Quagmire

I know there's a fuel "shortage" at the moment, but I doubt any Landrover product would happily run on either...

^This. When fitting the LT77 to my rover saloon, the engine and box slid together beautifully first time, I was amazed. Then I remembered I hadn't torqued the bolts that hold the bellhousing to the main body of the gearbox! Took it apart, torqued, but would it go back together again? Would it ever! Much, much huffing puffing and swearing later engine and box were finally a single unit again. Annoyed was not the word...

If you run it with the rocker covers off at idle you should see it pooling in the heads and kind of oozing out around all the rockers. Don't rev it, you will make a mess!

Have a search on the forum, this has been covered loads of times over the years. I'd probably stick with the SU's though over the Weber. The SU's will work at pretty much any angle, unlike the Weber and won't restrict anything power-wise on a 3.5. I am a multiple megasquirt user but unless you need maximum economy or power or just like wiring etc then I'd say stick with the carbs, especially if not doing many miles.

To check the rockers you can run it with the rocker covers off, but anything much above idle will make a mess as oil gets flung everywhere. For the lifters themselves I am not sure... If it was an old dizzy driven pump I might have suggested removing a couple of lifters at a time and running the pump with a drill to see what is being delivered to each lifter bore. Not sure how is best to proceed with the crank driven pump setup...

If you change one of the less useful gauges for "air density correction" this should (i think) show you how much the fuelling is being tweaked due to the ECU's perception of the air temp.

Here's what I have, I set it up a few years ago on a hot summers day. Note that this is a rover 3.5 running on MS2 with a hotwire top end in a Rover P6, and so the engine bay is a bit cramped compared to a defender! The air temp sensor is just below the passenger side headlight, immediately below where the air filter bellmouth is.

Have you got mat/CLT correction setup? I have used this to pretty good effect to combat heatsoak problems. It basically gives you a curve that allows you to tell the ECU to lean towards either the air temp or the coolant temp under various conditions.

Much as I would love a larger engine in my 90, I have a 3.5 which I love. It's a 9.35:1 lump from an SD1, that I got as a short block. I rebuilt it before fitting, which was honing, new rings, new cam, lifters, bearings etc. It got fitted with later ten bolt heads and has the cast 4-2-1 manifolds from a 3.9, and injection run by MS2 using Bosch ev6 style injectors. It runs very nicely indeed (you can't feel it idling at all), pulls well and gives me decent economy too! So i guess what I am saying is that 3.5's aren't bad at all, or don't have to be!

Would love an e39 touring!

I used to work (years and years ago) as a cashier in a bank, and there were a few dodgy people that got caught in various local branches nicking so it does happen! The Aircon would not have affected the scales, no way... I would report it, and then the body of evidence will gather against that person, as has been said above you won't be the first (or last) person that they rip off...

I have used the grease method with success, but the problem with it is that it's a bugger to clean the grease off of everything afterwards. Will use bread next time!

I used speedy cables last year for a custom cable and they were very good!

I use "Duralac green" on my old rover v8's and that works well. You can get it online, or in your local marine chandlers.

Complexity does not necessarily equate to unreliability, lexus for example produce complex vehicles too but with good reputation for reliability.