Thread: biggest conversion ?

You can get the driveline to handle anything if you want and need to. Just comes down to how much you want to spend. A 350 Chev will be more than a stock driveline can handle if you start using the loud pedal too much, so this is always something you should factor in when planning a conversion.

Cheers - Gav

I've recently acquired a Rover 4.8L engine to go into a Defender 90. There are engine rebuilders both here and in the UK that will increase Rover V8 engine capacities to as much as 6L. Mind you by that time there is very little "Rover" left in them.

Generally, to go past 5L in a rover engine, you need to increase bore size from 94/94.5mm, at which point the sidewalls between the cylinder liners and water galleys start becoming very thin and you run into cracked block problems.

To do a larger conversion properly, you really need to remove the sidewalls completely and Siamese cylinder liners together. The photo below is of a 101.6mm bore suitable for 5.5 to 6L engine conversions. These are usually fitted with custom crankshafts, pistons and conrods, which often require modifications to allow a larger journal bearing.



In order to get the most out of the larger capacity engines you also need to change the camshaft, as well as port the heads, intake manifold and throttle body assembly to flow more air.

Long story short, there's very little of the original Rover engine left in it by this stage, and you need a very big purse to build one.

It's often much cheaper to go a small block Chev which is somewhat heavier, but is designed as a 5.7L engine and doesn't really need internal modifications.

All depends on what you want to achieve and how much money you have to play with.

Cheers

Bojan

I've had 6.5L of chev (diesel) and 5.4L of holden (stroker), all the rest of the driveline was modified.

I did hear of one with a 427 chev in it.

How much power would you want though? Dad had a g60 Pootrol with a 350 Chev in it, and from 80kph in bottom gear we could overtake a B-double in 4.3 seconds, up the steepest part of the Adelaide hills. He had it reaching 40kph +1 once, the motor was yelling GO GO! and the body was yelling STOP STOP!

Why would you bother putting a big block in a rangie. All that fat weight up front will just kill how it corners in the bush.

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Originally Posted by moparrangie

Why would you bother putting a big block in a rangie. All that fat weight up front will just kill how it corners in the bush.

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Nowdays small block chevs come in many sizes, with the vast array of aftermarket parts, stroker kits and blocks there are 383s, 400s, 427, 434 and even 454 small blocks,