Why isn't there... an AJV8 conversion kit?

[landroversforever]

The om606 isn't exactly a modern diesel it has to be said. The ecu is only controlling a mechanical infection pump, it's not an ecu like there is in a puma or a td5.

Talking of ECUs.... That's where the hideous cost comes if you're looking at stuff like the tdv6. I was looking at the 3.0 tdv6 and auto box. That would have run to 5 figures to fit (I will add, the cost wasn't the reason the conversion didn't happen). Until something like mega squirt is available for modern ecu controlled diesels, then I don't see many conversions like that happening.

The jag v8 is hardly going to be a cheap conversion by the time you've factored all the costs in. For majority of people buying and breaking a p38 will yield more than enough power.

[landroversforever]

I can tell you right now that being German is no guarantee of reliability.

I have a good friend that runs an independent garage specialising in BMW. Every time I go to visit there are engines and gearboxes lying like exploded cigars all over the place lol

And the number of broken down modern VW golfs I've seen by the side of the road in the road in the last couple of years!

[need4speed]

And on the flip side I stripped an old ford pinto down many moons ago that had done over 100k bigs and mains were near perfect. However it needed rings and camshaft etc.

The point is this: if you buy a used engine that has relatively high miles, the least you are going to do is have a look at the bigs and mains etc. And if it's down that far it seems sacrilegious not to renew 'em while your there...

[smallfry]

Well, heres my tuppence worth..............

As I DO NOT want a diesel, I am using an old Lexus 1UZFE, and although some of you might laugh at this, but it is for economy. Not only fuel economy, but economy of the conversion AND operation too.

I would put money on it that I will never have to strip it down. Whereas with a used Rover engine it will likely have a f******d camshaft, followers and timing gear, plus rockers and shafts, and then if its a big bore unit it will be more than 50% likely that you will have block/liner problems too................just not worth it nowadays IMO

Then, in my experience, if its highly tuned, likely it will not last THAT long before you have problems with it.

And then theres the fuel consumption...................Again I would put money on it that I will get 30% or even 40% more MPG, and I would think that would go for the Jag unit too

[need4speed]

In fairness to the OP I would love to hear of a way to transplant the AJV8 except it would be the supercharged XJR/RRS version..

I know there is a company doing it (can't be arsed looking up who it is right now) but they charge a fortune and no doubt wouldn't give you any details/measurements etc of what's involved..

Edit: Just remembered its JE Engineering that fits the Jag.

[FridgeFreezer]

Perhaps the big bucks, or the big win, would be to put your thinking hat on and develop a megasquirt alike ecu that can control modern diesels. It's been the most requested thing on the megasquirt project for the last 10 years at least, and many people have looked into it...

I suspect one of the biggest stumbling blocks is being willing to sacrifice an engine or three to the development process.

[jai_landrover]

Chicken Drumstick,

My bro built a 3.5 rover v8 rolling road tested at 212BHP with the twin SU carb setup. Not bad considering each carb really is limited to 110BHP each by assuming all else is perfect as it can only flow so much. It took weeks of Rolling road sessions to get the correct needles Serious stupid low down grunt power. It would drop down when loaded to 430RPM and never stall Pull hard from there. I drove it around a field (I was 15) and you could literally not stall it in 2nd or 3rd gear dumping the clutch. Good in the F reg 90 up to about 75-80 Mph. That Engine is now in Andrew F Anglian LRC trailer now although probably making a lot less BHP now its EFI and not really setup or matched at all. It wasn't cheap to build but it wasn't stupid Cost either. This was 20 years ago and its still going strong! Its about getting the ingredients right, a matched setup and plenty of rolling road sessions to get the carbs set right. I'm trying to convince him to do another the next camshaft up and EFI Megasquirt as I think it would be a beast in a lightweight trialler probably half the weight of a 90. Cost wise would cost the same really but plenty of garage time. Maybe if I had that engine in my 90 I would have got up that step at the nationals that only a couple of people managed!!

J

[jai_landrover]

I think I remember most of the mods he did was a complete blue printed engine. A fair bit of work on the block, lots of head work, real steel viper or typhoon cam loads of time machining and with more knowledge gained since, like valve seat angles, induction mods and Megasquirt it could a serious Standard class Comp Safari vehicle/engine. Alas the rolling road sessions are where you need to spend the £££ and now the local place has long been gone I wouldn't know where to go.

I was up helping to lay out the comp safari course or the Sunday and the driveround for the shiny motors on the Sat at Devils pit couple of weekends ago. I had to fatten some undergrowth. First time my old 200 tdi was driven in high range semi aggressively above half throttle anyway offroad seemed to take off ok for a heavy (loaded with tools) old beast landing seemed rather painful tho. Really need to build something in the next 5 years sad to say I fancy an 88 inch V8 comp safari motor on leaf springs EEK!

[Chicken Drumstick]

The jag v8 is hardly going to be a cheap conversion by the time you've factored all the costs in. For majority of people buying and breaking a p38 will yield more than enough power.

I wouldn't expect it to be cheap. But I think it's a crying shame it isn't affordable.

And I am surprised so few seem interested in this. Lets not forget the AJV8 is available in 3.2, 4.0, 4.2, 4.4 and 5.0 displacements. And in supercharged format. Surely this range of power outputs would be appealing to get a modern fuel efficient engine in your Landy and keep it more original than many other engine swaps.

For the record, there are adapter kits to fit the Chevy LS1 to an R380 (poor R380!!!), which would make for an easy transplant. And the LS1 bolts directly to the 4L80e auto box from GM, of which there are also adapter plates to bolt to an LT230. Making this quite an easy bolt in engine (excluding engine mounts). And there are stand alone ECU options from MSD and Megasquirt that will allow the engine to run hassle free.

The only expensive part in this is the LS1 engine. If we where in the USA or even Oz it would be less of an issue and there would even be choice of other LS family engines to choose from. I would think in the UK the cheapest an LS1 engine will be is £2500, but you could easily spend £5000 on the just the engine.

Now image the same "kit", i.e. adapters and such for the AJV8. Only this time engines are plentiful and start from a few hundred quid.

And in a Defender/D1 would probably be able to average 21-22mpg.

[Mo Murphy]

Good point Mr. Drumstick. It is about time.

I'm not interested in a big jag v8 though but a nice smooth powerful modern 2.0l petrol or diesel making about 150 horsepower would be nice.

Reasonably fuel efficient and not so powerful that you couldn't use an LT77 or an r380 without killing it.

That would make it an engine change rather than a complete drive train upgrade and so be genuinely affordable for the average working man (as I'm very much aware that affordable is a very subjective term).

Just my thoughts, as not all of us want insane power and fancy computer controlled gearboxes.

Mo

[need4speed]

...Reasonably fuel efficient and not so powerful that you couldn't use an LT77 or an r380 without killing it.

It would surprise you how much grunt an LT77 or R380 (and the rest of a standard LR drivetrain for that matter) can handle if driven correctly/smoothly..

As John (fridgefreezer) eluded to in another thread, some people can wreck a drivetrain with 100hp. It's all about having a little finesse..

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Well, as I do complete conversion kits for Megasquirting ANY Rover V8 I guess I am in a good position to answer !

1. Costs

Forget how much time I sunk in to R&D to get the Kits to the point they are now - ie box arrives with instruction manual and you have absolutely everything to do a full conversion, start the car and drive out ....that takes a LOT of time

nut

2. CNC Costs

With CNC the more you make the cheaper the unit price becomes I have rover Trigger wheels made at 150 at a time, the costs for say 50 would prob see a unit cost at 6x that for 150, that price means the price to the customer goes up 6x and so the kit becomes expensive.

3. Design

I woukld need to design all the various gubbins and bracketry for they engine and any of its variants, to get the ciosts for the kit sensible I would then have to invest a load of capital in volumes of bits (although true many would shate V8 Rover bits) and then pray they sell

4. Sales

Whatever might be throught of the old Rover V8 there are bludy 1000s of them out there and they also benifit from a decent Fuel and spark system, MS makes them waterproof, and its relatively cheap to do, and simple. As a resuklt I sell a load of kits. If I took on the kit suggested I might sell a few, then another engine would be chosen for a while and so on.

5. Its already there

Its either a V8 already in a truck, or a truck being built around a simple quick cheap easy to source drive train. The engine suggested it even more work, its not then just MS ing it a tenasplant gearbox exhausts etyc etc

6. ECU can be hacked.

On the more modern engines that already are waterprrof with say COP etc, you can not get the engine ruinning from the donor vehicle, but you can get the ECU hacked and the limp / shutdown / immoliswer etc cut, so it will run If your happy to wnat these sorts of engines you can sort them. With MS on V8s most are NOT happy with the current system

7. Programming the ECU to run it all properly - has taken me ages and I am still improving on MSQs LOL

Thats just a quick brain dup there are peeps ringing me all the time with the "I have an engine from a imeldeesqibblewhich Gobbleduster 7 and I wnat to MS it" ....after an chat they normally give up, as the ECU is the easy bit. However any V8 or any engine CAN be squirted if the desire and effort is there. I could provide for most engines 50-60% or more of whats needed, but whats left would be hard to sort for most. and thats why I do what I do just for V8s, costs, capital outlay, sales, master of one trade not jack of all, simplicity and er well I like V8 Rovers, esp my ickle poor underpowered 5.2V* JED Rover V8

I guess in summary I have made what would be hard (god when I did mine in 2004 in was HARD) and now make that job simple for a V8 Rover, and have stopped there. The THOR was a nightmare to sort, and there are so many varinats, but, I am fairly sure what stock I have will seell, but thats becuase of much of the above ...

Nige

[need4speed]

But surely 1 of the reasons it was a long, difficult process for you Nige was the fact that you wanted to do away with the crappy standard LR ignition/fuelling control setup?

Surely with something like the Jag, that side of things is pretty good out the box and wouldn't need meddled with. Wouldn't that simplify the process somewhat?

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

To a degree, but its still huge work to get these running properly via ECU issues workarounds and other things as well....

If someone is keen enough they will do it, prob not be as cheap as maybe they 1st think ....

[Tanuki]

Technicalities apart, I'd see another major benefit of re-engining with a "modern" engine as being that the result could then be certified as compliant with the ever-growing number of emissions-restrictions.

[Example: the London low Emission Zone, the significant number of German cities that either ban or charge extra for 'oldtimers', and those European countries where extra annual taxes/mileage restrictions apply to elderly vehicles without cats or similar pollution-control devices].

Being able to re-engine your pre-2000 vehicle with a modern Euro-5/Euro-6 compliant Diesel (or its petrol equivalent) could render an otherwise-uneconomic-to-use vehicle a sound financial proposition again.

[Cynic-al]

What paperwork trail would you have to go through to get those approvals though?

I know someone who had the emissions tested on his taxi, I can't remember why, as a result his RFL wen't down and now people argue with him that he isn't paying enough tax

[Chicken Drumstick]

To a degree, but its still huge work to get these running properly via ECU issues workarounds and other things as well....

If someone is keen enough they will do it, prob not be as cheap as maybe they 1st think ....

Surely there is scope for a basic kit to start with. Let people sort out brackets, exhausts and such. The two main things are connecting it to the drivetrain and making it run.

In the USA, most likely think fettlig with any Rover V8 is pointless, as they can pop to any junk yard and grap a multitude of more powerful V8's for a pittance outlay. Sure hooking them up might take a bit of effort, but there are not shortage of people doing this. Just have look over at Pirate.

In the UK this will never be an option, as though engines are all too rare. Which leaves:

-BMW

-Merc

-Lexus

-Jag

As the only real viable alternatives to the RV8. And I'm not knocking the RV8 (I own 2, one good, one broken! ), but the reality is they are getting older and the cheap supply of them won't last forever.

And getting a real 300bhp from one isn't going to be cheap. If there was another engine that could offer this power without engine mods, but required a few parts to make it mate to your current transmission, then I think it would be a viable option.

JE Engineering must do most of this already. Only snag is, they won't sell the bits on their own, only as a completed vehicle. But I'm sure if somebody with the right know how could figure out what bits are needed. Then it opens up a multitude of possibilities.

[need4speed]

The thing that gets me is, not only wont someone like JE Engineering not sell parts individually, they're not even willing to give you a shopping list of parts needed/measurements etc. I can understand this to an extent. They want you to buy a completed vehicle from them.

[landroversforever]

But why would they want to after they've spent considerable time, effort and money sorting a conversion out? They'd put themselves out of business!

[need4speed]

I know. That's more or less what I've just said...

But there is another way to look at that from a business perspective... How many people can afford/willing to pay £70k or whatever that "Zulu" costs? Not many..

Whereas how many people would pay ~£1k for a fitting kit including engine/gearbox mounts, wiring kit, and instructions etc that would allow you to source your own engine/gearbox? Probably a lot more.. I know I would.

I dunno. Just thinking out loud. It's just a pity that option isn't available.

[landroversforever]

So you did.... I miss read it

[geoffbeaumont]

There will be a lot more profit in the fully fitted installation, along with much lower support costs. Added to which some of those kits would lose them full fit sales (not necessarily directly to the owner - more likely to a third party installer undercutting them on the work).

[need4speed]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-RANGE-ROVER-SPORT-4-2-SUPERCHARGED-V8-ENGINE-GEARBOX-L320-8-253-MILES-/291475250467?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&fits=Model%3ARange+Rover+Sport&hash=item43dd475d23

Compared to the £????? JE conversion..