Defender V8 transplant

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Davidrowlands85

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3
Hello all,

First post here so bear with me! Basically I have a D2 V8 year 2000. My dream Land rover is a defender 90 V8 however these are getting on now so my thought is to buy a TD5 lets say around 2005 ish model then remove the engine and gearbox from the D2 and transplant them. My reasoning for using my D2's engine etc is because it's worth around 3k As a car but the engine is strong and has 51k on it from new. My question is, is this reasonably easy to do?

Any thoughts appreciated!
 
Welcome to the forum.

It will depend a lot on how good you are with the electronics that go with the engines.

Mechanically you can do almost anything, but electrickery is another matter.

Peter
 
Ok thanks, my hope was to transfer the "lot". Mechanically I would be ok but the electronics might be a bit much however I do think it would be worth it if it could be done. Would a manual gearbox make things a lot easier? I.e no speed sensors etc to worry about.
 
You are going to cause yourself a whole heap of headaches by going down this route
You have a motronic ecu and a ZF EH 22 gearbox which in principle coi
Uld go in but you have a TD5 loom in your defender.

You would have a much easier time if you just buy a decent V8 90 with a galvanised chassis and swap your engine into it


Even then the economy gains over a carb or hotwire engine will be marginal at best

What you need is a 50th anniversary 90 - V8 auto all factory

Www.defender50th.couk
 
The problem with the Thor engine and auto box is that so much of the electronics is intertwined. One the Discovery 2 you have an ECU for every day of the week, and those ECU's are connected by a datalink, so take out one of them, like the BCU, and you'll have troubles with the others.

Personally I think that the electronics would cause the greatest issues, unless you could get hold of the components for an NAS spec 90, which would be the loom and all the relevant electronics.

Peter
 
Hello all thanks for the replies, looks like a non starter! Too complicated! I thought it would be straight forward if I shifted everything across. Would a better idea be to take a TD5 and put in a carb'ed V8 with a manual box? I've seen the 50th anniversary defenders which is what gave me the idea! I work away at sea so economy isn't an issue as there is no commute. Hence me wanting a newish defender v8 that's reliable and reasonably powerful, and with the defender coming to the end of its life there is only one direction a well sorted v8 90's value is going!
 
what you need is one of these

6.3 litre chevy, auto box, smooth, comfy, fast
 

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Buy a tidy rust free petrol 90 and get hold of a v8 conversion kit from millner phillips or similar. This will work for a 3.9 hotwire motor. Not too tricky.
 
IMO the ideal conversion vehicles are a 300tdi 90, with or without its engine and box etc, and a v8 disco 1, both vehicles are nice and simple and the donor disco will be very cheap

a 3.5 disco is closer in wiring tech to 300 90 than a 3.9 disco is

either way the v8 efi in the disco 1 is a standalone unit so would be easy to drop into the 90 with the corresponding box.

pretty much all you need to do is fit v8 mounts to the 90 chassis and mess about with the transmission tunnel, then wire and plumb it all up

cheers
 
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