200Tdi to V8 conversion - can you recommend anyone?
Discussion
Hello all
It's a while since I've posted on this forum, so my apologies for not contributing, then expecting assistance, but...
I have an old gnarly 200TDi with an LT77 gearbox. The engine's sweet as you like and so reliable, but we've just blown the gearbox up. The second one in about 50,000 miles, but the vehicle gets a lot of hard use. It's fitted in a 6 wheeled Defender with a loader on the back, and when empty, the whole thing weighs about 2.9t, so it's got a lot of weight to drag around, before we start to put loads on the back. But I digress.
As luck would have it, I also happen to have a lovely 4.6 V8 floating around at the yard, mated to an R380. The engine is almost new. I had it built up in 2006 from a brand new blue-printed, balanced and cross-bolted TVR Tuscan race block, but with standard heads and a Range Rover cam. It covered about 5,000 miles in an old Defender, then got laid up and hasn't turned over since about 2008 and has been sitting a pallet for the last 3 years. The gearbox is also a rebuilt Ashcroft box, again, completed around 10,000 miles from re-build.
So, I'm looking for a recommendation for a company - ideally Midlands - that can drop the V8 and R380 into the Defender to replace the 200TDi and LT77. Does anyone have any suggestions??
Thanks in advance.
It's a while since I've posted on this forum, so my apologies for not contributing, then expecting assistance, but...
I have an old gnarly 200TDi with an LT77 gearbox. The engine's sweet as you like and so reliable, but we've just blown the gearbox up. The second one in about 50,000 miles, but the vehicle gets a lot of hard use. It's fitted in a 6 wheeled Defender with a loader on the back, and when empty, the whole thing weighs about 2.9t, so it's got a lot of weight to drag around, before we start to put loads on the back. But I digress.
As luck would have it, I also happen to have a lovely 4.6 V8 floating around at the yard, mated to an R380. The engine is almost new. I had it built up in 2006 from a brand new blue-printed, balanced and cross-bolted TVR Tuscan race block, but with standard heads and a Range Rover cam. It covered about 5,000 miles in an old Defender, then got laid up and hasn't turned over since about 2008 and has been sitting a pallet for the last 3 years. The gearbox is also a rebuilt Ashcroft box, again, completed around 10,000 miles from re-build.
So, I'm looking for a recommendation for a company - ideally Midlands - that can drop the V8 and R380 into the Defender to replace the 200TDi and LT77. Does anyone have any suggestions??
Thanks in advance.
May be a bit too far up north, but I used the Landrover Centre in Huddersfield for fitting a galv chassis & new bulkhead on my 90 and was largely happy with the work they did. I did speak to one place in the West Midlands who I subsequently discovered from online forums have a less than sparkling reputation - PM me if you need the name (and also if you're interested in selling your 200TDi when it comes out...!)
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