CALLING Rover V8 experts - How easy is it to Supercharge one ?

It's pretty much a rebuild. To do it to any worthwhile point, the compression needs lowering which means new pistons and hence a rebore. The crankshaft pulley needs altering as well and this is all before you've got to fuelling. The Rover V8 isn't actually all that good a conversion as it's a fairly low powered lump for its capacity.

A far cheaper, easier and one that'll give you more power would be to stick a Twin Cam Vauxhall XE engine in. Stick a throttle body kit on it and you'll get over 200BHP with no internal mods. Better still, there's off the shelf conversion kits. Plenty of info both in Classic Ford/Retro Ford and online about the XE conversion. Failing that, there's always the 24v Duratec or if he wants to go really silly, Sierra Cosworth engine.

Or a supercharged V6/V8 out of a jag XJR. It is possible to effectively bolt on a supercharger to almost any engine provided it's kept at low boost.

About the same as an injection 3.5 Rover engine. But without the torque or simplicity.

It's certainly not a common conversion - turbo charging was more so.

I've a feeling other engines may benefit more than this one - why I dunno.

Dave Plowman (News) ( snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

That always used to be the case, but the cheap and easy availability of blowers now is changing it - about £100-150 seems to be the going rate for one off a Cooper S. That's too small for a "full fat" blowing of a Rover v8, but might be sufficient for a low-blow easy conversion without lowering compression...?

Even a bigger Eaton off an XJR isn't hugely expensive.

Isn't it supposed to be a competition car? Personally for tracks, I'd rather have a lightweight 4 pot up front than a V6/V8 to help with the handling.

...but the V6/8 for drag racing. Proper tool for the job and all.

isn't the rover v8 quite light for a V8 being all-alloy?

It's quite light for *anything* of that capacity.

As Conor said, it can be done, but it's hard work.

A friend of mine has a Defender 4.0 V8 that he supercharged, and it involved pretty much rebuilding the entire bottom end. He's getting

In news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk, Dave Plowman (News) wittered on forthwith;

IIRC the injected V8 weighs less than a 2.0 Pinto, and TVR regularly got 300 bhp from normally aspirated 4.3 ones.

Ummm no they didn't. TVR, like some others of the smaller manufacturers, were notably economical with 'la verite' when it came to the power outputs of their engines. In fact let's not mince words here. They lied through their teeth to try and sell more cars. When the Griffith 500 was launched back in the early 90s they claimed 340 bhp and 350 ft lbs from its 5 litre engine. To those of us that have actually been involved with developing the Rover V8 that sounded utterly impossible for an engine retaining the standard injection system, a road cam and decent low rpm power. Knock 100 bhp off the claim and you might be closer to the truth. It was hard enough getting 300 bhp out of full race engines with big valve heads, multiple carbs or throttle bodies and race cams. 340 out of a road motor was basically complete bollocks.

I knew most of the other tuners working on the V8 so I made a few phone calls. Didn't take long to find someone who knew a lot more about the story. TVR only supplied one press car and every magazine had to wait their turn to road test it. There had to be a reason and it became clear very quickly. The engine in that car bore very little relation to the ones in cars off the production line. It had been sent to this V8 tuner, bored and stroked out to an even larger capacity, ported and tweaked inside in various ways and STILL didn't come close to the claimed power. He didn't want to divulge too much given that TVR were still a paying (hopefully) customer but he told me most of it in the end. After several grands worth of modifications he got around

What amazes me is that no one ever sued them for misrepresentation. All it would have taken was one independent dyno test and their power claims would have evaporated into smoke. Here's what those engines actually produced. 248 bhp. Exactly what those of us who actually worked on those engines suspected from the start.

adder1969 ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

BMW's 4.0 v8 isn't an early 60s pushrod lump. The Rover v8 has a lot of things going for it, but high-tech it ain't.

In news:eiq0m7$u73$ snipped-for-privacy@news.datemas.de, Dave Baker wittered on forthwith;

Well, that's me surprised.

I had an SD1 Vitesse 5 years ago that did 186 bhp at the wheels according to the dyno of a well respected engine guru. All that had was a Hurricane cam, Rhodes lifters, a re-programmed ECU, slightly reworked heads, stainless exhaust, K&N, and a Mallory ignition coil. The motor was built by someone who worked at TVR in Blackpool.

Admittedly the bloke who owned the rollers was as surprised as me at this result, so we re-ran the test a few times. Every time the result was within

I'm not doubting what you're saying at all, I'm just surprised that TVR could quote power outputs 100BHP up on what they actually produced - especially with things like the TUV needing an accurate power output.

So that's about 220 bhp at the flywheel and you've already done just about everything to the engine that TVR could barring the extra capacity which won't affect the peak power hugely anyway, it'll just reduce the revs it's produced at. So if you are surprised where would you find the missing 120 bhp, or just over another 50%, from?

-- Dave Baker Puma Race Engines

In news:eiqgds$3le$ snipped-for-privacy@news.datemas.de, Dave Baker wittered on forthwith;

Well, I'd have thought that an extra 800cc and whatever else TVR would do should have helped a tad more than 20 bhp, this wasn't a radical engine in the SD1 after all.

"Pete M" wrote in message news:eiqg08$tl2$ snipped-for-privacy@registered.motzarella.org...

Just out of interest, in the late 70's when I had my first SD1, a 2600, one of my customers had a 3.5 SD1 with twin turbos. I don't know what else had been done to it, but he let me drive it once, and it went like a rocket. Neck snapping acceleration. Much better than the SD1 Vitesse I aquired later. More like the acceleration of a Lamborghini Countach, which another of my customers owned. Anyway, I asked him to let me know when he wanted to sell it. Apparently the conversion was done by a Co in South London, and at that time they'd only done 2 or 3 IIRC. Servicing costs were high, as even changing the plugs involved quite a bit of dismantling, as the turbos virtually filled the space each side of the engine, which meant that servicing was best carried out by the conversion Co. He did offer it to me a year or so later, and whilst I could have just afforded to buy it, I didn't like the idea of having a car that could only be serviced properly by one Co. It was not unexpectedly, a bit heavy on juice, and as at the time I was also doing quite high annual mileages, I declined the offer. I wonder if any are still around. Mike.

In news:45512a49$0$8720$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net, Mike G wittered on forthwith;

I sold a Janspeed twin turbo conversion for a Rover V8 a couple of years ago to someone off Usenet, I bought it when I was thinking of building a Rover V8 Sierra. Very simple conversion but it was for a carb V8, not the EFi one.

Of course, since I sold them I've had loads of Range Rover V8s...