ORIGINAL: muddy
ORIGINAL: tommo951
Hey Muddy,
The Rover V8 is now very long in the tooth... Sounds great but not really much bang for the buck
A chevy small block............ now thats a different matter!!!
Tommo. It may be an old design but it was rather good. It was also very compact (look at the oodles of space in the picture of the 944 engine bay), very light and easy to rebuild at very moderate cost. None of this 'front of engine service every 30K' business. I have had dealings with quite a few of these engines that have got to 120-150K on their original waterpump and ultra-cheap cam chain. Camshafts
can wear out at lower mileages but only if owners neglect oil changes.
Small blocks are OK but I presume are heavier than the all-alloy Rover/Buick?
I would also expect an SB Chevvy to drink rather more petrol than a Rover.
Incidentally if anyone has, or knows of, a UVA adaptor to mate Rover V8 with the 924/944 bellhousing,
I would be genuinely interested ......
UVA made them in the early Nineties.
Their conversion also used an Audi 100 Turbo transaxle that gave a decent high top gear of around 28mph per 1,000rpm. which even a standard Rover will pull effortlessly ( my Scimitar SE5A with an SD1 engine and 5-speed box would cruise at 80 mph on 2,800rpm - 28.5mph per thousand.)
Hi Muddy,
Everybody remembers the Rover/Buick connection. The interesting thing is that Buick originally stole the design from a BMW engine of the 1930's!! That engine is mighty old. To be honest it is not that good either. The Turner designed Daimler V8 is a better engineering design (same designer as the Triumph Bonneville engine). In 2.5 litre form with 2 x 1"3/4 SU's on it makes more power than the Rover 3.5 litre of the day
In 4.5 litre form as fitted to the Daimler Majectic Major Limo it had a better power to weight ratio than a V12 E Type! I have owned a few Rovers in my time from P6 S's to a SD1 Vitesse withthe twin plenum. Good car in it day too! From memory the V8 tends to run hot at the centre of the V where the camshaft sits. There is then a gasket fro the inlet manifold which sits over the cam. Inside this area is the biggest sludge making factory I can recall ever seeing. I think it is magnificent that the engine survived for so many years, very similar to the Jag straight 6. But putting out 140hp from 3.5 litres is not great in standard form
Modern small blocks are all alloy as used in the Ultimas to great effect with a Porsche G60 transaxle.
They are very compact too, and can be economical as the Rover!!
Sorry if it sounds like I am knocking a british institution the Rover V8, it was a "Good" engine. Its now all nostalgia. There are a lot better options out there........ Just my 2p worth!
[/quote]
Hi Tommo.
I
think the BMW V8 story is a bit of a fairytale to be honest. When I put the 1968 Rover V8 (185bhp by the way not 140 thanks to 10.5 CR and 5* petrol) into the Allard, my local garage boss said "Of course you know it is copied from a 1956 BMW 507 V8?". Well, two months later I looked at a 507 being restored and apart from being a V8 I could not see a
single strong point of similarity - so I remain to be convinced [
] Did BMW produce a V8 in the
Thirties ?
GM certainly had the engine design on the drawing board in the late Fifties , and it went into production very early Sixties (the one in my TVR-Buick is a 1962 unit). When my TVR was being driven in hillclimbs by its first owner it regularly came up against a 'sister car' built by Geoff Taylor with a 2.5 Daimler. Sorry to say the Buick had the upper hand at all times.
But I have always reckoned that the Daimler was indeed a superb engine and in fact I looked for a 4.5 Majestic Major for the Allard at one point but then decided I did not want to drag a cast-iron block around at the front of a trials car.
And I think the poor grade of corrodable alloy used for the heads has lead to the demise of many Daimlers - but is simply not an issue with Rovers.
I have never experienced over-heating (touch wood) despite giving the Rover a huge amount of abuse on trials. You are often holding 5,500-6,000 rpm in 1st or 2nd whilst actually only moving at 2 or 3mph on steep muddy hills. The sludge problem certainly occurs with the pre-historic oils and neglect of changes. On fully synthetic 20-50 Royal Purple mine has remained as clean as the day it was rebuilt.
So, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Buick/Rover enthusiast and probably blind to a few of their faults!
The all alloy
modern version of the small block is a well developed design but doesn't it depend on loads of electronics for various systems? And it still isn't available cheaply enough for me to consider yet.
I confess to liking the simplicity of a pair of SU's and a Lucas distributor made ultra-reliable by a Lumenition kit.
[/quote]
Hey Muddy,
You were lookingt at the wroing BMW engine! It was the 502 which was penned pre war and built post war.
Take a look at it next to the Rover.
Which model Alard do you have? I know that quite a few Alards were fitted with 3.4 Jaguar straight 6's
and Cadilac/Ford engines in the US??? Or was that just the Lister/Costains?
I think you may have mentioned a car I used to look after. The TVR Griffith with the Daimler V8 engine. Was it yellow?
That car locked its throttle on me comin down from Biggin Hill past Keston Ponds and as you know the ignition was fitted onto the base of the steering column. Loads of fun after the event!!
Lack of anti freeze lead to the demise of Daimler V8 heads, I don't think there was much of a problem with the alloy, I have never experienced one that overheats. Now Triumph Stag V8u's well thats a different matter!!!
On the new small blocks you can get away with a mallory distributor, crane coil, offenhauser manifold and a 4 barrel holley and make 500hp
