lo-fi

The lambda will be narrow band. Pretty much totally useless while getting it running; semi useful for tuning cruise and idle sections of the map when you're up and running. Does the fuel pressure regulator have a vacuum connection to the plenum or manifold? Pressure dropping when revving doesn't seem right at all, so there could be a problem there which is going to make things very hard to tune around. Some regulators are designed to change pressure depending on load, but the other way round usually! I'm not familiar with the RV8 setup, so maybe someone else could chime in here? All else being equal, popping is usually caused by a lean condition, not rich. Misfiring can be caused by running rich, but unless the ignition system is particularly poor, this usually only occurs when really rich (9:1), at which point you'll see black smoke out of the exhaust and it'll just sound a bit rough. Sounds like you're fighting a mis-fueling issue with the idle and getting "lean surge" to me, particularly if as the revs pick up it briefly moves into an area of the map which gives a not more fuel. Lean can give a smell of fuel if its misfiring and heading out of the exhaust unburned, so don't always trust your nose... If I could offer one piece of advice it would be to get a wideband with digital readout. You can get by without, but it's a bit like reading tea leaves and chicken entrails unless you've got some solid prior knowledge of what lean/rich, under/over advanced sound, feel and smell like as you're tuning. Which you'll gain doing what you're doing, but might as well give yourself an easy time of it in the meantime You'll also end up with a much better final tune, so a good investment all round if the budget stretches. HTH!

Something else to consider is what gauge wire have you run down the garden? Too big a voltage drop tends to send trips a trippin'

I had the same setup on my last place: 32A in the house board fed armoured down to a smaller board in the workshop. To stop the house breaker going if I did something silly in the workshop, I put a C type in the house, with B's on the workshop. Saved a few trips indoors when a stone cold compressor stalled or the spot welder got cranked up to 11.

Nice one! Very tempted to do similar on my Arboga drill now... It has a rack and pinion setup I could usefully motorise. Hmm...

Good find! I'd love something like that, would be perfect for me

You don't need the actual range rover transfer box (I assume you mean the 1.003 ratio), just buy a ratio conversion kit from Ashcroft and rebuild whatever you can get hold of - that's what I did for my 109 five speed running 4.7 diffs. Cool project, I'll be following progress!

Did you check that the timing marks are actually in the correct place, though? From here: http://www.v8engines.com/electrics-1.htm You cannot trust the indicated timing marks on your engine's bottom pulley. We have found them to be up to 20 degrees out in the worst circumstances.To check this, it is required to remove No 1 spark plug and rotate the engine (using some form of probe down the cylinder), to ascertain if No 1 piston and the indicated TDC timing marks do actually align asindicated TDC on your pulley.Especially if your engine is other than the std. production one in the std. production vehicle it was originally fitted to.If your indicated TDC pulley (reference) mark is wrong, then all you do and all we advise, will never stand a chance of achieving what's expected. This also applies to the information given above, so ignore this section at your peril.

They're GDIProducts on ebay if you want to get an idea of price.

The DDS stuff is excellent, I've had a great many bits myself.

Yes, it's quite possible the timing being wrong could be making it hunt. The timing marks can often be incorrect on the pulley wheels too, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility it's way out despite looking correct. Take plug no 1 out and use a long screwdriver or similar to check where tdc is in relation to the mark.

Here how I would approach this: 2mm plate (maybe 4" x circumference of the leg plus four inches) and a couple of big G clamps or quick grips. Grip the plate to the leg with the long edge against the bottom of the table, leaving an inch overhanging. Bend the plate around the leg, moving the grips closer to where you're bending all the time. Once you've got 180 degrees round, take it out, cut off leaving enough to bend some tabs outward in the vice. Repeat. You'll end up with two brackets that nearly fit around the leg with the flanges sat flat together. If you want to be clever, leave space between the flanges on one side for the actuator to fit between. Drill holes in the flanges to bolt together. To finish it nicely, cut what is essentially a big washer to fit between the table and your newly made piece. You could do this with a band saw, chain drilling, grinder or hole saws - whatever you have available. The actuator can bolt to the bracket to raise the table, either between two flanges (probably the sturdier) or to the side. Gravity will do the rest. Low tech, removable and easily fitted

A while new level of nasty: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F173603962947

Glad it's sorted, but boo to the bad luck!

Meh. I know that adds nothing to the discussion, but expresses just about everything that needs to be said. You might as well be watching a pig in the hope that it'll sprout wings and take flight if you're expecting Land Rover to make anything worthy of the label "iconic" ever again. That takes an actual person with vision and passion, not a marketing department with some focus group/social media data. Young companies innovate; old companies iterate... Often badly.

I've ordered 2kg of soda. Think I'm going to hook it up to the welder as a power supply I'll report back!

I'm keen to try this. Would you mind doing a little write up?

Evaporust works wonders for something that's not truly evil and might kill you. Well worth buying a tub, it'll bring something like that up a treat after a good soak.

Best place to start would be measure what mpg you're actually getting. I doubt any of those mods are making it worse; the tuners usually claim to get better mpg! They're not renown for being particularly light on fuel, though. Low to mid thirties maybe? But.... Since you mention revs and transfer ratios: the Lt230 comes in 1.003, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.66:1 ratios. Best bet is get underneath and find what's actually fitted, the serial number will be stamped on the back of the case. Standard defender will be 1.4, but some people like to swap for the discovery 1.2 ratio for better cruising. I have a mate who's running a 1.66 ratio box and struggles to go over sixty in his 300tdi 110 without the world ending. Sounds like you'd benefit from a 1.2 transfer box. I used an Ashcroft kit to convert my 1.4 box to 1.003 (they're not common to find) as I'm running the original 4.7 diffs in my 109. If you really want to rebuild the transfer box it's an option, but I'd just pick up a good disco unit (though make sure it's one with the diff lock), pop some new seals in and enjoy if I were you.

Had a chap on another forum recently swear blind he'd done the timing correctly with pins etc and couldn't figure out why it was smoking like crazy. Eventually he conceded and checked the timing... One tooth out. Easily done. Ran like a charm after he got it right the second time.

The self awareness of a servo makes them much easier to work with than a straight stepper, for which you're going to have to add limit switches or suchlike. Wiring is fairly straightforward, but you will have to write a little code for the arduino whichever way you go. I can help with this if you want to play around with it. With the oem motors, if you can find a wiring diagram, there will be a way to wire and drive it, but it may take a bit of work.

You can get some quite beefy servos! I have to admit, I'd go with the cable, though...

An RC servo might be even easier as it has built in position sensing. Dead simple to drive with an Arduino.

Has it had a replacement crossmember? The originals don't have crush tubes, it's more like a wavy plate the gets welded in and curves around the holes. I believe it got/gets neglected on cheap replacements.

I gather it's in an awkward position to get to, but on other vehicles I've seen people drill a hole in the exhaust housing to pipe a little oven cleaner into, which clears the carbon sludge jamming the vanes and saves taking the turbo off. Drill and tap for a taper thread bung to seal it back up after. Whether that's any good for emission control gear downstream I couldn't vouch for, though! Can you get any more movement just working it back and forth with the wire?

Isn't this a job for a set of pitch gauges and a micrometer? I'd hazard a guess it'll be some kind of pipe thread.