Engine and Transmission Tech

I'm new to the sight and would appreciate some advice. Some time ago I purchased a 62 Volvo 122 which had been fitted with an early Buick 215 engine. It had electric fans in front of the radiator support to cool but even with that, it always seemed to run too hot. It blew a cylinder head gasket and rather than rebuild it, I bought a 4.6 Range Rover long block which I believe is pretty much the same engine. Can someone please confirm that I am correct (engine number ID) and I would also like to know if there is anyone out there that has seen or done this conversion. I need to also improve on the cooling system. Thanks so much.

The Rover 4.6 is externally identical to the 215. The differences are the crank-driven oil pump (as opposed to the distributor-driven one on the Buick) and the reverse rotation water pump if it came with a serpentine belt. The intake and exhaust flanges are the same and Buick manifolds bolt on. If the 4.6 was distributorless, you will have to make some mods to run a distributor.

I'll limit my comments to cylinder head issues. Crankshafts and pulleys differ, but I don't have personal experience with that (yet). I upgraded my 215 with heads from a 4.0/4.6. The intake-port side of the cylinder heads won't give you problems. The 4.6 exhaust ports are larger than the 215's, so if your exhaust was match-ported before you'll have a step-down at the exhaust flange now. (One of these days I'll solve this by making a bigger set of headers.) Inexplicably, the centerline-to-centerline spacing of exhaust bolt holes varies by a millimeter or two here and there... so when I swapped to late-model cylinder heads I had to ream out some of the mounting holes in my precision-made headers a bit. A bigger difference between 215 and 4.0/4.6 cylinder heads is that accessory mounting bosses aren't in the same locations. At the front, I had to make a new alternator mounting bracket. At the back, an accessory boss on my driver-side 4.0/4.6 head had to be hack-sawed off and filed down to resolve clearance issues at my (MGB) footbox.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2016 11:07AM by Moderator.