

Blindplate on the block:

In proccess (not ready, but you see oil support and vacuum outlet)

So in the end - tunisia was even great, we had a lot of fun, the vnt system worked perfect, even in

harshest conditions, pulling a Jeep Grand Cherokee with broken axle over some dunes.

And now - I like to have it all "automatic". :-)

Sorry for the long post.

[Soren Frimodt]

Great write-up! You should really start a thread about your Rangie in the members vehicles forum, would be nice to follow.

Furthermore I've noticed you have some fellow "teeni-weeni-electrical-magic-thinga-madings" buddies on here that sure would love an in depth write-up on your smart VNT controller, maybe in the megasquirt section or?? I'm sure Fridge would love to read about this

[Paul Woodward]

Some interesting stuff you have going on there!

Does the larger torque converter have a lower stall speed?

[flashmantv]

Great write-up! You should really start a thread about your Rangie in the members vehicles forum, would be nice to follow.

Furthermore I've noticed you have some fellow "teeni-weeni-electrical-magic-thinga-madings" buddies on here that sure would love an in depth write-up on your smart VNT controller, maybe in the megasquirt section or?? I'm sure Fridge would love to read about this

I could write hours about megasquirt related topics. I`m working with the open ECU since 2008 and converted a few rangies. But furthermore, we (this is me and my rallye team) use the megasquirt to power our rallyecar (called Lulu), which uses a 5.2l V8 from a Jeep with a direct shifted semi-automatic transmission.

If you like to see some videos from europes bigges adventure raid, starring "Lulu":

This is roughly a "go out of our way please" compilation, which shows best scenes from overtaking other cars. We finished this stage second.

Some images from 2012 and our teamwebsite: http://www.fettschnecken.de/?topic=pics&gid=0⊂=Rallyemaniacs (its in german, but easy to navigate). You see the old "Lulu", which broke in half last stage...But yes we build a nw one.

The vnt project itself it a bit more easy, but done all by myself (hardware and firmware coding). Its basically a Atmel microprocessor based system (arduiono, but this doesnt matters), which uses algorithm to pre-estimate volume-metrics, uses intelligent cut-line logic for better fuel consumption and so on.

@Paul: Yes, th bigger converter has a lower stall speed. This generates less heat in accelaration and is much more efficient, since it matches the new bottom end torque power of the vnt supported engine. This is essential for driving in the desert, because the transmission will stay cooler and the car is much more agile.

I`m going to install the converter this weekend.

And sorry for my not so perfect english. Writing is different from speaking. :-)

[flashmantv]

Horrible :-)

The new convert was even 24mm higher the the small one. The conversion is normally not possible without a special kit from mdengineering - But since I got this information today and the work started yesterday, I did it without plug & play components in good spirit.

1. HD flexplate UK:

2. Redrilled for new bolt pattern (two cobalt drills died on this material)

3. required backplate and spacer for crankshaft

4. The 300tdi automatic transmission wit much smaller bellhousing

5. The medium V8 converter in V8 bellhousing (longer)

6. Comparision: left = smal 300tdi converter, right = bigger V8 converter

7. Measuring th new converter on a "turn table"

8. make the surface straight, to fix it precise in the machine

9. Start filing the pilot spigot with carbid type tools

9a. Step 2

9b. Step 3 - You can see the litter bigger ring, which align the converter later in the crankshaft

10. remov the mounting ring

11. clear surface

12. Lets make the mounting ring lower

13. Machining a champfer / notch to the surface, there will the lowered ring take seat.

14. Lets weld it

15. Et Voila: Fits - With a overall precision of 2/100mm (0.02mm)

This took eight hours on the machine - But ow its done.

If you don`t have such machinery, don`t event think about copying this. Before we started, my helping hand Rene said, a realistic chance to do this right, is below 40% and after all this, he is for sure right. You can buy from mdengineering the "82F kit without KD set up" for 595 british pound. This adapts the bigger V8 Bellhousing to the engine, making everything longer but much more easy.

Will fit the transmsissin next week, `cause time run out...

Andreas

[flashmantv]

Sorry for the delay. As planned, I connected the complete transmission-unit, including propshafts and split case of course, to the engine. Everything fitted very precisely. The gap between the flexplate-surface and the converter-mounting-ring-surface was below 0.5mm, so the engine could be turned easy and slowly by hand, to install the converter-mounting-screws in place. No pictures here, because there was not enough space or hands to take a photo. Since the special transmission fluid (HP 5/4 for ZF) was not delivered in time and the new turbo charger was not mounted in new place, I couldn`t fire the engine to check everything. But feeling very confident and will keep you update.

[Bowie69]

How did I miss that last post, very impressive work on the TC, fingers crossed it all goes well for you on start up

[flashmantv]

Thanks very much. Will keep you update. Engine start will be around end of month, because I have to travel to bulgaria before - Rallye Breslau Balkan is calling. :-)

[Jamie_grieve]

Fantastic write up and awesome skills, I'm sure a lot of people are watching this with great interest.

Have you had your 300tdi on a dyno or rolling road with the VNT?

Have you modified the shape of the fuel pin in the pump?

[flashmantv]

Hi Jamie,

sorry for the long delay. I spent the last 10 days in Bulgaria as chief of timekeeping for the the "Rallye Breslau". And even if there is internet everywhere, I couldn`t manage to get enough free time to visit the forums.

To be honest: I wasn`t on a dyno yet. In the first stage, my VNT projects intention was only to give a much better torque curve - So the horsepower near max revs are not touched (yet).

It worked brilliant, since I had to pull my friends Jeep Grand Cherokee with broken front axle over 5km dunes - And he calls my Range Rover now "a Kamaz" (because of the noise, a VNT charger makes)

Now I got a fuel pin from the 2.8l TGV engine, which seems to be more agressive shaped and I am going to use it. And for to this reason (tuning), I changed the tiny GT1749V for a bigger GT2052V turbocharger.

And to do it right, there will be a bigger intercooler, a better radiator and two 360W fans, cooling engine and compressed air even in the desert properly. Pressure will increase to 1.2 bar / 17 psi. And yes, maybe a small adjustment on the fuel amount screw will be done...It`s a must to keep he mixture good with the colder higher density air.

Engine start is planned for next weekend. This will show, if the new tranny mit bigger TC works. Hopefully I`ll get the chance for a few more images...Since text only isn`t very inspiring. :-)

But i have to hurry - mid of october I`m going to tunisia again with my car. Thats not much time left, when I only have the weekends. :-)

[flashmantv]

Umpf, please don`t blame me. Engine works fine, transmission makes no wrong noise. But I bought not enough atf fluid, so testdrive will be today :-)

Using a heat-exchanger and a conventional radiator with fan, connected with 12mm tubing, the transmission needs around 11 liters of atf.

This additional water-pipes feed the heat-exchanger, which is mounted on the frame. So the tranny will heat quicker up and stay cooler in extreme situations.

Sure there will be some holes in the engine hood for venting the fan from the second cooler. So more about "how this setup actually drives" a bit later.

[Jamie_grieve]

I'm very much liking what you're doing here but one observation if I may is that some of the wiring might not be up to the standard of the rest of the work which to the untrained eye lets it down a bit. There are some conventions too such as black for negative and red for positive which although are just conventions they are generally followed pretty much everywhere. The photo of the alternator showing the red earth cables are what brought it to mind. That being said, maybe it is positive earth?

I'll be very interested to see how this progresses. If you do ever get it on a dyno, please make sure to record the figures from idle up and not just from 1200 or 1500 rpm as I believe it will be right at the bottom end where this conversion will shine.

Did you record any transmission oil temperatures before this new modification?

Good job so far, what's next?

[flashmantv]

Hi Jamie, you`re absolutely right. I mixed up every color in wiring. Thats not why I don`t know about conventions, it`s only related to time and material. So I decided to use the same red copper cable as ground connection, which is used for positive connection as well. Everyone execept me would surely go insane, trying to understand that "wiring". Yes, you can and should mock me here. A right job would look much different. But on the other side - I`m starting into the sahara in under seven days and can only work at the weekend. So I had to keep eye on progress.

And now to something completely different:-)

My first testdrive. After filling up the transmission to correct level and re-adjusting the tps-cable to the tranny, I climbed the drivers seat and pushed the pedal down a bit firmer. And as far as I can tell, thats makes pretty much fun. Shifting is fine, acceleration is good and I still haven`t modified the injection pump. It takes about one second to build up full boost and this pushes the car good forward. In fact - I really like it.

More to come after the weekend.

[flashmantv]

I should do a paintjob within the next years. :-)

But I`m glad to say: Ready to go. I modified the fuel pump with the new pin (turned to 30 degrees offset - so still mild), moved the star wheel half a turn down (right), moved the top-screw a full turn down (for better startup-acceleration) and left the main fuel screw completely untouched...The result is (sorry for the word) astonishing. Kickdown acceleration is very strong. The loader takes under a second to build up full boost and the car pushes forward, with the transmission switching late and firm (like it should). I can really outperform a lot of normal cars and comparing it with my former 3.5l turbodiesel Mercedes G, it have much more noticable power.

To test everything, I visited the german "Autobahn", where no speed limits are present. Traveling at 110km/h ist quite nice and a good speed for longer journeys. It can go faster, but there is no need for. No vibrations (except for the unbalanced 35 inch tires). But if I keep my foot down to long, exhaust temperature reaches over 700 degress celsius. But nobody drives full throttle, so this is no issue. At 110km/h permanent speed, exhaust is around 400 degrees maximum. And if I activate the "Eco-Stick", which does nothing more, than vent the fuel-pump-enrichment-unit (pump thinks now, i`m driving without any boost) the temperatures loweres to 350 degrees at full throttle and 300 degrees with half throttle - Sure less power, but still enought to stay easily on 110km/h. (65mph) Will save a lot of fuel and worked even great in my Mercedes G before. And yes, it`s always a good feeling, if you have this kind of "power" button in front of you. :-)

Tomorrow is day zero of our journey to tunisia. Expecting 5000km all in all. Will tell more when back....

[flashmantv]

OK, I'm back. It was a 5000km journey without any noticable failures on my car. And to summarize it a bit less technical: Absolutely lovely. No temperature problems, a lot of instant power. It just climbs every dune, like eating a piece of cake. :-)

And to prove how durable it is, here is a short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhV6czrvz4Y

Few minutes ago, we were following some participants of the Tunisia GPS Challenge at rallye-speed. And after shooting the footage, my collegue Patrick decided to take s short video of me, returning "a bit faster". As you can see, the back of my car is fairly underdamped. Thats why I was carrying a lot of extra load. Have to fix this for next desert trip.

Andreas

[Bowie69]

Oh, now that probably got you a bit scared

[Mo Murphy]

Excellent job and nice to see you had no failures, it must be very satisfying

Mo

[elbekko]

That looks fun

[landroversforever]

I'd love to know more about the VNT controller

[dirtydiesel]

And if I activate the "Eco-Stick", which does nothing more, than vent the fuel-pump-enrichment-unit (pump thinks now, i`m driving without any boost) the temperatures loweres to 350 degrees at full throttle and 300 degrees with half throttle - Sure less power, but still enought to stay easily on 110km/h. (65mph) Will save a lot of fuel and worked even great in my Mercedes G before. And yes, it`s always a good feeling, if you have this kind of "power" button in front of you. :-)

That ^ is very very clever,

Could you trigger the "Eco-stick" with the arduino? So that you could cut fueling when cruising?

Ps. Welcome to the forum,

[rusty_wingnut]

awesome work - well done