1 July 2006
Probably will not be doing any significant work on the Westfield this month. I am in, what is known as, in the gathering phase again! Over the last couple of weeks I have been on the look out for a suitable V8 engine for the car. If money is no object and you have a spare £5,000 lying around then this is easy, erm. Alas I am looking for a bargain and not afraid of having to do or organize rebuilding an engine, which would be kind of fun and feel more like I have been instrumental in building the whole car. I have put some serious bids on EBay, only to be outbid at the last moments. This type of bidding is known as sniping and is usually performed by a computer program which leaves the bids to the last moments , not giving people the chance to respond or even know that you are an interested party until it is too late! Not completely fair play is it? Well I do not want to be at a disadvantaged, I might look into this myself! May the person with the fastest internet connection and computer win!
4 July 2006
Today I received one of my items from Ebay. An electrical isolator switch. A must for a MSA track. Not sure if required for track day car, but looks serious and a good safety item and makes the car easier to steal. Also ensures no battery drain when the car is parked up for an extended period of time.
I am sure you have seen one of these before, but here is a photo anyway. Only included the instructions in case I lose them! At the bottom of the instructions you will see a massive diode, this is used to protect the alternative circuit if the switch were to be used whilst the engine is running.
Tonight I managed to bid and win a Rover V8 engine off EBay. I might not have to resort to sniping after all!
5 July 2006
Contacted the seller of the V8 today and arranged to pick up the V8 on Saturday. I am looking forward to it one way and not another. I just hope that the engine is in good condition, from the description it sounds promising. As it was an Ebay purchase I have essentially parted with money before see in person, don't like that!
6 July 2006
Number of bits and pieces I have ordered over the last several days all turned up at once today, the wife thought I was having a spending spree!
Item 1 from Amazon a book recommended to me from the Westfield SEiGHT mailing list. This book has some good detail, guidance and reference for Tuning Rover V8. Color pictures as well!
Item 2 is a set of valve springs, these are double springs which can handle higher RPMs. These are actually used in TVR's. Incidentally they weight 68grams each.
Item 3 is a early Rover P5/P6 water pump this item fits the later V8s but it is smaller which allows the engine to be mounted in confined spaces like kit cars. This is item new and made from alloy only weighing 1367grams. I have yet to get the front pulley for the pump, which you always have to purchase as a separate item.
The other ancillary item that I bought a little while ago was the high torque starter motor. Again this is new item, this is heavy, well not sure if it is heavy for what it is, comes in at 4Kgs.
8 July 2006
I did the long drive down to Dorking today to pick up the V8 Engine I bought off Ebay. It was really close getting it in not due to lack of space but on my car, a renault grand scenic MPV, the roof at the opening comes down lower. We had to adjust the length of the rope on the crane to be able to get the crane in.
The drive home took a while! It was okay on the straights but going around roundabouts and turning was a bit slow much to the annoyance of drivers behind me, they must have thought I was bonkers going so slow then speeding up on the straights. Thankfully most of the trip was M25 and M40 at which I kept well back from the car in front. I think I must have only tapped my brakes 3 three times in 60 miles.
The engine prefix is 36D which was manufactured between 1988-1992. I know it is 1989 as it was out of a G registered range rover. The engine is the higher compression 9.35:1. The engine was mated to an automatic gearbox, which means I shall have to change the fly wheel for a manual one. Externally the engine looks clean, no oil looks. Looking in the rocker cover shows dark brown colour which is expected for this year. The engine is a runner, removed very recently from the car. The cubic capacity is 3951cc. The engine came with all the EFI bits, the manifolds, plenum chamber, air mass, etc. The guy even left the starter motor in. Although I shall be using my new one anyway.
Unfortunately I cannot put on the engine stand at the moment because I do not have the required bolts, which I think are 3/8-16s. Hopefully I shall be able to get these on Monday. I am not going to mess with the engine until it is on the stand as it is not very stable! I did however remove a cover plate from the flywheel to allow extra clearance required to fix to engine stand. I will attach the engine stand plate on the engine and then raise up with the hydraulic arm and then attach the engine stand plate back to the engine stand frame. Once the engine is on the stand it will be stable and can even rotate the engine a full 360 degrees to work on.
Picture of the engine in my scenic, by the way my scenic is a 1.6, poor thing.
Getting the engine out of the back of the car was more traumatic! I enlisted the help of my neighbour and friend; Terry. Terry's day job is Captain, as in an airline pilot. So I thought he would be able to help! My spatial awareness is not too good, and I cannot tie knots!! Anyway we managed it got covered in oil and muck though and that was not off the engine, it was off the engine crane.
10 July 2006
Terry came round tonight not to help me get the engine on the stand but that's what he ended up doing! Some people never learn! He got covered in oil again. Sorry Terry. Maybe I should get you some overalls for when you visit next time (do these come in 6"6' size?), maybe I should wear mine rather than my best casuals.
11 July 2006
Session 90 - Ground zero for engine rebuild
I have come to a rapid conclusion that this is going to take along time! I spent 90 minutes in the garage removing the plenum chamber which is held on by six bolts! Five were not a problem, but there's always one, I ended up having to cut the bolt head off, unfortunately it was cap head bolt, which means one important thing, strong bolt ! (12.9) and what is the plenum chamber made out of? Yes, alloy, so basically had to go very carefully as not to damage the plenum chamber. The Plenum chamber will be replaced as it is too large to fit under the westfield bonnet, but I want to sell this item on Ebay, they are sought after items.
What is a plenum chamber, basically it sits between the throttle body and intake manifold, essentially where the air and fuel will combine, it purpose it to evenly distribute the intake charge and enhance engine breathing and thus performance, etc. etc.
What does it look like:
12 July 2006
Session 91 - Plenum base plate and inlet manifold removal
Today I received the bell housing bolt kit that I ordered from a guy on Ebay. All he does is supply imperial UNC/UNF bolt kits for the older car. They are stainless steel and look good, and nicely packaged and labeled as well, photo follows.
No stubborn bolts in this session. Took me just 2 hours to remove the plenum base plate, throttle bodies, valley gasket and rocker covers and one exhaust manifold. I am however a little disappointed with the internal state of the upper mechanicals in that they are covered in oil as in old coated oil, but I am planning on replacing quite a few of the internals anyway. As long as the block is good then I am happy. I think actually if the block has survived this treatment then it will be indestructible and will stand up to the tuning mods I have planned for it!
Here's a photo of the engine with the plenum removed, at the top of the engine you can see the throttle bodies, looks serious doesn't it? Shame they have to be covered up with a plenum. Black is not their naturally colour!
Now, the next photos are scaring me!
Here you see the throttle bodies removed showing the inlet manifold, pipe going around the edge is the fuel rail. The pipes in the background carry coolant.
Next photo is showing the top of the block, the valley, this is with the inlet manifold removed and the valley gasket of course. Not naturally black, believe it or not this is alloy! has years of old oil coated on the surface, well at least there are no lumps or sludge. Tip, when performing oil changes, which should be done on regular basis, use flushing oil!
You can make out sixteen push rods, these are operated by the camshaft in the middle via inverted buckets. These push rods enter the heads and operate the inlet and outlet valves. Simple!
First rocket cover removed, err, erm, not very clean!
Both rocker covers removed, showing the full extent of the old baked on oil. I am pretty anxious to take the heads and sump of now. I hope the oil ways are not blocked. Engine turns by hand quite easily anyway
Birds eye view of the top half of the engine.
I removed the spark plugs from the right hand bank of the V8 , this is the state of them. The broken one I did, it was done up so tight, I thought I must of slipped but the other half of the plug is still in my socket.
Engine block that I am stripping down to, well almost the same, this is a later block. 1993 on, you can tell as the head surface has 10 holes not 14. Also where the camshaft is located you can see two bolt holes in which to attach the thrust plate, earlier blocks do not have this. I think however I am going to modify my block to take the thrust plate as it seems a reasonable thing to do. The crankshaft nose is also different. I am sure there are other tell tale signs.
13 July 2006
Session 92 - Rockers, push rods, exhaust manifold removal
Spent 90 minutes in garage this evening. Removing the rockers and push rods from both heads. Tried removing the left bank exhaust manifold, yep, again one bolt seized, tried my best to undo, not moving, leaving penetrating oil soak in over night and will think about the next steps! Removed front left hand engine mounting bracket and some heat shields from underneath the manifold to make access to the bolts easier. I think when I rebuild I will not use bolts but studs and nuts. I am hoping that sometime over the weekend I can remove heads. However, I need to start sorting and cataloging the bits I have removed so far before I forget what goes where and I am finding it difficult to work in the garage now as there are bits everywhere.
14 July 2006
Session 93 - exhaust manifold, starter motor and bits'h'pieces removal
Spent 90 minutes in the garage again tonight. I continue on the bolt that was seized. At last it started to turn, but, oh no, it broke. Has left a stud hanging out of the side of the head! Oh well, I can remove the exhaust manifold now! Removed the starter motor, for a minute I thought this was going to give me trouble, two creaks later and the bolts are moving. I removed some earth straps and other minor bits.
15 July 2006
I decided to try and remove the seized exhaust manifold stud, first trying heat, no joy. I ground down the stud to just proud of the head, centred punched and drilled, first with a small bit. It appeared that the stud was half way out when it broke, still proving hard to come out though. I drill ed progressively bigger insuring that I was still central in the stud. I then tried some stud extractors, still not turning. I also soaked with penetrating oil. I drilled a larger hole and tried next stud extractor size up, still no joy. Eventually I drilled up to 7.5mm the stud is on 9mm, that's probably the limit on hand drilling, I am now going to leave the rest to the engineer that will refurbish my heads. I might even find a good exchange deal, who knows. I spent about 2 hours on this damn stud.
Anyway, on to removing the heads as planned today. I hope this goes better and hope that I am not about to discover some bad news. Apparently about 25% of these blocks failed due to quality control issue at rover regarding the water jackets around the cylinder bores not being parallel to the bore and getting very close to the wall, minimum was just 1.2mm! This is where buying a old block pays off, in that if it has survived this long, then chances are it is okay. As the cylinders in these blocks are steel lined, then a crack in the alloy block can go unnoticed for a while as the liner stops water leaking into the bore, but eventually the pressure leads to the liner dropping.
I removed the front right upper engine hoist bracket as it shares one of the head bolts. Anyway took me less than 2 hours to complete remove both heads. Hey, pleasant surprise no dropped liners. Surfaces look good. Even the bores look good, just a slight lip at the top of the bore, hard to believe this engine as done 128,000 miles. I think a standard 20 thou (0.02"/0.5mm) re bore and hone will suffice. The steel liners I believe can take a single 20 thou re bore, anymore than that would require the liners to be replaced and no sense doing that unless necessary. I am going to increase the capacity but by way of installing a stroker crank shaft, this increases the stroke, I think this will make it a 4.3litre, modest capacity!
Left hand side of the V8 when viewing from the front, Cylinders numbers from right to left are 1,3,5,7. Number 1 is at TDC. Note that cylinders 5 and 7 fire consequentially, this is an important issue when designing exhaust manifolds as 5 and 7 are next to one another the exhaust manifold should be designed such that exhaust ports do are not joined together, which I believe is the case with Westfield designed manifolds. If you look at the stock manifolds you will see this difference between the left and right exhaust manifolds, now you know. Of course if you go down the header tubes route then this will not be an issue.
Right hand side of the V8, cylinder numbers 2,4,6,8:
A reminder, that you can click on any of the pictures to download a high resolution version.
19 July 2006
Session 95 - valves & spring removal
Spent 90 minutes in the garage tonight removing the values and springs from one of the heads. Spent the first 20 minutes figuring out how to give the head maximum protection and lining up and adjusting the spring compressor. These springs, even though OEM require quite a bit of force to compress by hand with the tool, phew. The performance double springs will not fit over the valve guides/ spring seat. This will require machining, which I shall get down when I get the heads gas flowed and ports enlarged (probably).
I measured the valve heads, they are 40mm inlet and 34.4mm exhaust.
I also tapped the exhaust manifold bolt hole, the one where the stud broke off and I had to drill out. Surprisingly this seemed to work. I somehow with judgment and luck managed to drill the hole exactly perpendicular to the surface, despite me doing this by hand! (I have bought a pillar drill now). The tap broke into the shell of the remaining stud. There were a couple of threads exposed at the top of the hole where the stud had fractured when I was drilling and I managed to start the tap at the right place meaning the thread lined up! I was expecting to have to install a helicoil but it seems I have got away with this.
20 July 2006
Session 96 - valves & spring removal continues.
Now that I have a procedure to remove the valves and springs from the head I did the other head in about 1 hour. Despite the last value not budging. I figure that the top of the value where it meets the rocker must have taken a bit of a beating and possibly spread a little. As I am not reusing this valves, I took a file to the end of and gentle removed a small amount of material, presto, out it came. I remain surprised just how little ware I can see on the engine. The valve guides are in pristine condition, this was the only value that gave me any form of trouble to remove.
Photo of the parts removed from the heads
Don't tell the wife about her beach towel!!
22 July 2006
Session 97 - Front pulley & sump removal
A little tip do not remove the flywheel bolts until you have undone the crankshaft pulley as you need to wedge the flywheel to hold the crank!
Anyway, I had to cut the old flywheel bolts heads off so that I can re-insert. Otherwise I would have to take the engine off the stand. I think you should always replace the flywheel bolts anyway. The crank bolt holding on the pulley is very tight, tightest bolt yet. I had to use my 24" breaker bar an exert my entire weight to crack it off. I also took off all but one bolt holding on the timing cover, the last one is between the oil pump housing, typical. I have undone the viscous fan and pulley to allow access to bolts. Dizzy timing bracket also removed. This entire timing cover and dizzy will be replaced with a much neater an smaller serpentine unit.
I have rotated the engine and oil and coolant went everywhere, thought all this had long since gone! Removed sump pan and spent 10 minutes staring at the crank, bearings, con-rods and underneath the pistons with awe!
I will continue tomorrow, but I think I shall spend a little time cleaning up the mess I made today I think.
All in all spent little under 2 hours in the garage tonight.
I received some more bolts today that I purchased of my EBayer supplier, this guy is good and fast and does imperial stainless steel bolts and their washers for american cars and Rover. I know have sets for Rocker Covers, Oil Sump and Exhaust manifold. All in their nice little packets and labeled. I'll just through them in my garage and find them again when it comes time to rebuild the engine.
23 July 2006
Session 98 - Engine totally stripped!
Spent 4 hours today in which I stripped the engine right down to the block, phew. Specifically I removed the oil pump cover, removed timing cover, timing chain and gears, distributor, oil dipstick tube. Removed the con-rod bolts and pistons from their bores. Removed camshaft and hydraulic tappets. Removed big end bearings and finally the crankshaft itself. I am now a little concerned as I can see some scoring at the bottom of number 7 bore, this could be deeper than 20 thou, if it is then I shall need to get the bores re-lined (this block being alloy has steel liners in the bores). I shall only know if a 20 thou re bore will be sufficient after it has been examined. If the block does need re-lining then this is not the end of the world. I would then take the opportunity to install top hat liners which are a better solution over the OEM liners.
Here we have a few pictures, my son was the photographer, so he took a few! Here we have the pistons and con-rods, to the left is the sump and the strainer placed on top if you can make it out.
Here we have a photo of underneath the engine showing the crank with pistons and con-rods removed, crank journals still in place.
Another photo of the same from a different angle, apparent looks good, according to my son.
A view of the bores for cylinders 1,3,5 and 7
A view underneath the engine block, because that is all it is now! Crankshaft removed. You cannot see this but the cam shaft is also removed.
View of the bores for cylinders 1,3,5 and 7 from the reverse side. Apparently looks good again according to my son.
The shaft on the left is the camshaft, on inspection you can see the lobes are quite worn, this will need replacing, which I was intending on doing so anyway, I want to go for a wilder cam, maybe a 280degree piper or kent variety. Next to the cam are the hydraulic tappets, again these are shot but again I am replacing with a higher spec, probably rhodes which allow over 5,800RPMs. The standard engine maximum is 5,800RPM. Mine will probably be somewhere around 7,000RPM when I have finished.
The other shaft you can see, with the flywheel still attached is of course the crankshaft. Doesn't look worn but this would need to be precisely measured by an engineering company to establish this, but like everything else I am intending on replacing this with a longer stroke variety. Changing the stroke is where the real capacity gains are made. A 3.9 litre becomes a 4.3 or 4.8 quite easily.
Quite a lot achieved today, pleased with the progress if I must say myself.
31 July 2006
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about the work I need doing to the engine and the replacement parts and therefore the total costs. With increasing the engine capacity also, the costs probably close to £1700. I have spoken to some engine builders and they all seem to have the view that this design of block is not absolutely ideal, that I should be looking to base any mods on a later cross bolted block. The issue with this is that going to a post 1993 block means complying with more stringent emission tests which will call for cats etc. Today I decided to go for a later block.
A while ago I looked at a few engine builders and ear marked a company called RPI, they supplied engines for Morgan cars and sports car companies but they are expensive but you do get what you pay for. I went onto EBay because a few weeks I found a guy that was selling Rover V8 4.6 engine blocks for about £400. I could not find what I was looking for of course, long since gone! Anyway I did find an auction for a short engine from RPI, a few hundred quid less than list but also did not include VAT, I was tempted. A short engine is comprised of at least the engine block, crank, camshaft, followers, tappets, timing wheels, chain, pistons, etc, all ready assembled. This leaves one only needing to add cylinder heads, sump, timing cover, rocker covers, gaskets, water pump, oil pump, manifolds, EFI, injectors.
I made a bid on the short engine! I won the auction. I called RPI to check it was good for what I intended for it, I also ordered a ultimate fast road cam, a Piper V8 285 cam, this cam is the wildest one that should be considered for the road. Just the change of cam will add about 35BHP.
All in all the short engine cost £1750.00, which sounds expensive but this is good value for money when you compare against the cost of doing this work to a used engine and this engine is completely new so a sound investment.
This engine is one of the last engines to come of the Rover line in 2005, before the demise. The new Range Rovers now use a BMW power plant, strange idea, as this has to dent some of the BMW X5 sales!
I listed my old Rover 3.9EFI engine on Ebay. I am aiming just to get my money back that I paid for it. By the initial response of emails asking questions I think I will, which would be good.
I now have to try and tidy up my garage and make room. I have a single Garage , which I will have a kit car in, the body work above, below it, all my tools and two Rover V8s and I need to be able to move around it all!
Go to August 2006