Henry Webster

Where do you get agri-style HD tubes from?

Straight through centre pipe does make it quite loud, so it depends how much you want to put up with as a daily driver. Personally I would find it a bit too much, was fine on the rally car, though. Terrafirma do one.

That's pretty much what I have, 3.9 Discovery Rally Car. It is nowhere near 300 BHP, as others have said, that is pretty expensive for a Rover. Early 200 BHP is not, however and is plenty to have fun with. I have about 220, from a cam and a rebuild and with some hard driving puts us in amongst the Wildcats and in front of all but the fastest Tomcats! Here's MuddyMoo doing her thing a couple of weeks ago, on the Allisport AWDC Hillrally. https://youtu.be/CWJRIkg4wks

Thanks Boydie, sounds like a good find, can't imagine why anyone thought it would be worth the effort to build an alloy roof. Ross, you're right, 5kg is certainly not to be sniffed at when it is up that high! Bowie69, RRC is not really suitable for me as I want/need to keep it looking standard.

Wow, where do you get an alloy roof from, I would happily save 5 kilos out of my roof, but it has to be metal and not fibreglass for the regulations!

Worth mentioning that not all variants of any given wheel are the same offset. I have seen at least two possibly three different offsets of 8 Spoke doing the rounds in the UK.

Forgot an obvious one - Guy and Tom Pickford - http://wwspares.co.uk/ Local and one of the best sources of LR Series 1 parts in the country. I imagine your dad is a member of the LR Series One Club - well worth it!

Looking good! Dingocroft (High Wycombe) used to be helpful for Series 1 bits, but I haven't used them for years. Also John Craddock. Nice project - I've got the early Series 1 axle with Tracta Joints in the front of my 88". We converted mine to Railko bush, but I honsetly can't remember what was involved. H

No I didn't balance it in the end and fortunately that turned out OK, but I probably will with the next one. I used to shift at 5500 with 14CUX, but now have the rev limiter set to 6500rpm and relatively regularly hit it in the low gears. H

Hi Ole, Well worth spending some time talking to Roland at ACR. I think it is his opinion that you need bigger valves to get upwards of 250BHP. I built my earlier 3.9 (Serpentine) with a Piper Cam and the original ECU - with a careful (basically standard) build and some very light head work it made 225BHP on 14CUX and a distributor. When I decided to do away with the Dizzy I handed it to Roland. He told me that with a conversion to OMEX 710 and with a session on his Dyno that we would probably get not much more power on paper, but the driveablility would make it feel more like 250BHP. He was spot-on it is now quite a different engine, but the output is very similar in figures. Roland knows his stuff and will do everything from advice and parts to full build! Most of the UK Rover and AJV8 off road motorsport guys use him now. H

Plugs don't always recover once they have been flooded, especially on a Rover V8. The blow torch/oven tricks don't always work either. Fresh set of plugs needed! Followed by leads, followed by dizzy cap, followed by rotor arm...

I used to have a load of Procomp one-piece bushes, both poly type and standard rubber. I think I offloaded them all, but I will have a look in the garage today just in case.

I have been very impressed with the Lemforder ones that Allmakes do as their OEM equivalent. I've given them some serious stick, up to and including putting some big bends in them racing, but have never had one fail! H

The diesel racer is great, but not nearly as much fun as the V8 one...

You don't have a V8 in your collection, sounds to me like you need to rebuild it!

My only experience of 'bespoke' tyres is from the late 90's. We approached remould manufacturer Colway (no-longer exist) to build a bespoke off road motorsport tyre, similar to some found on the continent. The outcome was a variant of the diamond pattern, which itself is a variant of the BFG MT-type pattern that Colway already offered. Colway did a feasibility study, came up with some designs and then put the tyres into production. Remould therefore might be possible, but the initial outlay for the moulds is significant, I seem to remember it was between £20-£50k back then! Any manufacturer would have to be very sure that the product had a big enough market, and I expect that the niche you are exploring is sadly even smaller than the off road speed event market we were looking at back then! One of the other issues that hampered Colway then was the availability of decent carcasses to work from. 7.50+ carcasses are now pretty rare and any remoulder will struggle to get the raw material to work from. 7.50's were the first of the C-Trax Diamonds to disappear.

Yes that RR is largely D2 underneath. Other than that it is fairly similar to my Discovery. Standard type and location springs and 2.5 Milner Varidamps and anti-roll bars.

As someone who races a Discovery, I would agree with many of the comments in this thread - especially Stuck. My out and out rally car is horrible on the road, unless you are throwing it sideways at every corner, which is only something you can do when the roads are closed! It is uncomfortable, harsh, noisy, doesn't articulate all that well, but at speed in the rough is amazing. It has 2.5" Milner Varidamp dampers and standard TDi springs, but is considerably lighter than a standard car. It eats Wildcats for breakfast! I have also raced another Discovery this year which is more similar to what you are looking for (albeit a 300tdi, not a Discovery 2). In this case it has some up-rated springs, and good standard fitment remote reservoir dampers, a full set of anti-roll bars and some decent poly bushes. This is much more civilised, as basically an uprated production car, but is not nearly as good on the stages. In essence the key to making a Discovery handle is the same as any car really. Good maintenance, bushes of good quality and in good condition, the best dampers you can afford (Fox, Milner, King and heard good reports on the Terrafirma remote reservoir and Britpart remote reservoir dampers too, if you are on a budget.) and decent springs. And I love ACE on my road car. Be careful, a Discovery will never be a 'fast' road car, you can hustle them along, but there are many better starting points if you want something that goes fast on tarmac. Its what cars were invented for!

There was also a nice one at Newbury, not sure who made it. I'll have a look and see whether I have any photos. Great news that your dad's bitten the bullet. I have one that could really do with some attention, I hope one day to find some time. The bulkhead on mine now needs some serious attention, but may be salvageable!

110 front calipers are a good value upgrade. Other than that and decent pads there isn't really much wrong with LR brakes. If you are going to the extremes then the calipers are a little heavy compared to motorsport alloy items. We have regularly braked hard from 100+ mph in vehicles of up to 2 tonne with no real issues. Three or four 100-10mph stops in succession shows a bit of fade using EBC Greenstuff pads. I've got some Mintex 1144 to try now. H

I went last year too and managed four laps of the circuit before I blew the diff in my dad's Hillman Imp rally car, whoops! Was the first and last time I've driven it in 'anger'. Was really impressed as even with very little experience, we were harrying MkII Escorts through the twisty bits and clocking an easy three figures on the fast bits! On second thoughts that might have been the problem! ;-) Probably won't make it this year, but can thoroughly recommend it as a day out. If Rick Mann is doing the Comp Safari demo with his DirtStar buggy it is definitely a treat. As fast on the infield as many of the cars on the circuit - that and some incredible flying leaps!

Check the chassis - as if that is no good it is worth nothing and pointless to rebuild. Lots of cheap TD5s around with rusty chassis.

Yes it is a pity, but I'm not sure it need be the case. We won our class and were 15th overall in the Welsh Hillrally at the weekend in a Tdi Discovery that cost just a few thousand pounds! Maybe the grass roots isn't quite dead yet. Fantastic off road racing. H

We use Adams Gas from 5A's in Brize Norton - replaced our previous BOC account. http://www.5as.co.uk/

Why not build a trialer rather than a trailer!