Well I bought a tidy 340 1.4 with near full MOT (must have been friendly MOT man)

I have a Rover V8 3.5 Injected engine and matching manual gearbox to go in

things to do list is pretty long

lighten the flywheel I have
remove heads on engine and check for wear.
fit flywheel and paddle clutch
source a fuel regualator, swirl pot and fuel pump
remove volvo engine and torque tube DONE
measure sump on V8 (its the wrong way round in standard form with the 'sump' at the back), I need to cut it about and make it a front sump. - PROGRESS BEING MADE
make solid engine mounts
fabricate new down pipes
faricate new twin exhaust system
modify 240 axle and fit to leaf springs
fit land rover shocks
make a new gearbox tunnel
new ARB drop links - sourced
poly bush the car
band some 740 15" wheels DONE
band some BMW 15" wheels for front DONE
the list goes on and on and on


Good Friday I removed front shocks welded up the broken spring cup and fitted some stiffened lowered coils, greased strut top bearigns etc, dechromed the front grill, and gave the front wings and bonnet a quick polish up.

a few pictures from today............

after a reasonable polish


the V8 engine waiting to go in...


240 axle waiting to be refurbished......


a bit of lowering taking place


car after being lowered (doesnt seem much different)


dechromed grill......

Good progress so far, this is going to be one badass project.

Re the "it not looking very low" i had similar thoughts when i put my new springs in but i'd take a guess it was on its 20 yr old or so original springs and they will have lost some of their spring over the years so will be sagging a lot making it look lower than it should. They may well settle down a bit aswell once you get some miles on the new springs.

oooh exctiting

Interesting and unusual project! I'm not sure whether the Rover V8 would be my choice but it's original and it'll sound rather surprising to be coming from a 340

You might want to look into 940 '1041' axles as these have locking differentials (below 25mph) but you can modify them to lock at higher speeds too.

Sweet project!

Usually the front springs are a bit sagged so mounting new lowering springs usually does not really lower the car...
I bet the V8 lump and gearbox will lower it quite a bit though.

This is a great idea. The rover's quite a big beast, I had a little play with a chevy small block and that was pretty close to fitting nicely. The rover's bigger but even so I would expect there to be plenty room for exhaust manifolds, except maybe some interference with the brake servo. The chevy's main stumbling block (and the reason I gave it no further thought), was the sheer size of the back of the block, meaning it needs a massive bellhousing and either tunnel widening or the steering rack relocating.
I think however that an LT77 box is a bit smaller and more suitable, and I reckon Dave can cope with any of that anyway. Best of luck, looking forward to hearing it when it's done.

thats awesome!!!!!!!!!
you are now my hero
cant wait till its done

This Saturday I removed the exsiting engine - not too hard

I unseized the rear axle calipers and refurbed them, (now painted shiney red.

I removed most of the ancillery parts from the engine bay leaving the brake cylinderand servo.

I trial fitted the V8 block in...................................

this is where the problems start.

the bell housing is too large for the existing tunnel.......

the drivers side cylinder head interferes with the servo.....

the rear of the block needs the space currently occupied by the steering coloum...........

the LT77 clutch is hydraulic - not cable as the car currently is.........

the water pump on the V8 sits where the radiator normally goes......

So on top of the exisiting mods planned I also need to do the following

remove heater matrix from bulkhead.
cut away that section of bulklhead
fabricate a new gearbox tunnel
remove ans relocate brake servo
add a hydrualic clutch system
remove and modify the existing steering to move the column 4 inches to the drivers side (new track rod ends too)
new front sub frame and ARB mounts.

on the plus side the gine will look good in the engine bay once all the above is done.

I also noticed the front ARB mounts are badly worn along with the tie bars etc - in fact all the bushes are shot.

Sorry no pics for this update as I left the camera at home.

Next saturday I will be making a new sump for the V8 engine and removing the interior and heater matrix etc.

It is quite lot of work indeed, steering rack, front crossmember might need attention too. What kind of background do you have? Have you done car modding long before? I would imagine so as this kind of huge project might not be first one

jtbo wrote:It is quite lot of work indeed, steering rack, front crossmember might need attention too. What kind of background do you have? Have you done car modding long before? I would imagine so as this kind of huge project might not be first one

I used to run a business restoring old BMWs and VW golfs. I am lucky enough to have a workshop with all the necessary equipment in it and 15 years of working in engineering (designing armoured trucks and simulators amongst other things).

I do the odd little project like this to keep me out of trouble. I am also restoring an old Rover SD1 and soon to add a Ford prefect 1953 model to the list.

last year I restored and modified a BMW E30 316i that was completly rusted out and the owner said it was unfixable - So I had to do it really.

could you convert the engines clutch to a manual clutch? maybe that would be cheaper/easier than modifying the car to fit the engine - EG instead of cutting out your manual clutch and fitting a master cylinder and piping in there, could you not try and find a manual clutch release assembly, maybe for an earlier version of this engine... just a thought.

CBA wrote:could you convert the engines clutch to a manual clutch? maybe that would be cheaper/easier than modifying the car to fit the engine - EG instead of cutting out your manual clutch and fitting a master cylinder and piping in there, could you not try and find a manual clutch release assembly, maybe for an earlier version of this engine... just a thought.

I am looking at this as an option too, but so far they all seem to use hydraulics. Im sure google will release the knowledge at some point though.

hydraulic clutch/brake servo problem are quite easaly solved with a hydraulic pedalbox; the brake servo and master cylinder itself can be placed elsewhere with some smart use of hydraulics creating more space for the engine. i'd personally not go for a cable operated clutch, the pressureplates of them v8's are quite stressful on a cable.

the massive weight and not to forget the immens low rpm torque of the v8 would be something i'd worry about, stock chassisbeams won't cope with the torque if you mount the engine to that and the stock front subframe isn't suitable for that kind of weight either a complete tubular chassisframe is what i would seriously consider

Ive found a site for converting the pedal box to hydraulics - the idea seems simple enough.

I am fabricating a new frame to mount the engine on as the existing one is in the way and like you said not really upto the torque of a V8.

these are all parts that will get done over the next few weeks and months.

Depending on how much room you have you may want to look at my build thread in accesories and tuning of the box i have made.
Adam