NS Dev
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 04:30 PM |
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Sorry, another post, but I would dispute the claim further up that you can get a Zetec up and running in a Locost for £200! If you got given a perfect
engine then maybe, but what about sump? Megasquirt still costs about £50 even if you do it dead cheap and have all the know-how. £100 Zetecs need
rebuilding!! I have seen enough broken ones, which is why I use the Vauxhall XE. Yes you can get a knackered Mondeo etc for £50 or less but the engine
will be knackered too!
Realistically (and no-doubt someone will have done it for less but they know somebody that gave them the bits!) you need to spend £500 min to get a
reliable 150hp engine into a locost, plus then you need a gearbox!! You can do it for less but it will probably not be reliable.
If you plumped for a standard 1800cc vauxhall OHC (8v - J-series)) engine from a Manta and the gearbox that comes with it then you can have 100hp for
about £50. It is all complete and ready to go, straight out of the Manta.
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britishtrident
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 04:35 PM |
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I have driven most Rovers that had the 3.5 v8 and my work vehicle used to be a V8 Land-Rover 90.
The Rover V8 isn't a performance engine -- only in Vitesse form did the 3.5 version have any real grunt; just to put things in perpective 200
bhp is a quite lot for Rover 3.5 V8 but is less than 60bhp per litre. Rovers own old 2 litre turbo unit produces 192 as STANDARD screw the waste gate
down just a little and you have 200 bhp.
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PioneerX
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 04:51 PM |
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NS Dev,
I went the Vauxhall 8v 18E engine and box from a Carlton, as you quite rightly point out, whole lot for £50. Engine on standard injection produces
115bhp.
Shortening the sump was easy (it is steel), a handful of wires (mainly power), easy as the 18E has no true ECU just an ignition unit.
The gearbox that come withit will allow any of the Vaxuhall engines to bolt on and the shift lever was just connected with a 3/4" tube so was
easy to put where I wanted.
115bhp(standard), drop in engine and gearbox unit (almost) for £50, with only 90k on it. Cant be bad 
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Jamesfear
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 06:12 PM |
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that price was not with the engine just the price of the parts.
I have a brand new engine that i got cheep direct from ford. You just have to look around to find them. Its one of the 1.8 130bhp out of an rs2000 so
no need for a new sump and will put out 150bhp just with the new plenum chamber just like the one dutchsuperseven uses and the right maping with the
ecu.
I am not saying the zetec is the best engine just one of the ones you can use.
Go have a look around the scap yard and see what they have and you may just pick up a very good engine at a good price. Remember there is no money in
scap cars anymore and they just cush them with the engine in, so will sale very cheep.
But after all this tolk if I had not picked up this zetec engine for the price i got it for in the end i would have gone for a vx that i know of in a
scap yard i know of.
both very good engines and then you have the 4age as well as lots more.
just take your pick in the end.
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zetec
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 06:38 PM |
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After all that I must go with the bike engine idea as poss best suited to car. We all have idea of the engine to fit but spend some time thinking
about laws of physics and how cars go round bends and light is right! No need to go with blade/busa power, Hondas nice big 1300 V4 on carbs would make
a very good car unit, but thats going too far off track.
I'm off for a drive in my nice simple MK.
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NS Dev
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 06:51 PM |
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Yes, I would agree light is best! I would like to use bike power but a few things put me off, the main one being cost compared to the engines that I
already have in the garage! The reliability of the bike stuff I know is good but spares are not at all cheap!
One of the major manufacturers, can'r remember who, has stopped doing the bike engine thing due to worries about warrany claims on the
gearboxes. Anyhow, this isn't a reason for not using one I know, and if I had one in the garage now I would use it, but I don't whereas I
do have a couple of Vauxhall XE's!!
Re. the 1800 vauxhall engine, you don't need to mod the steel Carlton sump if you can find a Manta 1800 sump, these are already lowline, winged
ally jobs as standard (it's actually now cheaper to buy a complete car than the sump on it's own though!!)
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craig1410
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| posted on 2/4/04 at 08:05 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
The Rover V8 isn't a performance engine -- only in Vitesse form did the 3.5 version have any real grunt;
So 400BHP in normally aspirated form isn't performance then??? Someone had better tell the guys from TVR that they shouldn't use them in
their sportscars then eh?
I also can't believe that you have compared a turbo engine to a n/a engine because this is totally incomparable. Remember when turbo's
were used in F1 and power outputs of 1000BHP+ were common? That was from a 1.5 litre engine IIRC. Now we have 3 litre n/a engines which
"only" produce 900BHP even though they are twice as big!! And that's after several years of development.
In all seriousness the cylinder heads on the Rover V8 aren't the best hence they struggle to turn high RPM's and hence struggle to produce
big power. However, the way they deliver their flat torque curve over such a wide rev range makes them much punchier than the peak power figures would
have you believe. The Vitesse and Vanden Plas EFI models, made in the mid to late 80's, didn't employ any fancy tricks to achieve 193BHP
and many have argued that this power level should be considered the "norm" for this engine with the 155BHP SD1 model considered a de-tuned
version. The Vitesse engine can be tuned to over 250BHP in 3.5 litre form and over 300BHP in 3.9 litre form. This is still short of the magical
100BHP/litre mark granted but is no slouch all the same. The TVR Tuscan 4.4 litre engine produces 348BHP at 6750RPM and 297lbft of torque at 5500RPM
(source David Hardcastle's V8 tuning book) which can power a Tuscan to 60MPH in 3.7 seconds.
If we start to talk about turbo and supercharging then the RV8 can produce silly power just like any other engine. Two notable instances are Nic
Mann's Morris Minor with a Turbo V8 engine which did a quarter mile in 11.1 seconds (0-100MPH in 6.9sec) and a Triumph TR7 V8 Le Mans project
car which achieved 193.5MPH on the Mulsanne Straight. Rovercraft managed to get 720lbft (yes lbft) of torque from a 4.5 litre RV8 engine at 3000RPM.
This list goes on...
Sorry, but I had to come to the rescue of the trusty old RV8 once again. 
Cheers,
Craig.
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zetec
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| posted on 3/4/04 at 07:10 AM |
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While it is plain to see you have a great deal of respect for the RV8 you must admit in the real world the chance of getting hold of a Vitesse or for
that any other engine from a pre "95 SD1/Land Rover or any other BL vehicle which can just be fitted without at least some form of
reconditioning is slim. BL/Rover have never been known for their quality (talking from experience) and most of the larger V8 tuning companies do
suggest that anything with over 80,000 miles on the clock will be in need of some work. Add to that the cost of a good gearbox and flywheel/clutch,
twin exhaust and big carb the cost can soo get beyond the few hundred quid the engine may have cost to start. As has been said before the cost of
putting any engine of 150 BHP into a kit will not be that different, and the sums must get even closer when going to 200BHP. As you say the RV8 has
been used to great effect in the past but once you quote figures of 4.4ltr you might as well save the tuning cost and get a modern yank all ali 5.0
ltr putting out 350BHP in a standard road car and with a life span of several 100,000 miles. It must be said that the engine is a classic but things
have moved on and it is no longer the only option or best design. As far as keeping things simple not having a distributor/points or carb to tune
every service is fine by me. I suspect most modern engines will happily run for well over 150,000 miles before any major work is required, this is due
to better machining and better fueling. Don't knock modern kit till you've tried it.
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Northy
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| posted on 3/4/04 at 09:15 AM |
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Getting back on topic......
I would say the VX engine is alot cheaper to install than the Zetec. You can use a dizzy from an old carbed (1.8?) cav, I got one for £10! You do have
to buy a bellhousing, but thats ~£150 unless you fancy making an adaptor plate.
Performance wise I think the 2L 16V is ~150bhp as standard, this would prob go to ~180bhp with a free flowing exhaust and set of carbs.
Or, the engine I'm using. 2L 8V from the Cav SRI 130. 130 bhp as standard, I'm hoping for a little under 150 bhp with free flowing
exhaust, and twin 45's, with un otherwise std engine. Oh and bags and bags of torque! And the best bit, under rateted and thus cheap as chips!
Plus engine mounts and belhousing will fit the 16V lump for an upgrade later.
Cheers
[Edited on 3/4/04 by Northy]
Graham
Website under construction. Help greatfully received as I don't really know what I'm doing! 
"If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?"
Built 2L 8 Valve Vx Powered Avon
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craig1410
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| posted on 3/4/04 at 03:36 PM |
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Zetec,
Some of what you say is true but the engines are easier to get hold of than you seem to realise and there are loads of second hand tuning bits flying
around on ebay and the like and many good tuning companies who will take your cash and give you serious horsepower. Given that the engine is still in
production for several manufacturers and given that most parts are interchangeable then the engine will live on for many years to come. Rover quality
may not be the best, especially in recent years but the engine is not a Rover design remember so I'm not sure what relevance this has. Ford have
had some seriously dodgy quality too, especially in the 70's and 80's... You mention using an American large capacity engine once the
capacity gets up to the 4 liitre+ mark but I think you will be very hard stretched to find another V8 as light as the Rover engine capable of
delivering up to 5.6 litre capacity and power and the availability of parts for the American engines will be much poorer.
You say I shouldn't knock modern technology until I've tried it but it may surprise you to hear that I have tried it on several
occasions... As I said, I used to design engine controllers for Lucas. To be honest I wouldn't want to commute in anything other than a modern
car where I can just jump in and turn the key but for a sports car modern engines have no character in my opinion. They have no soul any more because
they do their job, in many ways, too well.
Anyway, before I burst into tears I'm off to work on my car. I'm building in my upper harness mounts and I only came in to my PC to use
the program which creates fishmouths for cutting round tube.
Catch you later, (shouldn't be hard if you are driving a Zetec and I'm in my V8... ) - Only kidding!
Craig.
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richardiainlowe
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| posted on 4/4/04 at 08:07 PM |
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but please dont forget the nissan ca18det, surely this has got the best of all worlds? reliable (japanese), powerful (170bhp std), tunable (300bhp
available easy on std engine) and cheap (look on sxoc.co.uk for one!)
oh yeah and its a car engine and less than 2 litre as required in original post!!
thats my 2p
good luck
rich
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