The 3528cc in my Defender good do with a bit more grunt - budget is limiting factor, so any ideas on what to change to give a more va va voom for not many £££s?

New fuel pump - god knows as I am new to this.

good headers, tune up the su carbs and a cold air intake. electronic igntion like lumention if its still on points and maybe some nice magnecore leads.

mine seems a lot more pokey with those upgrades, well for such an old car anyway. I am building a hi comp sd1 style engine to go in it in the end for about 190 bhp on carbs

fett said:

good headers, tune up the su carbs and a cold air intake. electronic igntion like lumention if its still on points and maybe some nice magnecore leads.

mine seems a lot more pokey with those upgrades, well for such an old car anyway. I am building a hi comp sd1 style engine to go in it in the end for about 190 bhp on carbs

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Thanks for the info

biggest area on the rover V8s in the head - a set of stage one heads should liberate around 25-30hp when you retune the carbs. Stage 1 Cylinder Heads - V8 Tuner

headers and a decent exhaust system will release a few extra ponnies but nothing that you'll really notice. changes to the ingnition will only work if your original stuff if ****ed.

if your car is high milage then the cam is probably worn so even fitting a new OE cam will make things better..

the other alternative is to junk the 3.5 and fit a 3.9 http://www.v8tuner.co.uk/product.php?id=857

sadly to get anything really more out of the engine you will have to spend a bit of cash

POAH said:

biggest area on the rover V8s in the head - a set of stage one heads should liberate around 25-30hp when you retune the carbs. Stage 1 Cylinder Heads - V8 Tuner

headers and a decent exhaust system will release a few extra ponnies but nothing that you'll really notice. changes to the ingnition will only work if your original stuff if ****ed.

if your car is high milage then the cam is probably worn so even fitting a new OE cam will make things better..

the other alternative is to junk the 3.5 and fit a 3.9 Rover V8 3.5 to 3.9 conversion. - V8 Tuner

sadly to get anything really more out of the engine you will have to spend a bit of cash

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Yep, I think the 3.9 is the way forward, will cost a few £s but it will be worth it.

'Tweeks' will have to wait as new heater matrix and heater cables are first on my (very long) to do list.

Took him off roading on Sunday for the first time (Landy didn't miss a beat all day)

3.9 and bigger like to slip liners a lot more than the 3.5. I would steer well clear.

stage one heads are a lot of cash, thought he said he was on a budget

thats really a load of crap - yes you do get slipped liners but its not like every one will slip. no need for that kind of scar mongering

fett said:

3.9 and bigger like to slip liners a lot more than the 3.5. I would steer well clear.

stage one heads are a lot of cash, thought he said he was on a budget

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i would start with a tune up on a rolling road, then replace the worn parts that it finds

POAH said:

thats really a load of crap - yes you do get slipped liners but its not like every one will slip. no need for that kind of scar mongering

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a lot do at one point or at least hgf, thought you agreed before?

POAH said:

biggest area on the rover V8s in the head - a set of stage one heads should liberate around 25-30hp when you retune the carbs. Stage 1 Cylinder Heads - V8 Tuner

headers and a decent exhaust system will release a few extra ponnies but nothing that you'll really notice. changes to the ingnition will only work if your original stuff if ****ed.

if your car is high milage then the cam is probably worn so even fitting a new OE cam will make things better..

the other alternative is to junk the 3.5 and fit a 3.9 Rover V8 3.5 to 3.9 conversion. - V8 Tuner

sadly to get anything really more out of the engine you will have to spend a bit of cash

Click to expand...

electronic is more efficient than the single set of points he may have, the timing wanders a lot with the orginal points system. electronic should give a good strong spark

Looks a tidy motor and engine bay, are you sure it dont just need a tune up
:beer2:

You could always do this, JanSpeed Turbo. Should be plenty of room under the bonnet to fit it all

SU's are good for about 220Bhp then they become the limiting factor, Bro managed to get 212Bhp and silly torque figure from a 3.5 would knock the socks of the average many are getting on for 20year old. That took some serious time in the workshop and about £1200-2.5K depending on how much work you can do yourself. Lots of money on the rolling road to get the correct needles. If you change somthing from std then it will need to be retuned Correclty throughout the rev range. Many home builds throw in a camshaft and it runs like a bag o ****e. Best money would be spent on a service and retune at a rolling road.


I have a set of stage 1 bro heads he did and he is rebuilding the engine for me when he gets chance should be absolutly std bar some port matching on the heads but new and run as it was intended. Should be a laugh in my little 80 inch!!

Spunka said:

Looks a tidy motor and engine bay, are you sure it dont just need a tune up
:beer2:

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You may be right - I think a new fuel pump would help and someone to set the carbs up (properly).

Good news: Heater working for the first time since I bought the 90 in March

Nice and toasty in the cab - shame so much rain is getting in

jai_landrover said:

SU's are good for about 220Bhp then they become the limiting factor, Bro managed to get 212Bhp and silly torque figure from a 3.5 would knock the socks of the average many are getting on for 20year old. That took some serious time in the workshop and about £1200-2.5K depending on how much work you can do yourself. Lots of money on the rolling road to get the correct needles. If you change somthing from std then it will need to be retuned Correclty throughout the rev range. Many home builds throw in a camshaft and it runs like a bag o ****e. Best money would be spent on a service and retune at a rolling road.


I have a set of stage 1 bro heads he did and he is rebuilding the engine for me when he gets chance should be absolutly std bar some port matching on the heads but new and run as it was intended. Should be a laugh in my little 80 inch!!

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How did the flywheel work out Jai? I still have not tried mine :doh:

Hi Fett

Not put It on the milling turntable yet.

Good news was that my engine already had an sd1 flywheel whic was modded for the old school 9 inch clutch so I'll put it back as was (pointless using a lightened flywheel and silt hevy clutch plate).

Will machine down as much as I dare on this new flywheel and keep it for another 3.5 which I'm sure will be more funky with few more tweaks tha the current one..

Finding it hard to get a rolling road locally so once one is sorted I'll look at building a serious engine for a laugh.

I'm just building a 3.9 RV8 at the moment and have spent a lot of time researching and asking questions.

As said porting of the heads seems to be the biggest thing to do. I have done it myself and its pretty straightforward as long as you follow the guidance given. Des Hamill's book has a good guide. It takes a lot of time but I reckon I've increased the cross sectional area of each port by about 25%. If you port match to the inlet manifold that helps a lot too. Obviously the headers should be matched as well and I understand the cast iron jobbies can be matched although I'll be making my own system (straight through I think).

A skim of the heads and burretting to get a good 10:1 even compression ratio across all cylinders will help immensely, certainly in making it run more smoothly if nothing else. When I worked all mine out on what was meant to be a 9.35:1 CR the CR varied from 8.4 to 9.2:1 which will make the engine run unevenly and drop the power significantly.

The advantage of this is that (particularly if you are going the 3.9 route) you can do all the work on the heads in your own time rather than having the vehicle off the road.

You can also look at the valve train geometry on the heads so you get maximum lift from the cam. Again very time consuming to get right but cheap to do. Even if you can't do the machining of the pedestals or the seats yourself, it won't cost too much to get them done. I took 0.71mm off mine to get the VTG right. The cost of this upgrade though is adjustable pushrods although you will probably need those anyway once you've sorted the CR.

If you've sorted out the VTG you will probably want to replace the cam, but don't go too far off standard as you want low down power and a smooth idle in a Landy. No harm in increasing the rate of lift a little though.

After that the inlet manifold and carbs are the place to look. Edelbrock dual plane and a 500CFM carb are said to be the best combo for these engines.

Its taken me a year so far to build this engine and final assembly should be next weekend so I have spread the cost pretty thinly across that time.

Be wary of carbs especially If you intend on using the vehicle Offroad many many carbs dump fuel in the engine when at odd angles su's are good carbs for Offroad use