Engine conversions

**AlexRS4** · 14th April 2021, 08:33 PM

New to the series land rover scene and picking up my first in a few weeks. It currently has a Holden 186 in it, installed 20 odd years ago.

Planning to strip her right down and restore from the ground up, so thinking about what conversions might be possible. What are there kits for?

V8? TDV8? Turbo 6cyl diesels?

Ideally something that's robust, reliable and with plenty of grunt. I'm happy to change gearboxes and brakes too - will likely do a disc conversion.

Option 2 is to find an original diesel to rebuild and restore to factory spec.

**101RRS** · 14th April 2021, 09:09 PM

A Landrover 2.25 petrol or diesel - or if the 186 is good, leave it as it is part of your vehicles history and Landrover History in Australia.

**jerryd** · 14th April 2021, 09:33 PM

STEVE PARKERS LTD 300TDI PART 1 INTRODUCTION IN SERIES LAND ROVER - YouTube

**JDNSW** · 15th April 2021, 06:35 AM

If you are planning to use it on road, your first step would be to talk to your local registration authority or an engineer about what will be permitted - recent posts in this forum suggest that the Victorian authorities have become very restrictive in what engine changes are allowed.

It is worth noting that prices of Series Landrovers seem to be rising at the moment, with originality a key price factor.

**Tote** · 15th April 2021, 08:33 AM

I'd go with option 2, or leave it as it is. "Unholdening" can be a fairly major task depending on how the conversion was done in the first place and how much chassis modification has been done. A donor vehicle is probably the best way to go if you wanted to put it back the way it was. Finding a 2.25 diesel might be a bit of a stretch as well.

Regards,
Tote

**Homestar** · 15th April 2021, 09:46 AM

Unless you go for a whole new driveline including gearbox and transfer case, the higher power options are all out as they will turn the standard series gearbox into small pieces pretty quickly.

Start with your rego authority and what they will allow - and any engineering that might be needed as well. If your pockets are deep enough, anything is possible, but maybe not practical. A 200 or 300Tdi would be a good option, but they are getting a bit hard to find - might be easier to buy and old Tdi Disco and use all the driveline if you were doing that but not sure how it would all fit with a different box and TC though. Disc brakes would be needed as you said and probably some decent ones if you went with a high power option - the standard disc brake conversions available are generally designed to fit inside a 16" rim and while much better than drums, still wouldn't be up to passing braking tests on a higher powered vehicle I shouldn't think based on my experience with them.

For a full driveline upgrade, engineering, etc you'd need to allow around $20K I should think if you can do a lot of the work yourself or more than double that to pay someone to do it. If you are planning on dumping that much into it - planning, planning and more planning is where to start.

If the Holden engine is a good runner you could stick with that to start with and get a feel for the vehicle and go from there.

**Phil B** · 15th April 2021, 09:59 AM

Why don’t you go for an EV conversion?
Plenty of info on here and one of the members has done one.

**AlexRS4** · 15th April 2021, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by jerryd

STEVE PARKERS LTD 300TDI PART 1 INTRODUCTION IN SERIES LAND ROVER - YouTube

Now that's a neat install.

I'm in SA thankfully which I believe is about the least restrictive state for modifications.

$20k is not out of the question (hell I've spent $15k servicing my D4 in the past 18 months...), will involve a full body off, prep, respray plus interior refit. Will probably add up to more than $20k ultimately.

I will start keeping my eye out for a 300TDi disco as a donor car - preferably a crashed one, don't want to ruin a good one.

**AlexRS4** · 15th April 2021, 10:09 AM

How about a Disco 1 V8 engine/drivetrain?

**Slunnie** · 15th April 2021, 11:55 AM

I'm going to put it out there, most big conversions are not straight forward unless you retain the orginal gearboxs and their location unless you have a Stage 1 chassis. The regular chassis have cross-members that are in the way of everything and that is in front of the engine, behind the gearboxes and under the engine also. Also because the gearboxes are small in them, the transmission tunnels are also small and you wont fit much into them either. When LandRover went from the 4cyl to the 6cyl even they had to make the firewall bigger, and then when they fitted the V8/LT95 they had to redesign the chassis, tunnel and axles for constant 4WD also.

So, just a heads up with what you choose to do, if you go beyond changing the engine only, then it will probably become increasingly involved very quickly and much harder to get engineer approved very quickly. I'm not saying it would be impossible, but the modifications are significant and there will be a lot of areas in the VSI that need to be engineer approved these days.

To the standard gearbox: Holden 6 is really common, LandRover Tdi is in there also - read up on these conversions to see what works with what. That said, there is a Lt77 conversion kit to Series Landrover transfer case that may also help with a Tdi conversion and strength. I'm not sure how much the body and chassis need to be modified to make this work, if at all.

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