V6 Converted 90's

[BigToze]

Hi guys,

First post here after signing up a while back.

I own an old 90 that was previously a 2.5 N/A diesel and was converted by a previous owner to an Essex V6 using some Steve Parker conversion parts.

The engine is running fine however as my circumstances have changed I'm having to consider swapping it back to a diesel unit, probably a 200tdi.

I have emailed Steve Parker to confirm some bits about the conversion and he has mentioned that new mounts are welded in further back along the chassis rails and the originals discarded.

My question if anybody knows of course... Can I buy replacement engine mounts to have them welded back in to the original location on the chassis rails?

I have had a look around a few websites and seem to be able to find suspension mountings, outriggers etc but no engine mountings.

Cheers!

[discomikey]

Try Richards or marshland chassis, they probably don't advertise selling them but they will have the mounts available as I know for at least with marshlands they buy genuine chassis off the same supplier to LR and weld mounts on themselves to suit the drive train you spec.

Basically they may be able to sell you a set of just the chassis mounts, and supply you with the measurements too.

[ballcock]

If you are buying a second hand engine get the engine mounts from the donor in the deal.

[=jon=]

Nooo - don't do it Adam!!

[Anderzander]

I bought (and haven't used!) a pair of the weld on engine mounts for a 2.25 petrol to fit a 200tdi into my series, and they were from Designachassis.

[reb78]

Nooo - don't do it Adam!!

What he said^^^^^

[BigToze]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll give Richards, Marshlands and Designachassis a go I think.

Nooo - don't do it Adam!!

What he said^^^^^

Morning Jon! Hope the 110 is still going well.

I really don't want to but the other half is forcing me to sell my other car and run only the 90 .

She wants her wedding paid for .

[need4speed]

I wondered if that was yours Jon Hope to see you on Sunday..

To the OP - please keep the V6. You will seriously regret putting the coal burner in its place...

[reb78]

To be honest, the mpg figures Jon gave me when i enquired about this 90 weren't that far off of what most people realistically achieve with a tdi. Factor in the cost of getting the tdi and the conversion and i doubt you will save much. (assuming that's your motivation for it)

[Chicken Drumstick]

I 2nd, or 3rd the don't.

Tdi's are nice enough lumps (I own two!!!). But they really aren't all that powerful, not even when tuned. And mpg is really not that great.

Obviously it will depend how you drive, but expect in a Defender 24-27mpg from a manual Tdi. A heavy right foot and/or big tyres can easily knock them down to 22mpg. In a Disco if you drive very carefully (they are more aero dynamic) you can get 30'ish mpg. But I think it is unlikely that you could realistically 'average' this in a Defender.

On the flip side, I don't know what the Essex does on fuel, but suspect it must be similar to a Rover V8. A 4.6 RV8 in a p38a with an autobox will fairly easily do 20-21mpg on a run. And 18-19mpg running around if you aren't silly with the right foot. And that's a factory setup.

So it really comes down to how many miles you think you'll be doing a month.

I'm not sure what price fuel is currently. But I think I saw 95RON and diesel at the same price, 116.9p/litre the other day.

Using my fuel cal spreadsheet. 8000 miles a year works out to be:

-18mpg petrol = £197/month

-25mpg diesel = £142/month

There is a saving of course. And over a year it adds up, but monthly it's maybe not such a huge difference.

If you do less than 8000 miles a year. Then the difference will be even smaller.

[BigToze]

My main motivation was as you say, fuel economy. I average around 13mpg on my drive to work .

I'm fine with that for now but I also have a more economical car for most of the week which will soon be gone. On a run it's much better than that though and will do around 17mpg which from reading appears to be similar to what the original 2.5 N/A would have done?

The idea with this 90 now is to keep it long term as a daily drive and using it for holidays etc so milage would be anything between 3-6k a year or possibly more depending on where we go!

I do love the noise it makes though and the cabin is quieter than any of the TDI 90's I test drove before I bought this. Plenty of grunt offroad too and seems to cope easier than a friends 300tdi at times (I'm sure the huge BFG mud tyres help that too hah).

[Retroanaconda]

I would agree that it is worth looking at the actual savings over time compared to cost/hassle of fitting the Tdi, assuming as above that is the reason for the change. However a Tdi in a 'normal' 90 (i.e. not some off-road kitted thing with silly tyres) should return an average of at least 30 mpg, maybe 28-29 if you drive in towns all day.

Then again there are so many factors that can affect MPG that the only thing you can be sure of is that it will get more than the V6 - but by how much though...?

[Chicken Drumstick]

However a Tdi in a 'normal' 90 (i.e. not some off-road kitted thing with silly tyres) should return an average of at least 30 mpg, maybe 28-29 if you drive in towns all day.

Lots of things can affect mpg I agree, such as driving style and types of roads you drive on. But the only time I've ever seen anyone 'average' 30mpg in a Tdi Defender is when they:

-lie

-or make a calculation error

Not saying this is the case and I'm not calling you a liar.

But I do struggle to believe claims of "average of at least 30 mpg". It is far more likely that you are either covering less miles than you think, or putting in more fuel than you reckon you are.

I base this on having studied the mpg of vehicles I've owned, used and those of family and friends. As a family we've owned in the region of 50+ Land Rover's. Many of them Tdi's.

[need4speed]

Another thing you can't ignore (whether you want to or not) is the fact that smiles per mile is often far better than miles per gallon..

At least that's my reasoning for a 4.6 v8

[Retroanaconda]

I understand what you mean CD, but it is calculated using an app called Road Trip on my phone so there is little scope for error. Mileage is captured from odometer readings at each fill up (corrected -4% for tyre size against GPS). Fuel quantity obviously off the pumps themselves.

Over the last 14,300 miles (6 months) mine has averaged 30.08 mpg. The last 3 months have been even better, averaging 31.12 mpg over 6,500 miles.

[Yostumpy]

110 300tdi

http://www.fuelly.com/car/land_rover/defender_110/1998/yostumpy/112214

29.7mpg ..................79 fill ups.

[=jon=]

If it was me, I'd prob look at ways to keep it - as said smiles per mile is a factor and it makes such a lovely noise! A TDI at motorway speed isn't a quiet place to be, I'd get another ride in one before you commit to a swap!

It's already got electronic points, so the timing side should be reasonably OK, but you may be able to get a bit more efficiency from playing with the standard settings.

Carb wise - I put it back to standard jets when I got it, as it was all over the shop before. If you know someone with a wideband lambda probe you could probably get quite a bit back by tweaking the jets / tubes etc. Obviously the best solution would be to go to EFI - TSD on here reckoned he could get 20ish MPG on a run with his v6 hybrid on full on off road tyres, which is quite an improvement...

Tyres - I'm not sure how much you could save going for road biased tyres vs. the BFG MT's that are on it?

I'm not sure if you could get an LPG tank in it - maybe between the arch boxes in the back? Then you are realistically looking at close to doubling the petrol consumption - I get the equivalent of 25MPG out of a v8 auto 110. The LPG kit would cost you a similar amount to doing a TDI swap (less if you can do most of it yourself or get a second hand kit), you retain the V6 then as well...

[Chicken Drumstick]

110 300tdi

http://www.fuelly.com/car/land_rover/defender_110/1998/yostumpy/112214

29.7mpg ..................79 fill ups.

Sorry, but that's not all that meaningful. Point of fact...

84 fill ups and 23mpg, also from a Tdi 110:

http://www.fuelly.com/car/land_rover/defender_110/1998/terratiger110/81753

So who's right? 30+ or 23mpg????

Neither really.

Fuelly can be fun to give you a "range" of expected mpg. But there are no standards that the data adheres too, so is far from accurate. And there is too much risk of error being introduced by individuals. So the HIGHS and the LOWS shown on fuelly are more likely due to other circumstances than a real world average that will be useful to anyone else.

Now it may be that you drive very very gently - all the time. Or it might be your ODO is wrong and you are doing 10% less miles than you think you are. Really wouldn't be uncommon on a Land Rover. Especially if you are running a different size tyre.

So lets hypothesise.

Last fill from Fuelly: 79 29/05/2015 254.00 (miles) 38.149 (litres) 30.27(mpg)

On a side note, it's odd the litres are always 3 decimal, when most petrol stations only record to 2 decimal places. And the miles are all rounded always being .00 for every fill up. Not that this is likely to make a huge difference.

But anyhow, lets assume a 10% error. 10% of 254 miles is 25.4, which brings the total down to to 228.6 miles. For which it would have been the same 38.149 litres fill up. (This of course makes the huge assumption you reset the trip at the last fill up and that you started with a full tank and have now filled it to the same level. An assumption that could easily vary by half a litre or more depending on which petrol station you might use and it's auto shut off point).

38.149 / 4.546 = 8.392 gallons.

228.6 / 8.392 = 27.2mpg.

I'm not saying this is the case, but I suspect it's nearer the truth than most people who claim high mpg's would like it to be.

[Chicken Drumstick]

I understand what you mean CD, but it is calculated using an app called Road Trip on my phone so there is little scope for error. Mileage is captured from odometer readings at each fill up (corrected -4% for tyre size against GPS). Fuel quantity obviously off the pumps themselves.

Over the last 14,300 miles (6 months) mine has averaged 30.08 mpg. The last 3 months have been even better, averaging 31.12 mpg over 6,500 miles.

In that case, it does sound like you are covering the bases to get an accurate figure. Although it would appear that you likely drive an economical route combined with smooth economical driving. This is great to show what can be achieved, but is probably misleading if average Jo thinks they can jump in any Tdi and attain this.

Point in case. In my daily driver, I have been able to get the tank average from 38mpg to 67mpg as a low/high. But neither are realistic claims for daily driving under normal commuting traffic. What is really needed is a MODE average someone is likely to get without the need to try and drive it in the most economical way. Location and roads will still affect this figure, but you'll have something more useful to work with overall.

Which is why I stand by my earlier claim of 25-27mpg average for a manual Tdi Defender.

If you go into a project such as a Tdi swap on the sole basis you believe you'll get 30mpg minimum and base all your projected fuel costs on this mpg level. You'd be bitterly disappointed if you only then managed 25mpg.

If you start of budgeting against 25mpg and it does better than this, then it's smiles all round

EDIT:

BTW I notice you've said 14,300 miles in 6 months. So looking at 28,600 miles a year. That's a lot of miles. I suspect most of these must be motorway? So cruising at 55-65mph on the motor all the time for literally the entire tank, yes I can see 30mpg being more realistic.

[Retroanaconda]

Absolutely, I would agree with your methodology - when I am calculating travel costs for trips etc. I tend to work on 25 mpg anyway and then as you say if I end up doing more then it's a bonus. Allows for bad traffic, town/city driving, trailer towing etc. to bring down the average. Though I've done a fair bit of long distance towing in the last two years (moving contents of my workshop from Sussex to Scotland) with a reasonably large (2.6 tonne) trailer and it still managed an average of about 26 mpg which I was quite pleased with. My high point over the 45,000 miles I have recorded in the app is just over 35 mpg and the low 24 mpg so far, so there's quite a range.

You also make a good point regarding the error margins. I am fairly happy my mileage is pretty accurate as the app uses the tyre-corrected odometer not the trip so is unaffected by forgetting to reset it or battery being disconnected etc. The accuracy of the fuel pumps is less of a certainty however, I try to fill to the same point each time but the reality is that the pumps in different stations are unlikely to all be calibrated the same. I would say that an error margin of half a litre either way is not a bad shout, and this would have a noticeable impact on the MPG. Of course I am filling the car several times a week and at a wide variety of petrol stations (as I get about all across South Scotland and so just fill up wherever I am when I run low) so I would hope that over my mileage those errors will roughly balance out.

I do a lot of miles yes, but not a great deal on the motorway (other than trips down south and back). Probably 15-20% motorway driving at a most I'd say, the rest is a right mixture of open country roads, windy hill roads, in-forest gravel tracks, and of course towing, green laning trips etc. Not a great deal of in-town mileage, I'd be lucky to do 100 miles a month of town driving I think. The type of driving has a huge effect.

The modal average is a good point, might try and work that out tonight out of interest!

[discomikey]

Obviously it will depend how you drive, but expect in a Defender 24-27mpg from a manual Tdi. A heavy right foot and/or big tyres can easily knock them down to 22mpg. In a Disco if you drive very carefully (they are more aero dynamic) you can get 30'ish mpg. But I think it is unlikely that you could realistically 'average' this in a Defender.

I regularly calculate my MPG, returning on average around 32MPG (that isn't slow driving)

Its a series (weighing in at 1720kg including driver), so i would say on par with what a defender 90 could achieve

I returned 29.7MPG whilst doing an empty pull derbyshire-S****horpe and then returning laden with a freelander and 300KG of ballast

i have managed 32MPG whilst towing over the holm summit (unladen) too.

I suspect it has something to do with my particular set-up and driving style, but its not impossible. I also think if my 200 was less tuned it would be worse on fuel!

Edit: i have in the past managed to get it as low as 18MPG, That was a full on day of towing on the limit around the peak district to a deadline!

[BigToze]

Well, me and the better half have had a read through everybodys comments and she has done some more maths (not me this time).

Assuming I always get 13mpg everywhere in the V6 and 20mpg in a TDI (seems to be a safe number to go by based on various threads & posts I've read) I'll only be saving around £400 a year.

So it's obviously not worth it really even in the long term. We did around 50 miles in it this weekend, mainly pottering about but the smiles per gallon far outweigh any potential savings.

After thinking it through thorougly it'll be put on hold for the foseable future.

Thank you for your input anyway!

[need4speed]

Rest assured you have made the correct decision..

[TSD]

Keeping the Essex is definitely the right decision (*), but either megasquirt it or get it properly tuned. I'm sure I was getting high teens on the Weber, and well into the 20s running efi.

I do remember that with EDIS ignition on the 3.1 in my 88" coiler, I had more power, better economy, and lower emmisions than Ford claimed for the Capri RS3100.

(*) - unless you fancy the low mileage 24v V6 Cosworth I have in theback of my shed.

[BigToze]

We haven't really thought about going to megasquirt with the 90. It's always seemed to be a bit beyond my capabilities so it's a non starter from a DIY perspective.

I have seen the (possibly your website TSD) EP90 hybrid site with what looks like a decent amount of information but I never read a huge amount of it.

I may just try and find somebody that is pretty good with Essex engines to see if they can do anything with it but the issue is finding somebody close enough really.