TD5 Tuning Capabilities - Question

Guys,

I have seen this link for a Landy on ebay with a whole host of basic upgrades:

Land Rover Defender 90 Truck (2003) TD5 Rebuilt on a Galvanised Chassis | eBay

-Larger Intercooler fittted by Alive Tuning
-EGR System removed by Alive Tuning
-Huge ECU re-map completed by Alive Tuning
-Straight through Exhaust Fitted (sounds amazing)
-Electronic Boost Control

I'm not at all interested in the Defender itself but can any of you give me an idea of the gains that such mods bring.

The FMIC will obviously reduce the charge temperatures and the ECU will support a few moderate changes to power/torque curves but surely an EBC is a bit OTT.

I'm intrigued by the whole thing in terms of potential gains etc.

I've picked up a couple of points from this thread below so in real terms the kit mentioned in my first post is specifically designed to refine the driveability of the standard road system.

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f50/release-your-td5-power-199872.html

Forgetting torque gains for a second, If the standard figures are set at 122BHP then what can be expected on a healthy engine; a 5-10% gain or ???

if done right 245hp

SupraAyf said:

Forgetting torque gains for a second, If the standard figures are set at 122BHP then what can be expected on a healthy engine; a 5-10% gain or ???

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Difficulty stopping

Thor1950 said:

if done right 245hp

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Really, that much, I'm surprised with those figures. Sounds good though.

Thor1950 said:

if done right 245hp

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SupraAyf said:

Really, that much, I'm surprised with those figures. Sounds good though.

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Hence the difficulty stopping

still cant see how bolt on goodies can double the stock horsepower, without engine internals being altered

johnlad said:

still cant see how bolt on goodies can double the stock horsepower, without engine internals being altered

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Look at 5 alive and a few on here have them. Most at the 225 hp setting

johnlad said:

still cant see how bolt on goodies can double the stock horsepower, without engine internals being altered

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Tis a bit beyond me but do know electrickery remapping can give gains without touching the engine internals.

Plus there's always the trade off of increase power gain and you'll find a weakness in the power train somewhere then you'll just end up chasing yer own tsil.

I figure Land Rover spent alot of time and money building it the way it is for damn good reasons

But then if folk wanna modify stuff who am I to stop em

Bromsgrove Defender said:

Tis a bit beyond me but do know electrickery remapping can give gains without touching the engine internals.

Plus there's always the trade off of increase power gain and you'll find a weakness in the power train somewhere then you'll just end up chasing yer own tsil.

I figure Land Rover spent alot of time and money building it the way it is for damn good reasons

But then if folk wanna modify stuff who am I to stop em

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It is just what the engine has as a potential, and go from that. From reading all i could about the TD5 it was detuned to 122hp for insurance reasons and safety

Bromsgrove Defender said:

Tis a bit beyond me but do know electrickery remapping can give gains without touching the engine internals.

Plus there's always the trade off of increase power gain and you'll find a weakness in the power train somewhere then you'll just end up chasing yer own tsil.

I figure Land Rover spent alot of time and money building it the way it is for damn good reasons

But then if folk wanna modify stuff who am I to stop em

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i understand the tuning princples, my own td5 has all of them mods on it but feels nothing like a 245bhp motor,, remapping on a turbo diesel gives around 25% increase in power (circa 30bhp) so cant see the intercooler and egr removal, with straight pipe on the exhaust making so much difference, even with a vvt I think around 200bhp is more realistic, unless the td5 is the most tunable car in the world, lol

If you do all the mods to the engine and add all there gains you get there. More air and fuel is more HP. So a larger inter cooler, a VNT, that new exhaust header Alisport has, stainless exhaust straight through from turbo along with the 5 alive stuff and you are there. It is just the question of how much money you want/got to spend.
Plus with all that HP, a good upgraded brake system to stop the darn thing is in order

how many of these 245bhp motors have actually been on an independant rolling road, thats the sort of magazine featue i would like to see

The trade off is reliability. Apparently there is a twisted performance TD5 giving more than 300bhp but I doubt it is an every day usable machine in that state of tune.

The last 10 comments are really the bones of my argument and it's interesting to hear what people have to say.

In my other life I play around with Japanese Cars (Toyota Supra MkiV Twin Turbo) which in its basic factory guise produces circa 280-330 BHP. You then add a few juicy mods (those mentioned below) and the horses soon race up to the 450+ mark. I then come along and add a few hundred more horses here and there to get something worth showing off.

The point with my Toyota Tuning story is that the company massively over engineered the 2JZ-GTE Toyota lump so therefore the gains are there in the first place without placing too much excess on the internal system.

If LR did the same for the TD5 then good on em’ but it’s interesting that we’re already looking at a 100% gain from the figures mentioned by you guys.

I have all the bolt on mods with the VNT but not mapped properly yet. I got the smaller of the two VNTs by accident though lol. Might try get my dad to buy it off me for his Disco so I can get the larger one

If you want more power, you could have upto 700Nm and upto 300bhp and still have a reliable engine (not saying anything about the drivetrain of course) by stroking it to 2.8.


Would have been a number of reasons why the Defender was detuned from the factory and also the Disco.

If they all had 200-240bhp, they'd be plain dangerous for a lot of people, a Defender probably could not be driven so fast anyway without being plain insane but you could get yourself into a lot trouble with a Discovery with a lot of power

LR would have had to accommodate the lowest common denominator in working environment, fuel quality etc so by only having the engine work in 60-70% of its potential makes it fairly safe and reliable.


With upwards of 200bhp and 500Nm from the engine, a lot of more expensive components would have to be designed and fitted in order for the rest of the drivetrain to stick upto the power without having a host of warranty claims. The axles and drivetrain were still more or less the same as what were used to cope with a 200tdi and brakes would also have had to be upgraded so with all that, I would start to get very expensive to manufacturer which still looked like the exact same vehicle as a 300tdi version with just more power that only a few would really want anyway.


Having that kind of power in a Defender and Disco would also make the V8s and even the rangerovers look a bit tame so would be shooting themselves in the foot if a entry level Defender or Disco had better performance than the flagship models

That's a real good post indeed Dave and I understand fully where you're coming from.

I can recall driving the old 110 V8s in the early to mid 90's and they were a handful albeit quite impressive at the lights against the fastest Lada

You then go and place 240BHP under the bonnet and the stability of the thing is probably something that then gets called into question. You kick it up to 300 and I suspect you need a few favours from God to help you out in the corners.

I did read about a 510BHP by Twisted the other day but I can't recall the spec.

Thanks for the reply good mate; much appreciated!

SupraAyf said:

That's a real good post indeed Dave and I understand fully where you're coming from.

I can recall driving the old 110 V8s in the early to mid 90's and they were a handful albeit quite impressive at the lights against the fastest Lada

You then go and place 240BHP under the bonnet and the stability of the thing is probably something that then gets called into question. You kick it up to 300 and I suspect you need a few favours from God to help you out in the corners.

I did read about a 510BHP by Twisted the other day but I can't recall the spec.

Thanks for the reply good mate; much appreciated!

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6.2/5 GM petrol corvette motor and looked like it had 20" tyres for less side wall flex

This place did it with a jag motor........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8EhLM84ZQ4

They do come with anti sway bars from the factory (TD5) which helps handeling

I believe its this Twisted Performance TD5 that is/was the fastest.

240hp

About Us. - Twisted Performance

The Alive one is no slouch either!!!

Alive Td5 PP5 on Vimeo