It's alright, I get online when I've got the time so don't worry. I enjoy a bit of gassing about Megasquirt anyway
Basically it's like this:
The rover v8 is a v8. It's not a great v8 by modern standards but its good for its time, perhaps even better than its time. It's also aluminium which is great cos its lightweight. As we know this isn't ideal for people who think that they're standard 15 year old radiator will be ok. I spent £200 on a new HD radiator and its cool as a cucumber. A very noisy cucumber.
Now, as far as the land rover owner goes, He probably wants to fix his own car. Firstly because it is cheap to do so and secondly how else do you gain that bond with the vehicle?!
The rover v8 with is old fashioned ways and parts list you can count on your fingers and toes is absolutely awesome for this. Such a beautifully simple engine. It's crap cos its simple apparently but I think it's awesome cos old stuff is cool.
The problem is that the old fashioned accessories that are fitted to the engine are not cool.
The EFi system was pretty reliable and this pretty cool but it was limited regards producing top power. Otherwise it was cool.
The dizzy however is not a cool guy. Far from it. He's an old fashioned chap that makes a spark in a clockwork manner, and a serious issue is that he is a long way away from the crankshaft so the timing can have quite a lot of delay. And this is quite frankly ****ing ****. The fact that there is an air gap in the dizzy is bad for your spark at the plug!
So
This means that we have a good old engine, with a bit of a crap way of running.
Solution?
Fit a trigger wheel to the crank! Bang on timing now.
Then fit a coil pack or two and fire them directly to the plugs with no gaps or jumps. Also use waterproof connectors, wayhey!
Control these with an ECU which is lightning quick and has tuneable spark control and **** me you've got a simple old engine with a really rather cool modern way of running. So now it runs like a new engine, just uses fuel like an old one.
Hang on, phone about to die!