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possible Engine & Trans swap?

9868 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  NVRover, 
Z
Hey guys, i'm tearing down my '89 3.9 to replace the head gaskets, and got to thinking if anyone here has heard of or seen or done a Chevy 350 swap into the rover? My land rover specialist told me when he was re-timing that it may be more than just the gaskets, and that it may be something much more serious, that would need an engine replacement entirely. My brother - the one who i let borrow the rover, and the one who when he was borrowing it kinda blew it up- has a 80's Chevy costum deluxe, which needs trans work and is sitting in his yard, and suggested that if i do need to swap the engine to use his 350 - and just get the trans work done that's needed for it. Sounds interesting, and was curious if anyone knew if this has been done, or is possible?
Cheers-
Zach
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N
I was talking to my fomer mechanic in Las Vegas, NV, who is a factory trained master LR mechanic, about a 300 Tdi conversion. He told me to stay away from any diesel conversion (so I am looking for one to test drive to see for myself) and consider the LS1 350 conversion. He mentioned two companies, Marks identified previously and also Advance Adapters out of California. Bill then told me to consider installing a stand alone fuel injection system (I think that is how he described it - if Im incorrect then hopefully someone will correct me.).

Do a search on discoweb.com too (especially under the discovery forum), I believe there have been a few conversions. According to Bill, the 350 conversion should yeild much better gas mileage for a cheaper conversion compared to a Tdi (with lots of power to boot)!
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Tim (Scotland) said:
NVRover said:
According to Bill, the 350 conversion should yeild much better gas mileage for a cheaper conversion compared to a Tdi (with lots of power to boot)!
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If you drop a 350 in and then drive in exactly the same way you do now you MIGHT get one or two extra miles to the gallon.
More so if your existing engine is tired and the new v8 is in better condition.
However if you use the extra power you won't save a penny.
And you may break some transmission parts (more likely the higher the mileage they already have).

Put a tdi in and you could get an extra 10-15mpg.

Given that either of these options will set you back at least $3k (that buys a lot of petrol), why not rebuild the existing engine?
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I very well could have missunderstood him (Bill) because I am certainly not an expert, nor have experience with this subject, I am merely repeating what I'm pretty sure he told me...anyway, my understanding was the increased fuel economy comes from the additional horsepower associated with the 350 v8. My understanding was that the 350 didnt have to work as hard and thus got better gas mileage, much like the 300hp 4.4s in the LR3s that got better gas mileage. Now I realize that could be an oversimplification because I'm sure the LR3 4.4 is more technologically advanced than the original Rover v8s. Anyway, regardless of what conversion you do, I dont think any of the increased costs are going to be off set with fuel cost savings.
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