RE: The Rover V8 will burble again

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Rover V8 related to the 507 engine? hmm.. not seen a rover V8 with hemi heads, or pushrods going though the block. (the BMW V8 closley followed the design of the pre war 328 6 pot engine that was later used by Bristols) So I am afraid that rumour is total tosh, just like the roumour BMW have designe anything worth having sicne the '60's. The only enegine they ahve made worth anything is the M10, (1500 - 2000cc) as used in the 2002 (their last car that was any good.) Intersteing the BMW race engine in F1 in the 80's were made using second hand 60's blocks with at least 100K on them as the new blocks at the time were not good enough, everything after that has been low quality junk. Last 100,000 K and then falls apart the second it stops having regular serviceing. They eat cam shafts, caused by low quality head castings with the cam bearing machined directly in them, whcih takes the head out with it (even the rover 2600 has a seperate cam carrier), the cam adjusters disintegrate, as for the recent V8's, one word 'Nikasil'.

The old rover /austin engine would soldier on for years with minimal or no mainatance, and thsat where real quality shows, after long term abuse, which the T, M, O, B and A-series took without flinching, however BMW engines reduce them selves to scrap in a very short period of time when treated this way

As Henrey Royce said, 'Quality remains long after the price is forgotten'

Stewart

[Mannginger]

Welcome, but I have to ask...how on earth did you dig this topic up from so long ago? What were you searching for?

[dinkel]

Nice work Stewart!

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Mannginger said:

Welcome, but I have to ask...how on earth did you dig this topic up from so long ago? What were you searching for?

Oddly I was looking for the definitive answer as to the differance between the P6 low compresion v8 and the early SD1 V8, one has a 9.25:1 CR and the other 9.35:1 which is a little small to be pistins (not impossible, but hightly unlikly), but knowing that the heads were revised thought this may be where the raised CR comes from.

Stewart

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

dinkel said:

Nice work Stewart!

Yep that is indeed mine, the curent project is a '76 single strap SD1

Stewart

[Tunku]

ZaphodBeeblebrox said:

Mannginger said:

Welcome, but I have to ask...how on earth did you dig this topic up from so long ago? What were you searching for?

Oddly I was looking for the definitive answer as to the differance between the P6 low compresion v8 and the early SD1 V8, one has a 9.25:1 CR and the other 9.35:1 which is a little small to be pistins (not impossible, but hightly unlikly), but knowing that the heads were revised thought this may be where the raised CR comes from.

Stewart

Many years ago my mate had a SD1 V8, he had it turboed, sounded and went lovely. Went to Italy and back a couple of times in it, with the speedo needle hanging off the edge on the autobahnen. Eventually stuffed it in a hedge. Great engine, he used to tease the early Golf Gtis with it by wheel spinning in 3rd as he went past.

[skwdenyer]

dinkel said:

Isuzu diesel for Opel, Honda

Renault V6 for Volvo

Loads . . .

Isuzu is owned by GM, as is Opel, so that's a GM car using a GM engine.

The PRV6 used by Volvo was built at Douvrin but the name means Peugeot Renault Volvo - it was JV engine, not a transplant.

The Honda was a straightforward customer engine, however.

[biglepton]

ZaphodBeeblebrox said:

Rover V8 related to the 507 engine? hmm.. not seen a rover V8 with hemi heads, or pushrods going though the block.

The Buick 215ci was based very loosely on the BMW 507 V8, but certainly not officially so. When Buick were tasked in 1956 to design an aluminium V8 engine with a capacity between 3 and 3.5 litres they weren't quite sure how to go about it or how durable such an engine would be as they had no experience of working in this metal. They did what car companies still do today and buy the nearest equivalent they can and reverse engineer it. In 1956/7 if you needed to buy an ally V8 around 3.2l you had only one choice and that was the BMW 507. They most certainly didn't copy the design and stick GM on it, but they did use it as a basis for their design with particular regard to the necessary strengths and thicknesses required by ally instead of iron.

You are probably wondering how I know this? Well, my godfather was a production engineer at Rover for most of the sixties and seventies and he told me. He found out in 1969 - GM ended up regretting selling the rights to the 215 and wanted it back. They approached Rover and offered to buy it back but Rover refused as the management realised it's potential. Rover went back to GM and offered to build the V8 for GM. Initial discussions took place and my godfather ended up talking directly to the engine design part of GM/Buick and commented on what a great engine they'd designed considering it was their first ally one and the GM guy told him he couldn't take all the credit becasue they'd pulled apart a BMW V8 while they were designing it to get the basics right. Eventually the deal for Rover to build the V8 for GM fell apart because they couldn't build them cheap enough and politically it was difficult for GM to buy 'foreign-built' engines.

So the RV8 certainly isn't a copy of the 507 V8, but it did play a part in it's birth!