Andrew Cleland

Don't worry - I'm pretty much decided this is the way to go and even have vague approval from the management ;-) JF is busy with putting the same engine into a Pinzgauer until the New Year, so it'll be a few months yet but I promise photos and video when it's done. I'm also looking forward to next summer with the Lightweight, fully stripped down of back body, doors, windows and windscreen folded flat, with the 3.9 burbling away - I can feel a pretty minimalist exhaust going in there.... ;-)

Not too sure on the precise breakdown, as it was a fairly introductory conversation - "this is what I want to do, is it possible", "yes, not too tricky but all-in you'll be looking at the best part of £8k" type of thing. We did talk about the cost of an M57 in general and JF has had them for between £650 (ebay, fitted to his wife's P38) and £2,000 (from Equicar, top-notch condition). Once I decide whether to go-ahead we'll doubtless have a more detailed conversation on costs. Depending on what they are, I'd be prepared to go out and source engine and gearbox myself. There's a chap from Lithuania selling lots of M57s on ebay for £1k, fully dressed, but Lithuania is long way to go with a return! Getting some mates over to do the swap would be tricky as my only LR buddy went and upped-sticks to Gloucester - very inconsiderate of him. Mind you I don't think he gets too much spanner time either with 3 kids under 10. Being in Cambridge there's a bit of a shortage of Landy people around here, not like Derbyshire where I spent my first years, being driven around in a SIIA.... Cheers, Andy.

True, but as I mentioned to FF, the Landy is to last us many years so I'm after a fairly permanent solution, that's why I'm keener on going for a more efficient engine over an artificially cheap fuel; it seems a better choice in the long run. I know the issue of tax on LPG has been rumbling on for a long while, but it's fair to say that the economic climate for most of that time was a lot different from now (and if our financial controller at work, who is extremely savvy, is to be believed, it's going to get a whole lot worse in the next few years). I'm old enough to remember all the cabbies converting to LPG in the '80's, before diesel was big, and then getting their fingers burnt when the government saw a nice little earner and shoved the tax up a few 100% - lots of cabs with half their boots taken-up by an empty LPG tank. Cheers, AC.

Heh - I've long since given-up on rational economics where Land Rovers are concerned ;-) Seriously though, the Defender is a 'keeper', hopefully for many years and has already had a lot of money thrown^H^H^H^H invested in it (Galv chassis, extensive sound proofing, Scenic seats, etc.), so resale value isn't of huge concern. I probably should have been clearer - I don't get a huge amount of time to *work* on the Land Rover, *using* it is a different matter, as that is a 'family thing' and it's also a practical motor for the things that interest the boss! A tidy D2 Td5 or even a P38 has occasionally crossed my mind but it's an idea I'd have a deal of trouble selling to the family and to be honest myself as well. I'm on touchy ground here, but to me a Land Rover is a Series or a Defender (with maybe honourable status to the RRC as it was a pioneer, although arguably it set the way for the rise of the SUVs). If it were simply the case of £8k on the best car for the job, I'd just go out and get a 5 year old 530d estate and be done with it. Cheers, AndyC.

It is, and that includes all the bits. It's a project I'd love to take-on, having done a few V8s and the recent Megasquirting, but with a young family every hour of Land Rovering is subject to 'negotiations'* and even then tends to end-up under a cloud, it *really* wouldn't be a good idea to go the DIY route, IFYSWIM. AC. * - take heed the young & free - I remember reading posts from people who couldn't get time-out to work on their Landy and thinking "that would never happen to me"......

Just to follow-up. I spoke to Jeremy Fearn yesterday, friendly bloke, about the BMW diesels. The good news is that it's not hugely tricky - I'd need to swap the LT85 for an R380, the flywheel needs a mod, the gearbox needs an adaptor ring and then things like the rad need changing to one with an intercooler. For me the big surprise is that the electronics aren't tricky - the M57 (as opposed to the later N57/M57N) is pretty self-contained and uses DDE4. The latter N57 units do need to talk the gearbox and the likes, which is more complex. It is also an immensely strong engine, depending on tune & turbos it comes in anything from 181bhp/290ftlb to 282bhp/430ftlb - I'd be looking at the lower-end, so plenty in reserve. The bad news is, as I'd expected, the cost - engine, gearbox, other bits and labour will come to close on £8k, which as Jeremy pointed out, is a lot of petrol. It's also not hugely more than putting in a Td5, which would involve a lot of changes in itself LPG would still seem the most obvious route, assuming it stays cheap, which I'm not convinced it will. I'll have to give it a deal of thought, but the idea of 3l 24v turbodiesel 110 does appeal (as does sticking the 3.9i V8 into the Lightweight).... ;-) AC.

Thanks all for the replies - seem interesting ideas there. LPG had been my original intention and I've built/installed the Megasquirt with the options for a 2nd fuel and ignition map switched at the dashboard. What's pointing me in the diesel direction is both having a good home for the Megasquirted V8 in the Lightweight and a bit of concern that LPG is only cheap 'cos the tax is low and I wouldn't want to bet too much on that being the case in a few years time (and knowing my luck, as soon as I'd fitted a gas kit, the chancellor would get busy...). I've e-mailed Jeremy Fearn to see what he suggests and will do some digging around the BMW boards. Otherwise it'll probably be a Td5 and some mods for few more horses. Cheers, AndyC. P.S. I see I've been moved to the Defender forum - I wasn't sure which to choose but figured that there's plenty of diesel knowledge in the Disco/RR people as well, so I went for the catch-all International forum. P.P.S. Husqvarna all the way, 357XP, 18" bar, bwaaarppp, bwaaarppp ;-)

I know this has probably been asked a thousand times before, but it's kind-of a fun question to ponder and one on which I'm sure there are as many opinions as choices and opinions are fun... The situation at the moment is I have two Landys: 1993 110 Stationwagon with 3.9i V8, slightly 'built' with +20 oversized pistons, skimmed heads, Crower 229 cam, ARP main and head studs, Megasquirt + EDIS injection/ignition and a vaguely performance SS stainless exhaust system. This is our 'medium-range holiday' truck, mainly for winter & summer trips to Italy (Italian wife) and is done-up quite nicely inside, carpets, good soundproofing, Renault Scenic seats etc. The only problem with this is, despite all my best efforts, it still costs over £500 in petrol for the 2,000 miles to Italy and back. LPG is next on the list, maybe. 1979 S3 Lightweight with a 3.5V8, LT95 from a Range Rover, short bell-housing and input shaft from a 101FC, custom prop shafts and Stage 1 front and rear axles. Basically it's a V8 Lightweight that looks absolutely stock from the outside. It was on twin SUs, but I bought an Edelbrock manifold and Weber 350cfm carb in the States a few years back. Ignition is a Mallory dual-point dizzy. What's actually happened is the Lightweight has sat in a rented garage for the past 4 years half in-bits for when I get time to fix it all together. Now the bloke who owns the garage is selling-up to developers, so I have 28 days to get the Lightweight towable and to move it somewhere for the time being. This is inevitably going to raise questions about 'what should happen to it' from other parties (if you know what I mean...). Now I'm not really prepared to sell either Landy, but I'm also starting to realise that maybe the V8 wasn't the best choice for a vehicle doing a couple of 2,000 mile trips every year, as the 110 should be doing. On top of this my experience with Megasquirting the 110 has put me off carbs and dizzys for good - just seeing the timing sit rock-steady at 10deg. BTDC at idle with the EDIS is worth all the hassle. So, I'm now thinking of pulling the 3.9i from the 110 and putting it into the Lightweight and then selling the old 3.5 short engine for whatever little it's worth on ebay. Putting the 3.9 into the Lightweight, which is basically a toy, means that I don't need to worry about the fuel bills for long trips and can play around with more V8 mods that wouldn't be so suited on the 110, like flowed cylinder heads and maybe even methanol fueling. This leaves the 110 without an engine, which is probably a good time to admit that maybe a diesel would be a better choice for it, but what diesel? As I see it, the options are: 200/300Tdi - plus points are easy to get hold off, standard fit in a 110, so easy(-ish) to fit. Minus points are old tech (i.e. mechanical pump timing, an ECU can do better) and not too clean, nor that powerful - the journey to Italy involves a few hours of motorway work through either Northern France or Belgium, then nicer A roads and B roads through Germany/Switzerland/Austria and a couple of mountain passes (normally the Brenner) into Italy. Reasonably un-stressed cruising at 65-70 is necessary for the motorways and not being a rolling blockade on a mountain pass is also nice. Td5 - plus points are more power than the Tdi (or the potential for more, seems quite common to tweak them) and more refined, again should be not too tricky to fit. Minus points are possible reliability with oil-in-the-loom and they seem pretty expensive at a quick look on ebay. BMW i6 diesel, M57 3.0 - we had a 530d a few years back and this is a nice engine which manages the heavier X5 no problem. It should be doable to fit into a 110 as Land Rover stuck a M52 petrol in the South African 110, which I think shares a very similar block, and the earlier 2.5TDS was in the P38, again I think the block is common. The major concern I think would be the electronics, these probably aren't stand-alone engines and will want to talk to all sorts of ECUs to do with gearing etc. One thought was mixing and matching a P38 transfer case onto an X5 engine and autobox. I have a feeling though that this could get complicated/expensive. Has anyone gone this route? GM V8 diesel - i.e. the 6.2 or 6.5. Though about this, but it would probably be as much work as the M57 and for less overall result, probably doesn't drink much less than the 3.9. I'm leaning towards the Td5, although the M57 would be nice, I think it's probably too much for my limited free-time more than anything else, although it's possibly something I could see myself paying someone to do, if there are people who do this, Jeremy Fearn maybe. One thing I will probably also need to look at is the gearbox - currently an LT85, I don't think this was ever bolted to a diesel engine by Land Rover. The 110 has recent Marsland chassis with the R380-type bolt-in cross-member, so I shall probably need to look at swapping to either an R380 or maybe an autobox as well. I know that whatever route I take will cost as much as lot of fuel for the V8, but somehow spending the money on 'things' rather than petrol seems more sensible... Thoughts? Cheers, Andy.

I just went for my first MS & EDIS drive today, so the experience is fresh in my head! Mainly it's what the other two said! Don't bother trying to make a bracket for the VR sensor unless you really want to - one of Nige's or similar from triggerwheels.com will do fine. Likewise get a lambda boss from either Nige or ebay for not much money and weld (it's an easy weld, even I could do it) or get it welded in. Likewise the coilpack brackets - any day now Nige will have them dialled-in and for the sake of £40 odd quid you'll be saving yourself a lot of grief. Not sure about the details with the 3.5 plenum, but you have an extra air valve I think, you can use the plumbing for this for the idle valve (Bosch, ebay) - you shouldn't need to have any machining done. One thing to think about quite early on is all the wiring involved. This is a lot easier to do when the top of the engine is apart, so you can get into the injectors easily. If you plan to build the loom from scratch (which I think is worth doing - a flapper age loom is going to be pretty hard by now), you'll need about 12 2-pin Junior Power Timer connectors, lots of heat shrink sleeving, lots of loom tape or sleeving and plenty of zip ties or insulating tape. Polevolt (www.polevolt.co.uk) and VWP (wwww.vehicle-wiring-products.eu) are good for connectors and cable respectively. Take lots of notes when you make-up the looms! If you've done *any* electronics in the past you can also build your own MS from kit. The instructions on the web are very detailed and take you through step-by-step. I was wary as I've never built anything with a microprocessor, only amplifiers and the likes when I was younger, but it's not tricky, doesn't take too long (less than a day) and really helps you understand how the MS works. The kit from Nige has everything you need, all nicely bagged and labelled. The only thing I added were sockets for the other 'chips' - serial driver, optoisolator, op-amp and MOSFET driver - pennies from Maplin or RS. Overall my experience of Megasquirting and EDISing the 110, a 3.9 hotwire V8, is that whilst none of it's particularly tricky, there is so much going on and so many little things to think about that, unless you have *a lot* of spare time, getting things like brackets ready-made is worth doing. With £400 in the pot and most of the EDIS kit already you've got easily enough for all the MS gubbins. Have fun - it's a great feeling when it all fires-up! AndyC.

The sleeper has awoken! After three and a bit days effort (not including half a morning fannying around getting all the overnight rain out of the cylinders <grrr>) and two false starts the engine fired up on MS/EDIS this evening :-) A few photos for your delights: Fitting the trigger wheel to the crank pulley. I had to take the front of the engine apart to fit the new cam, which made doing the trigger wheel and the VR sensor a lot less of a struggle. The observent will notice deliberate mistake false start one - for some reason I had it in my head that the engine turned counter-clockwise, so the missing tooth is 5 teeth the wrong side of the VR sensor. I worked this out after trying to start the engine with EDIS in limp-home mode & hotwire injection and getting nowhere. One bit of advice for anyone fitting a trigger wheel is to have a cheap (i.e. thin walled) 13mm box spanner to undo the bolts that hold the pulley assembly together - there's a lip inside the pulley which makes clearance too tight to get a socket in but a skinny box key will fit and the 12mm end can be turned with a 15mm socket over the outside. Looms all finished and ready to go. The biggy on the left is the engine harness, the smaller one is the EDIS harness, there's also a small power/dashboard/lambda harness, but it wasn't able to be there for the photo. The EDIS harness is covered in braided polyester sleeving, which I would use in preference to loom tape in the future - easier to use and more flexible. The two spare loops of wire in the engine harness are for a remote MAP sensor (so all the connections back to the ECUs are electrical and the ECU case will be fully sealed) and signal/power for LPG valve blocks in the future. The MS and EDIS along with fuses and relays mounted on a sheet of (badly) bent ally. The wiring isn't quite as a gash as it looks here, honest! Once it's all up and running all these gubbins are going to go into a diecast ally box in the battery compartment, then it'll just be a case of undoing the three multiplugs and four thumbscrews to take out the whole ECU assembly. The second snag was getting the PIP and SAW wires back-to-front. Once I looked in the log and saw no rpm signal, and knowing that the EDIS worked and the MS saw rpms from the stim, it was fairly easier to track the problem down to something between the two units. I haven't plumbed in the idle air valve yet, mainly because the hose between the plenum and the throttle body is too small to fit over the volvo/bosch idle valve fittings, so I'll need to look into that. Would 3/4" heater hose be rigid enough for this job? As such the engine idles at about 1400rpm when it's warming-up and this goes up to 1900rpm once the idle enrich light goes out. I'm not sure if this right, but until the idle valve is in, I'm not going to think about it too much. Another thing which I'm not sure if it's right or not is FIdle/Spark light in Megatune flashes on and off a lot, as does the Output1/Boost light - should it do this? Cheers, AndyC.

Where would we be with Landrover Venezuela eh! They do seem to pop-up in every Google search for a part. AC

Cheers Ralph, but that's the same problem as I'm getting with Microcat - the part number is coming up as ERR20 which doesn't seem to exist, and seems very short for a LR part number, which makes me think that someone missed a digit or two off the end... Andrew.

I'm after a little hose connector for the ram housing on my 3.9. It's one of the ones on the opposite side from the throttle plate, next to the take-off for the brake servo. This one threads into the ram housing and has a little bush to take a 3mm (or maybe 4mm) bore pipe pushed-on. Microcat seems to think it's ERR20, but that part number seems to be short a couple of digits and comes-up blank with Google. Does anyone know the right part number or even better have one they'd be willing to part with in exchange for some cash? Cheers, AndyC.

In the end I called Magnecor who were perfectly happy to re-terminate my existing leads with EDIS coil pack connectors for £30. Sent the leads off on Tuesday, got them back 4 days later with new EDIS connectors and they'd even cleaned the leads and plug boots. Pretty good service I thought. AC. P.S. I'm sure the Fastlane ones are fine as well, but as I had a less-than-year-old set of Magnecors...

Thanks FF - that doesn't look too tricky. All this talk of 2N2222s and 1N1004s takes me back to a misspent youth - only need the good old BFY51 to really get going! ;-) Cheers, AndyC

Tomorrow morning I drop the family off at Stansted, which gives me Friday (day off), Saturday and Sunday to get the MS installed. Oh, and a new camshaft as well - Friday should see the cam in and the engine (hopefully) running with the new cam and the old Lucas injection/ignition before I start on the MS. Nothing like being optimistic with timings but the window of opportunity (family away) is small... The unit is built and just about cleaned-up of thermal grease which my PCB cleaner spray decided to spread all over the board - grrrr. I'll be mounting the MS, EDIS, relays, fuses and other wiring bits onto a bit of ally sheet in the battery box, with all the wires to the engine coming out on three (engine, power, edis) AMP CPC connectors, so the whole MS/EDIS unit can be taken out and put back in by undoing three plugs and four thumbscrews. That's the idea at least. Eventually when it's all working I'll swap the ally sheet for a sealed diecast box, but they're quite pricey when you get up to the size you'd need, so one thing at a time. I've also added wires to the loom for valve blocks when I fit LPG in the future & separate wiring for each injector should I feel the urge to go sequential or Cadillac NorthStar-style '4 cylinder economy mode' if it can be done with MS. A couple of photos to give Nige palpitations in the mean time - the wiring looms made-up and the connectors all wired-up. The 'engine ends' of all the wires are free with slack, so they can be cut to length, taped and terminated in situ. I like wiring me :-) I've been looking around without much luck, so can anyone point me to information on adding cooling fan control and table switching to the MS - I can find how to wire the MS to the engine on the extraefi.co.uk pages, but not how to modify the ECU for these two items? Cheers, AndyC.

Not built or installed my MS yet, but would be interested in this, once I've got the thing working & tuned. I have (OK, work has, but I control....) an iPad as well as a 3G iPhone & iPod Touch. Cheers, AC.

Alternatively, if you plan to keep the Rangie for a while and the engine is otherwise good, it can be worth going the route of getting the block redone with top-hat liners. That way you'll know you're not going to have that problem again, whereas with a replacement block you could be looking at the same problem again in a few months/years and the cost of pulling the engine, rebuilding it and putting the new one back in isn't so far off a top-hat job. If you do get a replacement block, you should try to look out for one with a dab of red paint in the valley - this was after Land Rover realised the problem and started cherry-picking the best castings for the 4.6. The problem was (or at least one theory on it is) that the block is pretty much on it's limit at 94mm bore diameter (cf. 89mm on the 3.5) so any block where the bores are cast slightly off-centre leads to very little metal between the water jacket and the liner, which combined with the crazy high coolant temperature Land Rover choose for the 4.6 (to lower emissions) led to the problems with coolant getting into the heads.

I should have spotted this before seeing as I can pretty much draw the 14CUX circuit diagram from my head, but somehow I'd missed that both the vehicle speed sensor and the throttle position sensor wires going into the multiplug are yellow. One goes to pin 3 and one to pin 6, but obviously if you find a yellow wire in the loom to the multiplug and splice your vehicle speed sensor into it, and it's actually the TPS signal wire, strange things happen....

Cheers Nige. I'd pretty much decided to put it in the straight as getting the Y piece out is just too awful to contemplate. So far as welding I was going with a stainless boss into a stainless tube with mild steel wire - no idea if it'll work but if I can get away without buying a reel of stainless wire I'll be happy ;-) Andy.

Just been crawling around under the 110 looking at the exhaust with a view to welding in the boss for the lambda sensor. The exhaust is a Double-S 'sports' system (which vaguely fits without fouling too many bits of the chassis...), 4 into 1 headers then a Y pipe into a single 3" pipe. Fitting the lambda sensor into the Y is virtually impossible due to the way the Y is made with a welded seam right through the centreline of where the boss would go. Putting the sensor just aft of the Y is an option but access is very tricky and taking apart the system would be a right ar$e, not least because it's wrapped in exhaust insulation. About 3" further back down the system (about in-line with the handbrake drum) and the Y joins to a section of straight pipe which would be really easy to take out and weld the boss into. Bearing in-mind that I'll be using a 4 wire heated sensor, is this too far back down the system for valid readings? I think it should be fine as it's still quite a few feet and a silencer from the end of the pipe and the sensor heater, along with the exhaust lagging, means things should still be hot enough at that stage. Any thoughts? Cheers, Andy.

Thanks guys - I shall go visit the scrappy for a 2-wire valve and see about some Fastlane leads. Earthing and EDIS module as planned then. AC.

Afternoon all, I've decided to bite the bullet and shift the 110 3.9 V8 over to Megasquirt and EDIS this summer, it's currently on Lucas Hotwire with a dizzy. The original reason was to get rid of the dizzy and sort out the timing which is wondering like a drunk dog at the moment. On top of that the exhaust is now starting to smell pretty rich and the idle has a habit of creeping up to around 1,200rpm, so rather than p*ss around with the Lucas trickery, it's all change. The engine is a pretty stock 3.9 V8, rebuilt last year with a +010thou rebore, mains and heads studs, new valve train etc. The only slightly fruity things are a Crower 50229 cam and a Double-S sports exhaust and tubular manifolds. I've been PM'ing with Nige, who is sorting me out with the MS kit and various EDIS bits, so that's all fine, but rather than keep bombarding him with questions I thought I'd post these to give someone else a chance ;-) 1. Idle Air Valve. I have a 3-wire Bosch valve from a 4.6 Thor engine, but looking at the way MS handles this, with a 50W resistor to earth, I think a 2-wire valve that uses a spring instead of a second coil would be less trouble. Does anyone have experience of the 3-wire valve? Is it worth ebaying it and getting a 2-wire one? 2. Plug leads. I've got a set of Magnacore blue leads on the dizzy - can they be re-terminated or adapted to fit the EDIS coil packs? 3. Grounds. I get the impression the best practise is to ground everything to a common point. The MS manuals talk about the engine block, but is it better to go back to the battery negative? My MS will live next to the battery, fuses and relays, so easy enough to do. 4. EDIS module. I'm thinking that the VR signal is probably the weakest, so I was going to locate the EDIS module in the engine bay near to the VR sensor and run screened cable to the MS for the PIP/SAW or is better to run a longer cable from the VR to the EDIS and then short cables from EDIS to MS? I've drawn a wiring diagram, attached, which I think shows everything (MS, EDIS, extra controls for the cooling fan, table switching for when I get LPG and an output for the tacho). The colours are a mix of MS and Lucas 14CUX, although I intend to replace all the wiring with new thinwall cable from VWP. Cheers, Andrew. Edit to add: I'm probably going to do down the line of building the MS from kit, I've done a fair bit of electronics in the past, so it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Does anyone though have a Megastim/Jimstim they'd be interested in lending/renting for a week or two? Cheers, AC.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I should be happy that it looks more like accidental damage than deliberate - I haven't pi**ed off anyone too much. Our neighbour has a Merc ML500 AMG with intact tyres, so I figured it wasn't a 4x4 hater. Bit unimpressed that kerbing or somesuch should do that to the tyre - back to BFG's I reckon. Cheers, AndyC.

Went out to the Defender this morning and immediately spotted this: Judging by the shiny whiteness of the reinforcing it's pretty recent. We were driving around yesterday and I can't say I noticed it then. Anyhow, does this look like the sort of damage that could occur from driving around the streets of Cambridge or is it the work of some to$$er and a Stanley knife? Either way, it's annoying as the tyre is less than 6 months old (a Kumho Road Venture, 265/75r16 btw). Cheers, Andy C.