Land Rover V6 V8 Block

[Finley Chopin]

Hey guys, I got this land rover that had a head gasket leak so we started to replace the cylinder head gaskets and found one of the cylinder liners cracked. We couldn't find a decently priced used engine for much less mileage or money than an engine rebuild would cost. We don't have a good machine shop around us anymore so we inspected and checked the heads aren't damaged and the surface is smooth and flat and planned on reusing them, so we got a short block from land rover and most of the holes are not tapped. The dealer said thats how short blocks come from the factory to ensure proper part alignment. Can anyone on here confirm? This doesn't sound right to me. I counted 105 bolt holes that need to be tapped. The oil pan, windage tray, oil cooler, front timing cover, both timing chain tensioners, rear main cover, water pump and more. I could see needing a few holes tapped but this seems a little excessive. Can a land rover dealer tech confirm that this is normal? Thanks in advance.

I do see the rotary icon on the end of most of them. I did notice the bolt felt funny when checking the thread pitch and diameter. So the bolt threads the hole? Are metal shavings an issue with this method? I'm nervous about metal around the crank and rod bearings. Would tapping the hole first be better?

Giancarlo, do you have any info on where you get those reman engines? Finding an alternative engine that wasn't astronomically priced was difficult on this one is why we went with rebuilding. Or is high pricing par for the course? This is our first major job on a land rover, next time we will do it differently.

The Rover V8 engine is a compact OHV V8 internal combustion engine with aluminium cylinder block and cylinder heads, designed and produced by Rover in the United Kingdom, based on a General Motors engine.[1] It has been used in a wide range of vehicles from Rover and other manufacturers since its British debut in 1967.

In January 1964 Rover gave American operations head J. Bruce McWilliams permission to investigate the possible purchase of an American V8 engine for Rover cars. History relates that McWilliams first saw the Buick V8 at the works of Mercury Marine, where he was discussing the sale of Rover gas turbines and diesel engines to the company (Mercury Marine did indeed use the Land Rover 2.25 L (137.3 cu in) diesel engine in marinised form)[citation needed]. However, it is likely that McWilliams was aware of the Buick engine before this. In any case, McWilliams realised that the lightweight Buick V8 would be ideal for smaller British cars (indeed, it weighed less than many straight-4 engines it would replace). McWilliams and William Martin-Hurst began an aggressive campaign to convince GM to sell the tooling, which they finally agreed to do in January 1965. Retiring Buick engineer Joe Turlay moved to the UK to act as a consultant.

The Rover V8 has long been a relatively common engine for kit car use in Britain, much as the Chevrolet small-block V8 is for American hot rod builders (though many British hot rods have traditionally used four cylinder engines, like the Ford Pinto and Crossflow units). Even in the US there is a strong contingent of builders who select the Buick or Rover aluminium V8 engine for use in small sporty cars like the MGB . The 1964 Buick iron-block 4.9 L (300 cu in) engine had aluminium cylinder heads, 3.75 bore and a longer 3.4" stroke crankshaft, which with modification can be used with the Buick 215 or Rover engine blocks to produce a high-output, very light weight V8 with displacement of up to about 4.9 L (300 cu in). The 300 crank, after machining the mains to the 215 size in the 215 block yields 4.3 L (260 cu in). Traco in the USA were prominent builders of such engines.

As well as appearing in Rover cars, the engine was sold by Rover to small car builders, and has appeared in a wide variety of vehicles. Rover V8s feature in some models from Morgan +8, TVR, Triumph TR8, Land Rover and MGB V8, among many others.

By the early 2000s, the Rover V8 had become uncompetitive with other V8 engines in its class. It produced between 80-100 hp less than more modern V8 engines, it used much more fuel compared to newer V8s, and used an aged 16-valve pushrod architecture, while V8 engines made by other luxury automakers often used dual overhead-cams and 32 valves. After Land Rover switched to the BMW M62 V8 in the 2003 Range Rover, and the Land Rover Discovery 3 switched to Jaguar AJ-V8 engines, the last mass-produced Rover V8 was made in May 2004, after 37 years of production, and just under 1 million engines produced. The 2004 Land Rover Discovery was the last mass-produced vehicle to use it. The last Rover-badged vehicle that used the Rover V8 was the Rover SD1, which was discontinued in 1986 and replaced by the Rover 800,which used a 2.7 litre variant of the Honda C engine as its top engine choice. MG Rover Group used the 4.6 L SOHC 2-valve Ford Modular V8 engine in the Rover 75 and MG ZT 260 from 2003-2005. The Rover V8 remained with Land Rover when it was sold to Ford by BMW. Although Land Rover has switched to the Jaguar AJ-V8 engine for new applications, they wanted production of the engine to continue, and they arranged for production to restart in Weston-super-Mare under MCT, an engineering and manufacturing company. MCT will continue limited production of the engine for the foreseeable future, supplying engines for aftermarket and replacement use.[2]

As the aluminium block made this engine one of the lightest stock V8s built, it was an obvious choice for use in racing. Mickey Thompson entered a car powered by this engine in the 1962 Indianapolis 500. From 1946 to 1962 there had not been a single stock-block car entered in this famous race. In 1962 the Buick 215 was the only non-Offenhauser powered entry in the field of 33 cars. Rookie driver Dan Gurney qualified eighth and raced well for 92 laps before retiring with transmission problems.

The Australian Repco V8 F1 engine being based on Buick 215 block[3][4] is technically a common misconception, as the Rover/Buick V8 had only 5 cylinder head studs around each cylinder unit and that cannot accommodate the 6 stud Repco RB620 heads. The Repco V8 was based on the Oldsmobile 215 block of the same era, which was very similar in appearance, size and material, but used 6 cylinderhead studs per cylinder. The subtle difference in block design/head clamping originated in Oldsmobile's intention to produce the higher power, turbo-charged Jetfire version of the small/light V8, however, the public/press tended not to be aware of the internal difference.

In the late 1970s, British Leyland became aware of the increasing importance of diesel engined cars to the British, European and (especially) North American markets in the wake of the 1979 energy crisis. It was decided that a new series of diesel engines powerful, refined and economical enough for use in BL cars was needed. However, with development funding tight, it was necessary to use existing BL petrol engines as a base. This included a diesel version of the 3.5 litres (3,528 cc) V8, the development project for which was code-named 'Iceberg'.[7]

BL collaborated with Perkins Engines of Peterborough to develop the engine. Both naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions were produced, both using a Stanadyne rotary mechanical fuel injection system. Power outputs of around 100 (naturally aspirated) and 150 (turbocharged) horsepower were achieved.

The Iceberg engine was slated for fitment in the Range Rover, Rover SD1 and the Jaguar XJ but the project encountered problems with failure of the alloy cylinder heads and internal cooling. They were limited by the need to use the same basic block casting as the petrol engine to allow the Iceberg engine to be produced on the same production line to reduce costs. Whilst these problems could have been overcome, the project ran into financial and logistical problems caused by the reorganisation of BL and specifically the splitting of Land Rover and Rover into separate divisions.

Land Rover took over production of the V8 engine in 1982, moving it from the main BL engine plant at Acock's Green into a new, much lower-capacity production line in the Solihull works, where it was built alongside the other Land Rover engines. This meant that there was no spare capacity to build diesel versions of the engine. Coupled to this, it was clear that the market for large diesel engined cars in North America had not developed as expected.

BL finally pulled out of the project in 1983. Perkins initially decided to pursue the project alone, and even produced advertising brochures for the engine as an industrial power unit, but BL withdrew all technical support and Project Iceberg was wrapped up in late 1983. BL's other collaboration with Perkins (producing a diesel version of the O-Series engine) produced the highly successful 'Prima' unit. BL (and its Rover Group successor) bought in 2.5-litre 4-cylinder turbodiesel units from VM Motori to use in the SD1 and Range Rover.

In the early 1980s TVR approached Andy Rouse with a view to using his race-developed 3.9 L (3,946 cc) variant of the V8 in their Rover-powered TVR 350i 'wedge'; Rouse had successfully campaigned a Rover SD1 with a modified V8 on the track. For a number of reasons (primarily cost) Rouse's version was not used, but the concept was passed to alternative engineering firms which resulted in a rare variant of the 3.9. This unit has 93.5 mm (3.68 in) cylinder bores (instead of Rover's own 94 mm (3.7 in) that was introduced some years later) and thus has a capacity of 3,905 cc (3.9 L). Flat-topped pistons and high-lift camshaft gave a compression ratio of 10.5:1. TVR claimed 275 bhp as the output and whilst this is generally disregarded by aficionados, a healthy 3,905 cc (3.9 L) engine will produce in excess of 240 bhp. Once a reproducible specification had been determined, the bulk of engine production was undertaken by North Coventry Kawasaki (NCK), which company was subsequently purchased by TVR to become their in-house engine division known as TVR Power.About 100 cars (TVR 390SE) were built with the 3,905 cc (3.9 L) engine; TVR's later '400' offering being based on the then-current Range Rover 4L of 3,946 cc (3.9 L).

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