Hi there folks, we are new to the world of landrovers and bought ourselves a 1994 Discovery v8 3.9 petrol/gas. Love the car and have noticed in the last week it has lost acceleration. I can have my foot to the floor and it just crawls. Then it kicks in and all is ok. Its happened a few times now and not sure what it may be. Air filter is clean. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Without knowing what kind of LPG system you have, I can guess that it may not be in tune, the spark plugs may be incorrect for LPG and the ignition timing may be set to stock specification. If you have recently had it tuned the spark plugs may be just OK when new and rapidly pass out of the optimum zone for LPG. Spark plugs should be one heat range colder than stock, gapped at 0.7mm and timing should be set at 10 degrees BTDC at idle. Other possibilities are a weak ignition coil or amplifier, or the torque converter in the transmission having a fauly one way clutch in the stator. Who does the servicing on this vehicle? A regular mechanic won't know anything about Landys or LPG.
"The Husband" here - The problem happens on petrol & gas. Haven't had it services/tuned since we bought it about 5 weeks ago. It sat idle for about 6 months, so we were told, prior to us buying it. It ran a bit rough, blew a bit of smoke on first run, but after running a bit and the "obligatory" fuel injector cleaner (a cheap "fix") it cleared up quite nicely and quickly.
I was thinking plugs. But only because of my Go kart Racing days. When a plug fouls you have no bottom end and the kart will likely stall or have no power. I know karts are mainly 2 stroke and Landy is 4 stroke, but it's very similar when it happens. My other thought was electrical somewhere.
I'm hoping a simple service might fix it. The big "unfortunately" is we live in a town of 15,000 and there's no Landrover specialist here and I think the chances of a quality LPG mechanic are slim to none. I'm half tempted to take the LPG out. It's not economical and I can have some storage space back.
Bee Utey - how would I check your suggestions ie stator, coil, amplifier? I'm mechanically minded, but need a point in the right direction.
It would be a shame to get rid of the LPG as properly tuned they run well + save a lot on fuel costs. Make sure there are no blockages at intake + all vacuum hoses are ok. Distributer-mechanical+vacuum advance-check.Check cap + air gap. Ignition module is under the power steering reservoir-does not give as much trouble as those mounted on distributer-can replace with Bosch as per previous articles, or buy new from England for about $50. Coil-check if leaking oil-check primary resistance-between neg + positive terminals-should be about 1.5 ohms or less. Check secondary res. between either + or - and central terminal-will be over 8Kohms. Check all plugs + cables-preferably replace the lot.
Given that your problem is common to both petrol and gas I would look at the ignition system first its a known weak point in the discovery V8, below is a link to Bee Utey's conversion there are more than a few testimonials as to how effective it is. Also check the cap and rotor, OEM are the way to go for the discovery.
I've only had brief dealings with D1 V8's but I believe a leaking vacuum diaphragm on the distributor is a fairly common problem. Could be worth checking out?
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