Engine and Transmission Tech

Hello all.

Im very excited to see a forum for British v-8.org.
I am working up a Buick/Rover hybrid engine for my 77 Vega.
I know the chassis isnt British...... but I hope I will be welcome here.

I have already gathered up a 4.6 Rover block. Westwood top hat liners. a Rover 4.6 crank , and 1964 Buick 300 heads.

Basic plans are for around 298 Cubic inches and 12.5 to 1 compression running on E-85 .. hoping for a streetable 375 horsepower when done.
Will have lots of questions .. Im hoping this becomes the place for the Aluminum V-8 Gurus.

Thanks, Tony



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2007 07:14PM by hoffbug.

Welcome Tony
The Rover should be a good fit for the Vega. It was a swap I thought about doing myself back in the day.
With the Buick/Rover being a much lighter engine, then the SBC. The shock tower movement shouldn't be an issue, as it was in many SBC swaps.
If you need Vega parts, there is a guy in BC that has many used parts. I believe I have his bussiness card at work, if your interested.

Bill

Have you contacted Dan LeGrou of D&D? The last time I talked to him, he still had a small supply of conversion parts for your project. I did one with Dan's parts in 1979 with the Buick V8, keeping the Saginaw tranny in my '72 Panel Wagon. Saw about 200 hp after a complete rebuild, cam upgrade, Holley 390 4 br, and dual exhaust. It was a great car. Dan advertised at the time that the alum. v8s only added 30 lbs. over the alum. 4 banger, keeping a good balance. I used it primarily for fast road driving, having completely rebuilt the suspension and brakes. Actually ran an autocross with it and, though I never even thought about winning (up against Cobra's, etc.), was quicker than many of the sports cars competing. Wouldn't mind doing another, if I could build a panel wagon.

Hi guys

This is going to be a somewhat long term project for me. Im gathering parts as money permits.

I believe the guy in BC is "Daves Vega village". ?

I have talked a little with Mark at D&D.
It seems most of their business is in the MG swaps now .. They dont have enough call for the Vega components anymore and have to time or plans to produce any more components.
At any rate ....I have templates of their original motor mounts, and a copy of their original swap instructions. It seems pretty straight forward with a saginaw 4 speed ....but I am complicating things by using a GM 200 R4 automatic with a lockup converter. This will necessitate an adapter plate to mate the Older Buick215 pattern to the newer BOP trans bolt pattern. D&D as well as a local company ( bentsons) make adapters. I wont be sure what Im getting into till I can mock something up and try and position the engine trans together to see how much clearance Ill have. Ill probably be making my own mounts at that point anyway.

I have also spoke with Ian Richardson at Wildcat in England and contacted Bill Laney at Willpower performance in Australia. Seems these little engines are like the SBC is in America. They kind of remind me of a mini LS1.

SWEET! OK so I'm in too! I know Tony (Hoffbug) from back in MN. I'm building one too. I've done a bunch of work on my project so far. I wrote a lot about it on my CarDomain page including a long write up about the pinning cylinder idea I had. After I had the block prepped and blueprinted, balanced and everything with and extra $2300 in machine costs I started to reevaluate my pinned cylinder idea and I'm going with some Westwood cylinders as I hear is popular with the UK builders... (Mostly from Tony.. lol)

Good price! I can't find a better one in the USA.

If you are interested in reading more about my car here's my CarDomain link:

[www.cardomain.com]

You've got one too, right Tony? SO more to come. I'm looking forward to making some friends here.

OK.. Here is a good one.
Im still learning about these engines and I only got a bare block and crank so I have never seen a complete rover engine.
I purchased a Rover repair manual on CD from Evilbay and was a little shocked at the convoluted way Rover mated their flexplate to the converter. Im kind of a Chevy guy and all there is is the flexplate.

Look at this! I wonder how well all of this holds up to some power and RPM???

I'm glad I'm going T5... And no steel bellhousing to be had... Hmmm. There has got to be guys dragracing these in the UK. I wonder if they change anything...

I think J.E.Devlopments made a bellhousing for the T-5 behind a Rover V-8
Their website appears to be down today.
[www.rover-V8.com]

Yeah man. I was just looking at that last night! I did find out in my research that GM forced BW to comply with their T10 bellhousing bolt pattern up until '92.

Interesting... SO if you have a D&D bellhousing conversion for a GM 4-speed you can bolt on a GM T5 main housing. (You probably already know this, Tony, but for the sake of a strong community...) Here's a link to a couple pix:

hoffbug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi guys
>

> I believe the guy in BC is " Dave's vega village"?
Yes that is the guy

Bill

Update on the Rover/Buick hybrid motor: My local buddy, Tony (hoffbug), is also building one of these. He recently purchased sleeves from Westwood for the block...

I had made a modification to my stock sleeves to pin them in place thinking the sliding was the biggest problem. I had gotten the idea from a "one-of-a-kind" diesel mechanic buddy of mine. He pinned the cylinders with soft cap screws and machined them off with the rest of the sleeves. I was pretty confident this would work for me. I found out not to long after that the bigger problem, endemic to the Rover block, is cracking behind the cylinders. This is totally fixed by using flanged liners... SO then I had a nightmare the other day that my pins fell out and screwed up my whole project! YIKES!

ANYWAY the moral of the story is I bought some too. I'll be having them pushed in as soon as they show up. Here's a pic of Tony's liners when they came in. I'm looking forward to having the same experience soon:

OMG! I just got my sleeves today! I just ordered them on Monday. WOW! Way to go Westwood

You are so far ahead of me Nic.. Nice score on the intake...
Looks like Ill have to wait and see how the finances and economy are doing in the spring. I have some maintenance to do on the Chevelle. I hope to get all of the block prep-and heads done.
Im still looking for a complete 4.6 to pirate a few parts from. Mainly the flywheel and associated hardware to connect it from the crank to the converter, the camshaft retainer plate, and a few other small pieces.

hoffbug Wrote:

> Im still looking for a complete 4.6 to pirate a
> few parts from. Mainly the flywheel and associated
> hardware to connect it from the crank to the
> converter, the camshaft retainer plate, and a few
> other small pieces.


That's right. You're going with the 4.6 crank... I was about to say you need a special flywheel. Cool.
I brought my block in for machining this morning. They are going to do that trick of decking the block lower than the top of the liners for a more positive seal on the chambers.

I'm thinking of building my engine in my kitchen! LOL!

I've got a really big double door out the back of my house so I think I'll build it in the proper humidity and temp of my house. I haven't told my Wife yet. She might like having me inside though. We'll see. LOL!

Would this work, Tony?

[cgi.ebay.com]

It looks like t D&D is bidding on that. It appears that they use the stock flexplate and redrill them for the modern converter bolt pattern like this..




I have been told that their swap kit consists of an adapter plate, pilot bushing, and modified flexplate,, Ill have to confirm this with Mark but it appears that I wont have to use any of that Rover setup.

Here is another picture for the sake of community....
Its shows a Rover 4.6 flexplate and the D&D modified 215 flexplates. If you look at the center its pretty obvious that the Rover plate would not work without the crank to flexplate adapter shown the the expanded diagram posted earlier.




This might also explain why the Australian Castlemaine Rod Shop adapter for the Leyland P76 and Rover has this huge ring in it...

Here is another picture it shows the D&D modified plate on the left and a stock Buick 215 on the right.