Thread: D3 engine swap

Firstly, Im a defender/perentie and disco 1 owner. This question is on behalf of a mate who has a D3. He has owned it for a couple of years and enjoys it, but due to a nasty insurance assessor and fuel contamination, he is faced with a $15k bill to replace his engine! Picked up dirty fuel, insurance will repair the fuel system, but not the damage to the engine, which is stuffed.
He has a Japanese V6 diesel engine, forget what breed. But he wanted me to ask if there is any one else who has replaced the engine with something different?

+1, he'd be better off getting the engine from a Territory and swapping over the anciliaries. Most of these are the same anyway. Then he will have a spare turbo etc.


The problem is, it isn't a GQ Patrol where you just choose an engine and bolt it in - the D3 is complex enough that every feature has its own little control unit - even the body itself has a computerised control box. They are all linked via CANBUS and talk to each other, which means they all need to talk the same language. No one unit can be isolated without the entire system being brought down. I am guessing the engine that he has, which is probably inferior to the TDV6 anyway (unless it's the Renault V9X 3.0 V6 that Nissan use?), will take at least $10K worth of stuffing around with aftermarket computers and workarounds for all the car's electronics before it will actually work, and by then you've kinda ruined the point of the D3, being an integrated technological masterpiece. Even if he does get it working, I bet it will work until he attempts something that wasn't forethought, like select some Terrain Response setting, and it'll all come crashing down.


And a Terri TDCi (TDV6) will set you back around $3.5K IIRC.


BTW - $15K for bad fuel... ouch!!! HPFP is $1200, injectors $400 each, in tank pump is $250, where's the $rest of it going? How was the engine hardware damaged? Overfuel?