VAlley Gasket/pressurizing oil EVERYWHERE

If it has a leak into the valley from the head gasket, there will be no cooling system involvement, as the only cooling channels are at each end of the head.
It is quite common for old V8s with the bottom row of head bolts to leak into the valley as the lower studs tend to "jack" the head so that the upper side facing the valley is lifted . When replacing gaskets it is good practice to either delete the bolts completely or only torque them to 20Ft lbs. They are unnecessary and deleted from later engines.
Regards Philip A

Thanks you Phillip, that's what I waNted to know.

I'll keep you all posted on te findings..
ATM though I think I might just do the head gaskets anyway valley is all off. It's only a couple of extra bolts and bang all done!! With is in mind any cheaper things we can do to make the 3.5 go better say put 3,9 heads on it or something. Ecu is not programmable so I'm already guessing no.
Cheers Nat

It's not my car so I'll let my brother decide what he wants to do.

The heads are virtually the same. The only real difference is that the 3.9 has waisted inlet valves AFAIK.

There is a not a lot you can do economically. If you are handy with a Dremel, you can clean up the inlets around the inlet valve seats and ditto the exhaust and match the ports to the inlet manifold. In a 3.9 the inlet manifold is quite poorly cast around the inlet port, so both the port and manifold can be taken out to the gasket size. You can taper the mouth of the throttle area so there is a smoother entry from the flapper.

The exhaust manifolds are pretty good on injected cars so really nothing is gained with extractors. A free flow muffler will help upper revs a bit.

Probably the best bang for buck is to replace the camshaft with a 3.9 cam as V8s wear out cams by about 160KK-200 Kk.

Probably the most is gained by advancing the timing up to 9-11 degrees as these engines can take much more advance.
Regards Philip A

And don't try to rush things. When you buy an old car, you've got a lot of work to do. Take it steady and don't add to the work by getting stressed. I've been sorting out my Rangie for over 18 months and I'm still going. (It's called a "rolling rebuild").

Thank to all!!! I'll keep fighting! The mate who we were usin to do all th work is flat put for the next 3 weeks, so project buggar will have to be shelved foe a while. We have noticed ALOT LESS oil being ****ed out but this could be because all breathers are now working

Cheers mat

Throw away the rover cams they are great if you want to run wide open throttle all day! Put in a Wade 259A cam and get the dizzy regraphed to suit! you will gain a fair bit of low down and mid range as well as better economy.

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Originally Posted by nat p

Thank to all!!! I'll keep fighting! The mate who we were usin to do all th work is flat put for the next 3 weeks, so project buggar will have to be shelved foe a while. We have noticed ALOT LESS oil being ****ed out but this could be because all breathers are now working

Cheers mat

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