leolito wrote:
Plus, it is the P38 "unique" engine. It was built for that car, and that car was build for that engine. That remains its signature :-)
No it isn't. It was a 1960's Buick design that Rover bought from them. That was in 3.5 litre capacity and used in multiple vehicles (including the Stage 1 Land Rover, Rover SD1, Rover P5B and P6, etc), it went up to 3.9 (3950cc) for the Range Rover and didn't really change for years. For the LWB Classic it was enlarged to 4.2 litre with minor modifications, primarily the cross bolted main bearings as a result of the Iceberg project in collaboration with Perkins trying to make a diesel version. The 3.9 block is externally identical to the 4.0 litre P38 engine and the same 3950 capacity and the 4.0 litre cross bolted block is identical to the 4.6, the only differences between the two is the crank, con rods and pistons. As the 4.0 litre pistons have a smaller dish, a good power mod is to fit 4.0 litre pistons into a 4.6 to give compression of around 10.5:1. Numerous people have used the 4.6 cross bolted block and fitted the front cover and camshaft from the earlier 3.9 so you retain the distributor and 14CUX injection in the larger capacity, stronger, bottom end.
There is a cheap mod to prevent, or even cure the slipping liners, rather than top hat liners. They sit on a cast ridge at the bottom and this can crack allowing the liner to slip down. If the liner is pushed up so sits where it should, a hole can be drilled and tapped through the block and into the base of the liner (below the point where the piston skirt reaches at BDC) and a small bolt or grub screw can then be put through both block and liner so it can't move any longer. It's a bodge but does work.
13.8V was correct for the standard lead acid batteries that were current when the P38 came out. Newer Calcium batteries can cope with a higher charge voltage so more modern cars are fitted with an alternator with a set point of 14.2 or even 14.4V. Fit an old school cheap battery with a high output alternator and you will cook it but 13.8V will still charge a Calcium battery without a problem.
Morat wrote:
That would do it but at 23 quid? I'd get 6 inches of the next size up pipe, cut slots in each end, cut the flared bits off both ends of the existing pipes, slide it on over both ends with a good smear of exhaust assembly paste and a couple of U clamps......
leolito wrote:
It is true that the RV8 is an engine with several weak points, but at least they are all well documented and you got plenty specialists that know how to deal with them, after all, is an UK engine and most you guys are in the UK. Abroad in some places might not be that easy. Me here, although in East Europe rebuilding old engines is almost a weekly routing for most mechanics, a very old-school engine such as this, I would not trust anyone to do it.
But there ... after all, one you have sorted a porous block, fitted top hats, machine properly the heads and balance the engine, the rest is really a lesser problem.
It depends who you talk to regarding the weak points. I've never heard of anyone with the mythical porous block. I'm not saying they don't exist but not in the quantities some would have you believe. RPi had Cosworth cast some custom blocks that were supposed to cure the problem of coolant leaking around the liners but used the same design as the original engine so didn't really address the problem. However, they spread the story that every 4.6 P38 engine would slip a liner to justify the £8k they wanted for these 'Comcast' blocks. Apparently, according the them, every 4.6 engine will suffer sooner or later as there is less metal between the bores than on the 4.0 litre. Which, as anyone that can read the specs of the two engines will know is complete rubbish, the bores are the same, it is the stroke that is different. Top hat liners will cure the problem completely for around £1,000 to get them fitted. What have you been told about the heads needing to be machined? A bit of gas flowing would improve performance, but there's nothing wrong with the standard heads.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, maintenance is key. For the first 200k of it's life my car was maintained by the police and was fine when I got it despite the abuse they get (something the M57 can't cope with). At 287k it was tired, compression down to around 110psi on all cylinders and was starting to pressurise the cooling system slightly. Not badly but enough to warrant a set of top hats. All that has been done since is regular servicing and it's now up to 493k, so has done over 200k since being rebuilt.
Mines been neglected. Flew to Nice on Thursday, picked up a car there and drove it back to the UK. So mine hasn't done anything for 4 days. However, good news is that the EAS is healthy as it hasn't dropped at all.
Same here, around 3.5 miles per litre. Once, I managed 4 miles per litre but that was at a steady 50mph.
Sorry, yes, Martin is from Liverpool. He used to have 'Brit in Milwaukee' on his signature. I had a lot of communication with him when I got my lifetime ban from rr.net under this username as he was a mod and was fighting my corner for me. Then I registered with a different one and ended up as Admin
mad-as wrote:
i didn't know Martin was a brit, learn something new every day.
If you are referring the Marty, he was born in NZ but moved to the UK with his parents as a child so has dual nationality and has moved back and forth over the years. He's very recently (in the last 3 weeks or so) relocated to NZ as there is more work for his day job there than in the UK (less people capable of doing what he does).
Couldn't you modify the OE pump and make it shorter? It has the pump low down but on 'stilts' so could probably be shortened. The GEMS had a conventional filter attached to the RH chassis rail and you could fit an external pump there but you'd need to fabricate a petrol tank with the take off at the bottom as most aren't self priming. I've run a 3.9 Classic using the pump from an XJ6 so any pump intended for a reasonable sized injected car would work.
leolito wrote:
A friend is trying to rebuild his 4.6 trying to find components from other engines to make some Frankenstein with at least 4.8/4.9 liters, and hoping for more power. So far he's been at it for months, with no tangible result to be seen.
Why bother when he could just buy one off the shelf? See http://www.v8developments.co.uk/50long.htm, good for 350-400bhp depending on cam.
Just because the engine is offset isn't a problem. There's a Brit living in the US that has fitted an LS1 with 4L60e into a P38 and all it needed was an adapter to mate the GM gearbox to the existing transfer case. He's got everything, BeCM, EAS, ABS and all instruments working exactly as they should too. Overfinch used to fit an American V8 (a Ford I think) into the P38 using the original 4HP24.
While the BMW engine from the L322 may not be the best and a lot of people complain about the Vanos system, but if doing a conversion you wouldn't put a knackered old engine in, you'd at least rebuild it first. That way it will last just as long as it would have done when new. It was used in numerous different BMW models and other than a few that have suffered problems, most are still running fine. Probably down to maintenance just like any other engine, look after it and it will look after you, neglect it and you are asking for trouble.
I wouldn't agree that the M57 is a good engine as it can explode to the point where BMW have now refused to sell any more M57 engined cars to UK police forces (and almost al of them had a fleet including 330d, 530d and X5) after a number of problems, including one where the engine exploded, burst into flames and the officer inside died. My local force now run Volvo, Skoda VRS and the odd Audi instead.
The problem is the keyless entry and ignition. Having worked in RF all my working life and being shown how it works, the first time I saw it my reaction was how insecure it is. A £25 from eBay SDR and a laptop is all that is needed to fool the car into thinking the key is there. I know it isn't the only car that uses it but it is one of the most popular ones to steal to order or to steal to strip for spares. I presume the key doesn't have to be put in a hole on the dash somewhere, it just has to be in the car, otherwise it would be reasonably simple to disable the keyless part.
I've got a dead 4HP22 that I took out of mine last year. With no warning it suddenly lost all drive. Driving along it felt like I had a misfire, switched from LPG to petrol and just the same so not a fuel problem. Stopped at a set of traffic lights at a roundabout and the idle was perfectly smooth (which seemed odd), lights changed, foot down and it very slowly crawled away with the engine spinning at about 3,000 rpm and just managed to get round the roundabout and off the road. After that, I could leave it for a minute or so, start the engine, put it in drive and if I was lucky it would manage about 100 yards before losing drive again. So took it out and put a 4HP24 in instead. Flex plate wasn't cracked, torque converter was fully home in the gearbox and I haven't gone any further than that. I keep meaning to see if Ashcrofts would give me enough for it to cover the fuel to get it there but haven't, so if you can make use of it, it's yours.
The difference between the 4HP22 and 4HP24 is the length of the gearbox itself, the 22 being 15mm shorter but with a longer tail extension so the overall length is the same.
Philip wrote:
the best online quote for a four-year-old L405 was £9k - they really don’t want the business!
They know that within a matter of months it will be in a container heading for Africa or Russia......
Aragorn wrote:
Some reports that 4.0 Thor cars have sufficiently low NOx figures to be allowed in anyway.
There are multiple errors in the TfL database. A 2000 or later 4.0 litre Thor is shown as being compliant, despite being Euro 2, while a 4.6 Thor, which has near identical emissions figures and is also Euro 2 isn't. I've recently been working on a 2005 Rover 75 with an oil burner under the bonnet (thankfully, it doesn't need any engine work) which is Euro 3, so not compliant but it is on a personal plate. Putting that plate in correctly identifies the car as a 2005 diesel but says it is complaint whereas an identical one with the 55 plate, isn't.
The only exemption for LPG is for taxis that have been converted, at horrendous cost, by a specific company. It isn't taken into account for private cars unlike France where it is considered as clean as a hybrid.
+1 on avoiding the cheap universal sensors. As my LPG system isn't too keen on the 5-0V sensors, I've got a 0-1V Zirconia in one downpipe purely to drive the LPG system. The cheap eBay jobs last about 6 months, so only use decent NTK ones these days. The one in there has been there for at least 3 years now.
Yes, 0-1V on the Thor with 0V being lean, 5-0V on GEMS with 5V being lean (so failure has different symptoms).
A duff O2 sensor will give 0V, which on a Thor, is seen by the ECU as a lean mixture. That will cause it to richen the mixture which can cause a misfire, or rough idle at the very least.
From what I understand, Thor doesn't like anything other than Bosch sensors.
I agree entirely, the BeCM scares most people to death but in reality all it is doing is replacing hundreds of relays with some pretty basic programming and using MOSFETs to do the switching. It isn't actually that complicated at all. Although that is from someone who recently retired after 40 years in electronics and communications.....
Looking at the parts list, it does appear that the bellhousing is bolted onto the main gearbox body on the 5HP series, the same as on the 4HP. Torque converter looks totally different though with the fixings to the flex plate right at the outside edge rather than closer to the centre. Larger flex plate would be needed or, as long as the input on the 5HP is the same so the 4HP torque converter would slot in, then retain the 4HP one.
However, as yours is a GEMS, there's far more incompatibility with no Canbus to start with. Thor V8 to M57 has been done by Sloth, see https://rangerovers.pub/topic/1490-bmw-m57-swap-into-a-bosch-thor-v8-hse-pics
Without going any further than just theorising, the way I looked at it was that it should be possible to use the original Thor engine ECU with maybe a bit of reprogramming that would interface with everything else on the car. Admittedly the L322 uses a later 5HP gearbox but the 4HP24 is pretty strong anyway so would it be possible to use the torque converter and bellhousing from the L322 with the original P38 gearbox (or a mix and match of the two)?
KSeal will do nothing other than fill the coolant reservoir with copper flakes. Water glass does work though and lasts quite a while. As you say, top hat liners at just over a grand are the way to go or you could go the whole hog and go for a performance version of what you have (see http://www.v8developments.co.uk/engine.htm). Had it been a later Thor with the Bosch Motronic, you could do a swap that I've contemplated and thought shouldn't be too difficult, and fit the BMW 4.4 litre from the pre-2005 L322.