350i to 570i

[ibroker]

JUst strarting to restore a 1987 350i

The engine is fairly tatty and I am considering replacing it with a small block chevy 5.7 350bhp. For the cost of the new unit against a refurb of the old Rover and detailing it makes sense to go for the Chevy.

Thoughts?

[ibroker]

The LS? do you have any idea on cost. The chevy is £2500

[ibroker]

pwd95 said:

Really not worth the hasstle of converting for a cheap old iron block 5.7 IMHO. It'll cost you a fortune to get everything converted properly & the car will be almost undrivable. The weight distribution isn't great with the light RV8!!!!!

You'd be better with a decent 2nd hand good RV8 bottom end & slapping a supercharger on it. Been done a few times.

Thats why i love thses forums.

Ok so I will put my hands up and say I am not good with the spanners and as such sometimes what I want is not practicle as stated above.

I presume the RV8 as mentioned refers to the original engine?

On the assumption that it would cost a fortune to repalce all the other bits to match the chevy, surely I can gey the RV8 tuned? Its a big lump and must be capable of more than 190hp. Where or who would do that?

[ibroker]

Forced induction meaning a supercharger? Like that idea

I would like to achive 300-350 bhp, am I aiming to high retaing the original 3.5?. That said I dont want to compromise the handling of the car by changing the weight distribution.

Changing the direction slightly. Ther car heads over to Cambridge tomorrow for work to start getting it running, are there any "Must Do" jobs that I need to get done in the restoration. I dont want to get to a TVR gathering and someone say, "I assume you upgraded this" you know missing the obvious?

Cheers
Andy

[ibroker]

Thanks so much for all the input.

I spent a fair amount of time pricing this today and it does not stack up. I think the previous post stated that "this being the wrong car for this project" is a fair conclusion. If you add that to the possible detraction away from a standard car and how funny people who buy classics are then that closes the discussion. That with all the other mods/upgrades required.

Thus I will stick with the 3.5 as standard and fettle it towards the 220-230 potential.

Day one of the restoration started today....Excited........