My red engine

**shaunp** · 3rd October 2003, 03:35 PM

173 0r 2850 as they were know in Torana's and Commodores were first fitted in L J Torana's and HQ series, they ran until VH commodores. I doubt you have a low comp one unless someone has fitted a 202 head or something. These engine are pretty well unbreakable and seem to work beter in LR beacuse they have a longer stroke then a 186. In fact a 173 is a stroked 161 (same size bore) a 202 is stroked 186. 173 /161/149 engines have heads with smaller combustion cambers than 186/202 so the compression is still around 9:1. Some government HQ's were low comp however (army/ telecom). Your truck should go faster then 80. One of my mates has 173 in ser3 lwb and it will sit on 110km with a full camping kit on board. From my Torana days I can tell you red motors love compression, the more they have the harder they go, however with todays fuel over 9:1 is probably a problem. I used to run my XU1 with nearly 11:1 in the 80's.

Hard valves and seats are not a problem for these engines and easy to come by, and need to be fitted for gas or ulp as the heads are really soft flash lube or not. Valve seat recession gets worse the harder you rev an engine and you need to rev a red motor in an LR. Don't be afraid to rev a 173 as long as it has an alloy timimg gear a stock engine is safe to 6000+ even if in reality a stocky will strugle to rev that hard. You won't break it.

**Phoenix** · 3rd October 2003, 03:45 PM

Originally posted by shaunp
Your truck should go faster then 80. One of my mates has 173 in ser3 lwb and it will sit on 110km with a full camping kit on board.

Well that is interesting, another mate down here said the same thing.

It isn't running out of power at high speed, but I suspect that the gearbox would have a fit if I tried to push any harder, things get pretty loud there at 80, and once I did push up to 90, so either something is quirky, or my speedo is wrong. I'm not sure. I'll have to get the engine number, and find out exactly what engine, from what car I have.

http://www.mrbean.net.au/~rover/choosing.htm

that link that incisor put up has all of the unfo. I'll come back after the weekend with something with any luck.

**discowhite** · 3rd October 2003, 05:19 PM

On the intake/exhaust side there should be an L or H some where.
this will tell you if its high or low. More compression is good!
the 186 in my stock car with a bit of work will and did get to 8000rpm,
yes you might not believe me but i have witnesses. standard pushrods
dont last over 7000!

Get rid of your points dizzy and run a blue motor dizzy and coil. 8)

**incisor** · 4th October 2003, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by discowhite
On the intake/exhaust side there should be an L or H some where.
this will tell you if its high or low. More compression is good!

not if you are going to be running on standard unleaded petrol.

many motors have to have their heads shimmed to drop compression to run on standard unleaded properly.

a low comp 173 is an ideal little motor for a landie running on unleaded, esp if you put a high ratio transfer case, overdrive or rangie diff centres in the thing.

my shorty has a 186 in it and a toro overdrive and i had the little fella up to 70mph yesterday to blow the crap out of it.... more like it frightened the crap out of me [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img] and the guy driving the barndoor troopy i overtook [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

i must be sook as 55 mph is the absolute max i push mine without the overdrive for any length time. it sounds like umpteen dozen dudes with rubbish bin lids are comin thru the firewall even at that speed.

**discowhite** · 4th October 2003, 09:10 PM

run a blue motor dizzy and get it re-graphed to suit lower octane
fuel. or open up the comperssion chambers to 55 to 60cc this should give you between 8.2:1 and 8.6:1.

**shaunp** · 5th October 2003, 07:29 PM

Originally posted by discowhite
run a blue motor dizzy and get it re-graphed to suit lower octane
fuel. or open up the comperssion chambers to 55 to 60cc this should give you between 8.2:1 and 8.6:1.

Blue motor dizzy is the go, no pionts to worry about. Blue motors have good conrods as well and the 3.3 has a fully counter wieghted crank.

**Phoenix** · 28th October 2003, 11:07 AM

Dredging up an old topic I have more questions :roll: :wink:

1) Where do I find the engine number, I have found a number, but it doesn't corespond with the information that I have found to determine what engine it is. The problem, no prefix. there is a 173 in letters about 3 inches high on the lowwer block, but near the manifold, there is just a number, further along there is a GM which I assume is for general motors, because if that was the prefix it would be a 202, not a 173. HELP!!!

2) If the number that I have is indeed the engine number, then it does not corelate with what the Department of transport thinks.

What they think seems to be the original engine number, not the number of this engine, which I know to be it's third engine at least. What should I do?

**shaunp** · 30th October 2003, 06:53 PM

The engine number is stamped on the engine mount boss on the block near the oil pump. The 173 in the on the left side denotes capacity.

**Phoenix** · 31st October 2003, 08:17 AM

What i'm trying to figure out is the engine prefix. Do you know where I can find that?

**discowhite** · 31st October 2003, 06:21 PM

if you tell me what the numbers on the engine mount (oil pump side)
are i can tell you what it is and where it came from. 8)

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