P38A Diesel Conversion

Our Ninety was a 200Tdi and our 110 is an early 300Tdi.

The 200 was a piece of cake to work on. Even this early 300 has a few more wires to it!!

wammers said:

Why not go the whole hog and convert it to steam?

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Like this

Tumor said:

Yeah okay, I may have something wrong here...........
What are they like? simple like a 200tdi/300tdi? or more complex?

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They are ok, very gutless and underpowered in stock trim. They can be tuned, but not BMW's finest motor ever and often problematic in the p38a.

They are also more of a road going engine, not really suited to off road use. An old school Tdi is a much better power plant for off road use and a Td5 is just a far superior engine to the BMW unit.

There is a company in the UK that does a plug and play conversion kit, so you can drop a 3.0 BMW 6 cylinder diesel in a p38a (this engine used in the L322 Range Rover's). It's not a brilliant engine either, but much better than the old 2.5

However, if it's a play thing, a Rover V8 is likely better and cheaper than any of these options.

My Defender Tdi was bullet-proof. You should have seen the abuse that got and it took everything. It was more than a bit agricultural though.

V8 might be better off road but more reliable?!

wammers said:

LRO are wrong P38 did come with 2.5 litre BMW diesel engines and R380 manual gearbox.

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Sorry my bad, i didnt read it properly, they do have it in the magazine