4.2 engine tuning / rebuild costs

[SteveoD]

I am looking at buying a 4.2 Cerbera as a track day / fun car (I suspect it will be an older model so that I will have cash for upgrades etc) and wanted to find out what the likely cost of a complete engine rebuild would be, and where would be the best place to get the job done; also what tuning options are there for the engine and any ideas on costs?

If anyone has information I would be grateful.

Thanks
Steve

[flashheart]

Greetings Steve, quite a few people have had engine rebuilds over the years, mine had one just before I bought it due to overheating. Most seem to cost around £5k and most people seem to claim off the insurance although a few have been unlucky! TVR Power in Coventry are engineering chaps and when I picked mine up from there they had lathes etc and half-built engines all over the place. From previous threads most dealers will do it but end up sending the engines back to Blackpool. Do not know about indies as mine is under warranty so I use TVR places. As for upgrades search for Joospeed for ECU upgrades and most general speed/noise-enhancing devices. The search engine on Pistonheads is quite good so type in what you fancy doing and read all the previous threads.

Cheers Paul

[GCerbera]

Flashheart about covers it, generally 5k for a full rebuild and even those that the
dealers end up sending back to Blackpool end up at TVR Power as they are a wholly owned subsidiary of TVR.

[tvrslag]

SteveoD said:

I am looking at buying a 4.2 Cerbera as a track day / fun car (I suspect it will be an older model so that I will have cash for upgrades etc) and wanted to find out what the likely cost of a complete engine rebuild would be, and where would be the best place to get the job done; also what tuning options are there for the engine and any ideas on costs? If anyone has information I would be grateful. Thanks Steve

Steveod

I had my 96 4.2 rebuilt, by a combination of indie and factory. An oil starvation problem (at a track day) forced the bottom end to expire. The engine needed a new block and a new crank. In my case the crank was the original smaller journal size so it made sense to get new parts. The factory rebuilt the bottom end and the indie rebuilt the rest of engine. The main problem is that Indies cannot get the parts to rebuild the engines, and there is pretty limited knowledge out there with independants in rebuilding AJPV8's, not that there aren't people in the know, just not as many who deal with the Rover V8's. Probably better would be to find some wrecked Cerbies and grab the engine to use as a potential spare if things go wrong, even a second hand engine (which you might be able to hear running) is £3K- £4K, less than a full engine rebuild.