task

Thanks for the advice, as always spot on and very useful. I've chosen a S/H MA ECU for a 4.6 to tide me over for the next 6 months or so while I gather the momentum to 'squirt the Range Rover, the car never goes off-road so waterproof isn't really a aspect I need, however proper home tuning and dual spark maps certainly are I think the MS fit is something I could do over the winter, in the confines of a nice warm garage. I figured I can re-use the MA chip in one of my other 14CUX driven engines when I squirt the rangie

The switch-able maps is very appealing, I plan to do a trip down to Romania next year so having it run correctly on both fuels is a must. Another issue I get currently (on the 3.9 engine) was shunting on over-run primarily on the LPG which is a real PITA as I have a manual G-box

As I understand it RPi re-sell the Mark Adams chips, so I may be interested depending on which direction I go in, thanks

I've started to fit the worked over 4.6 engine to the Range Rover (4.6 + Stage 3 heads + cam shaft) but it's obvious that the standard EFi (14cux hotwire, no cat, no lambda) will be woefully inadequate in the long term. Now from what I can see I have two choices, get a Mark Adams ECU chip for the 14CUX or fit Megasquirt. The car currently has a LPG sequential system fitted that's integrated with the hotwire loom. The MA chip would give me a straight plug-in and go option rather than miles of re-cable (and, if I buy S/H, not break the bank) but won't do spark. Megasquirt appeals to me for the spark side of things but looks more expensive on the face of things and seems like it would be a much more drawn out process, the integration of the LPG wiring worries me. Will this be worth it?

Rover V8 or mod the 2.25 petrol? Plenty of tech out there for doing both of these and you can keep the series gearbox. A later box doesn't mean you'll need front CV's though, just mod the TX box to part-time 4wd.

I'm quite surprised your chassis took the pressure from the bottle jack...

My 98 Disco has no CATS and passes the MOT emissions with no problems as it runs on LPG as does my fathers 94 classic Overfinch on LPG. I will however face the same problem as you and had already decided to "fake" some CAT-like boxes onto the exhaust.

Two pieces of stainless steel that look an awful lot like cat's welded around the exhaust...

I just had V8 Developments re-liner my block, a little more than the price Nige quoted but I am happy with the work done, it was an easy choice for me as they pressure tested the block for me on a Saturday morning whilst I was picking up a pile of other bits so I left it with them to get the work done (crack dealt with, new top-hat liners, line bored, new cam bearings, faced block). They're nice guys to deal with.

As above, rot free and with the added parts I would price it around the 2k mark. It's certainly far too good to break!

The "intermediate" Serpentine engines were fitted to the Softdash Range Rover Classic and the 300-shape Discovery. They had the later oil-pump but also still had the distributor. I believe some "meat" was added to the main bearing caps at this stage, might be wrong. These engines also used the superior composite gaskets and the outer row of bolts were deleted from the heads. After this, the 4.0 came along fitted to the P38/Disco2 and the 4.6 in the P38 (and export Disco2). This has no distributor and a slightly different front cover to the previous serpentine engine. This is also where the larger crank diameter and cross bolting came in. From memory, so might be wrong

I used Zeus pistons when I rebuilt the calipers on the CSK, good quality. Hasn't really been on the road long enough to tell how long they last but I do know that genuine seals are the only way to go!

Surely a step as large as this was, 5mm or so, is going to be worse than a step of 1mm or less now. I would have thought such a step would introduce vortexes in the air flow? There is still more meat on the inlet manifold port than then head port so still an increase in diameter and no step down between the two.

Well, I bit the bullet and did something about this today. Mounted the heads on a spare 3.9 engine and bolted them down with some old gaskets. smeared engineers blue on the head faces; Placed the manifold on and nipped it down, then removed it and coloured the bits that need to be removed with a marker; Removed the material and checked again. I would guess it's not going to be 100% accurate, especially as it's not the final block I'll be using and the thickness of the gasket wasn't in place. I've been a little conservative in what I removed so we'll see This is where I got up to; They need cleaning up and smoothing out, then I'll attack the other side. My theory is it's got to be better than it was before I removed anything!

That had been suggested by someone else too, to do that am I right in thinking I'd need to bolt the heads down to a block (with gaskets fitted) and then fit the inlet manifold (again with a gasket)? I'd need to find some scrap gaskets, or take the heads off a spare engine I have in the shed. It would give more accurate results though. Bowie; the heads should have been cc'd to the standard capacity and I don't think they've been skimmed beyond facing them, will find out when I try to fit them though!

Thanks, I'll put some photos up in my build thread I've seen the ported inlets for sale but I would then have the same problem with the trumpet base, unless I purchased one of those too. There is quite a lot of material to pull out of the throat/mating surface, I'm not planning on chasing it all the way through to the trumpets. This manifold also has the snap-in bosses for my SGi injectors tapped, not a job I really want to risk doing on a expensive ported manifold and something that I think would be difficult if a lot of material has been removed from the inside. Marker pen is a good idea, I was using a scribe after wet/drying the surface to remove the gasket marks, marker pen will be much easier to see! I guess at the end of the day it doesn't need to be 100% accurate as anything will help to improve airflow.

Has anyone had a go at this? I have some nice cylinder heads now to go on my soon to be built 4.6 block, they've been ported/flowed, this leads to the issue that I don't have a ported/flowed inlet manifold. The method I used to try and marry the two up was as follows, cardboard template on cylinder head, knock/cut out bolt holes for inlet manifold to give a line. knock/cut out the inlet ports. Move template to inlet manifold, line up with bolt holes. This is where I lost faith in my method, having traced out on the head where the material needed to be removed from to get rid of lips on the mating surfaces I couldn't be sure it was 100% accurate! Any ideas or tips? The above shows the cylinder head I took the template from and the inlet manifold I'm transferring the port size to. Thanks

I've just seen this on a different forum, I thought a few people here might be interested (those that haven't migrated to MS yet). http://code.google.com/p/rovergauge/ Open source software to interface with the 14cux and details on how to produce a USB cable for this purpose. Might help someone

It would be nice if Land Rover could shove the TDV8 or 6 up the snout of a Defender, I know JE etc do this now but it would be nice to see Land Rover do something special before they kill it off.

Poor dog, hope he feels better soon Our pooch often comes down the garage, not so much to watch but more to chew sticks and play fetch! here she is eyeing up a nice fresh twig...

I've seen one of these in the flesh, I think it may have been in France of all places, in a car museum. It was many years ago now though.

When was the policy actually due to end? I hope they haven't sent you a letter cutting your policy short by several months! I nearly went with pickles on the Series 3 last year but Flux were a fair bit cheaper and seemed keen for the business.

Looks nice

Not very easily, it bolts to the rear wing with about 8 bolts, the bottom two would be accessible from underneath but the other four would not. this is the face it bolts too, with a spreader plate on the wing-side;

My Series V8 is running a Range Rover flywheel drilled/tapped for a Series clutch, late Series 3 box. I think it's got a diesel plate on there at the mo.