2011 Land Rover 5.0 Engine

[Hollie Kipps]

Enginesused by the British company Land Rover in its 44 vehicles have included four-cylinder petrol engines, and four- and five-cylinder diesel engines. Straight-six cylinder engines have been used for Land Rover vehicles built under licence. Land Rover has also used various four-cylinder, V8, and V6 engines developed by other companies, but this article deals only with engines developed specifically for Land Rover vehicles.

Initially, the engines used were modified versions of standard Rover car petrol engines, but the need for dedicated in-house units was quickly realised. The first engine in the series was the 1.6-litre petrol of 1948, and this design was improved. A brand-new Petrol engine of 2286cc was introduced in 1958. This basic engine existed in both petrol and diesel form, and was steadily modified over the years to become the 200Tdi diesel. A substantial redesign resulted in the 300Tdi of 1994, which ceased production in 2006. Over 1.2 million engines in the series have been built.[1]

From 1998, the Td5 engine was fitted to Land Rover products. This five-cylinder turbodiesel was unrelated in any way to the four-cylinder designs and was originally intended for use in both Rover cars and Land Rover 44s, but it only reached production in its Land Rover form.[2] It was produced between 1998 and 2007, with 310,000 built.[3]

Production of these engines originally took place at Rover's satellite factory (and ex-Bristol Hercules engine plant) at Acocks Green in Birmingham: vehicle assembly took place at the main Rover works at Solihull. After Land Rover was created as a distinct division of British Leyland in 1979, production of Rover cars at Solihull ceased in 1982. A new engine assembly line was built in the space vacated by the car lines, and engine production started at Solihull in 1983.[4] The engine line at Solihull closed in 2007 when Land Rover began using Ford and Jaguar engines built at Dagenham (diesel engines) and Bridgend (petrol engines).

This article only covers engines developed and produced specifically for Land Rover vehicles. It does not cover engines developed outside the company but used in its products, such as the Rover V8, the Rover IOE petrol engines or the current range of Ford/Jaguar-derived engines. The engines are listed below in the chronological order of their introduction.

Throughout the 1950s, demand was increasing for a diesel-engined Land Rover.[5] Diesel technology had improved, making small-capacity, high-speed engines practical. Diesel power had also become prominent in industrial and agricultural uses throughout the world, and fleet users of Land Rovers were often in the situation where their Land Rovers were the only petrol-engined vehicles in their fleet, making spares, servicing, and fuel supply more complex.[6] The Rover Motor Company was in talks with Standard-Triumph in 1954, with the possibility of a merger. Standard were Britain's pioneers of road-going small diesel engines with the 20C engine fitted to Ferguson tractors and the Standard Vanguard car (Britain's first diesel car). Rover engineers were able to study Standard's diesel designs as part of these. The merger was called off, but Rover had gained vital experience and knowledge in developing small diesel engines.[7][8] The result was a wet-liner four-cylinder engine. Fuel injection equipment was from CAV, and the engine used Ricardo's Comet swirl chambers, but with Rover-developed dimples to produce quieter and smoother running. Heater plugs were fitted to each combustion chamber to improve starting.[7] The engine was launched in the Land Rover in 1957. The vehicle had to have an extra 2 in (51 mm) let into the chassis in the engine bay to enable the new engine to fit.[9] The engine's power output and speed range were close enough to the existing petrol engine to allow the same transmission unit to be used on all vehicles.[5][10][11]

The Series II Land Rover launched in 1958 was larger, heavier, and more complex than the original, and the need was ever-present for higher powered engines.[13] Also, the Rover petrol engines in use at the time, with the archaic inlet-over-exhaust valve layout, were approaching the age of 20 years in design terms. A new, larger petrol engine specifically developed for the Land Rover was needed.[14] The existing 2-litre diesel engine was used as a basis, but with a radically changed internal structure.[15] The new engine was a dry-liner type, and a wider bore was used to improve low-speed torque output.[16] Despite the numerous changes, the petrol engine could use the same machining line as the diesel, establishing a design commonly used between Land Rover's petrol and diesel engines that would survive for decades.[13][15] The 2.25-litre petrol was the most popular engine option right up to the mid-1980s, and established a worldwide reputation for reliability and longevity.[13][17] The engine's relatively low compression ratio and general strong design made it tolerant of poor quality fuel and oil, as well as infrequent servicing. With proper maintenance, these engines can easily survive more than 250,000 miles (400,000 km) of service. This was partly due to the commonality between petrol and diesel versions making the petrol version somewhat over-engineered for the job; they retained the extraordinary strength characteristics of the diesel while being much less stressed. The engine castings were produced by Bean Industries Limited, a Sheffield based foundry, using "Bilchrome" an in-house developed iron for cylinders. The only major change to the design was the fitting of a five-bearing crankshaft in 1980, which improved bottom-end strength and refinement.[18] Despite its utilitarian origins, the 2.25-litre petrol is a quiet, smooth-running engine, and this enabled Rover to fit it to their P4 saloon car as the Rover 80.[19] Various power outputs were available for this engine depending on the compression ratio and the amount of emissions-regulation equipment fitted.[13][20][21][22]

The Series II Land Rover was a sales success, but room for improvements remained. In 1962, the slightly altered Series IIA was launched. The biggest update was an improved diesel engine, as well as some suspension and steering system changes.[24] This shared many parts with its petrol-fuelled sibling, including the block, valve gear, cooling systems, and lubrication systems.[25] A forged crankshaft was used for added strength, and different pistons were needed.[26] The cylinder head used the same basic casting, but was very different internally, being in essence an updated version of that used on the original 2-litre engine, to which the new diesel bore a strong external resemblance. Like the 2.25-litre petrol, the 2.25-litre diesel was a dry-liner design. It was built on the same production line as the petrol engine and the flexibility of the basic design was much in evidence; for example, where the diesel engines had their fuel injector pumps, the petrol engine had its distributor fitted. Although it offered a modest improvement in power and a useful jump in torque, the main benefit of the new diesel engine was that it was much quieter and more efficient than the older unit.[27] It also proved to be much more reliable in service.[13] Like the petrol engine, the diesel was upgraded to a five-bearing crankshaft in 1980. The engine was fitted to the Austin FX4 "Black Cab" between 1982 and 1985. FX4s fitted with the engine were designated FX4R (R for Rover). In this application, the engine gained a reputation for very short service life and unreliability. This was caused by the significantly greater times spent at idle speed in the Black Cab than in the Land Rover. Solihull engineers had warned Carbodies, builders of the FX4R, that this would cause problems because at idle speed the engine's oil pressure was low enough that the automatic tensioner unit for the timing chain did not operate fully. Many hours spent at idle speed (taxi drivers tended to leave the engines idling for long periods when waiting for passengers or when off-duty, or in stationary traffic in London) stretched the timing chains, causing incorrect fuel injection timing, which greatly reduced engine life.

Used in: Land Rover Series II, Series III, and One Ten; also Carbodies FX4 (also called Austin FX4) and sold as a Mercury marine engine. Also, evidence exists of the 10J engine being offered as a conversion for Volga saloon cars by a Belgium-based company.[29]

Land Rover's radically updated product line was launched in 1983. Initially only the long-wheelbase One Ten was available, and it was sold with the same engine line-up as the preceding Series III model- 2.25-litre petrol and diesel engines and the 3.5-litre Rover V8.[13][30] However, Land Rover planned a series of rolling improvements.[31] Launched shortly before the short-wheelbase Ninety model in 1984 was a 2.5-litre diesel engine. This was little more than an updated version of the existing diesel unit[32] (at this time 22 years old). The stroke was lengthened to improve torque, and an updated cylinder head was used to reduce noise and emissions. A more modern injector pump improved fuel economy and an improved glow plug system improved cold-starting performance. The most significant change was the swapping of the chain-driven camshaft for one driven by a fibre-toothed belt, which also drove the repositioned injector pump.[33][34] The drive vacated by the injector pump was used to power a vacuum pump for the brake servo system. To reduce engine weight, extensive use of aluminium castings was made for the cambelt case, vacuum pump, rocker cover, and other parts.[35] Other small improvements were made such as the fitment of a spin-on cartridge oil filter instead of older, harder-to-change element type, and the fitting of under-piston oil jets. In the mid-1980s Land Rover was part of the Land Rover Group, responsible for production of the Freight Rover van.

The 2.5-litre diesel was also fitted to the Freight Rover 300 series and the FX4 taxi. Engines for these applications had slight design changes, such as higher-mounted injector pumps and nonwaterproof cambelt cases. They received the designations 14J and 15J, respectively. Being fitted with a timing belt rather than a chain, the 15J engine suffered none of the reliability problems in the FX4 that its 10J predecessor had encountered (see above). The engine became a special order-only option after the introduction of turbodiesel engines (see below), but remained in production (and popular with military and some commercial buyers) until 1994.[33][36] The British Army used this engine in the vast majority of the 20,000 Land Rovers it bought between 1985 and 1994.[37] A manufacturing flaw with pistons combined with Army maintenance practises (such as a tendency to over-fill the sump with oil) caused the engines to over-breathe and ingest their oil, leading to piston failure. Late military-specification engines had a centrifugal separator in the breather system, allowing excess oil to drain back to the sump. These engines were designated 13J.[38][39] and 11J (ref Land Rover Defender Military 110 1991 Supplementary Parts Catalogue). These later, modified engines were the first in their class (small-capacity, high-speed diesels) to pass the Ministry of Defence's arduous 500-hour durability trial.

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