bankz5152
Well-Known Member
Mainly posting this because I am bored ****less at work....
With the anti diesel brigade coming down hard who knows how long before it'll be too expensive/difficult to drive one anywhere near a town, let alone a city. So got me thinking on petrol engine conversions to keep the 110 running!
LS3 - £25 - £35k to have it done properly. Too much money, could buy another car for that
Ford Coyote V8 - £10 - £15k - Cheaper but still bloody expensive
Then I saw that Shabs/Syncro are doing a 1UZ-FE adapter for the R380 box, had a look. Not a great engine for a Defender but has potential. Mainly as the torque is much higher up the rev range, plus its a pretty old engine now.
Bit of research and found the 3UZ is very similar just improved, more modern with more torque lower down the rev range and generally more power overall. Especially the VVTi version. Apparently an extremely reliable engine as well, reports of hitting 500k miles before needing to be rebuilt on standard tune.
Best part? Engines around £800 - £1500 turn key, should put out around 300bhp & 440nm torque. More HP than my TD5 but around the same torque so should perform in a similar way, thats the hope anyway. Plus loads can be done to up the power with twin turbo or supercharging. Coupled with Shabs' Duraspec R380 (which I expect I will have fitted between now and then) & plate I can't see why this wouldn't work and could be done without breaking the bank or too much fab/conversion work. Also means I can keep it manual
and very little change to the drive train
One thing is though, how to all the gauges get wired up? Mainly the speedo, I guess the temp can just be changed to an aftermarket one, same for a tacho.
Ridiculous or decent idea?
With the anti diesel brigade coming down hard who knows how long before it'll be too expensive/difficult to drive one anywhere near a town, let alone a city. So got me thinking on petrol engine conversions to keep the 110 running!
LS3 - £25 - £35k to have it done properly. Too much money, could buy another car for that
Ford Coyote V8 - £10 - £15k - Cheaper but still bloody expensive
Then I saw that Shabs/Syncro are doing a 1UZ-FE adapter for the R380 box, had a look. Not a great engine for a Defender but has potential. Mainly as the torque is much higher up the rev range, plus its a pretty old engine now.
Bit of research and found the 3UZ is very similar just improved, more modern with more torque lower down the rev range and generally more power overall. Especially the VVTi version. Apparently an extremely reliable engine as well, reports of hitting 500k miles before needing to be rebuilt on standard tune.
Best part? Engines around £800 - £1500 turn key, should put out around 300bhp & 440nm torque. More HP than my TD5 but around the same torque so should perform in a similar way, thats the hope anyway. Plus loads can be done to up the power with twin turbo or supercharging. Coupled with Shabs' Duraspec R380 (which I expect I will have fitted between now and then) & plate I can't see why this wouldn't work and could be done without breaking the bank or too much fab/conversion work. Also means I can keep it manual
and very little change to the drive trainOne thing is though, how to all the gauges get wired up? Mainly the speedo, I guess the temp can just be changed to an aftermarket one, same for a tacho.
Ridiculous or decent idea?
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