The Rover-Landers of BC

Wiih the price of gas over a buck a litre again I am starting to wonder about diesels. I love the 60mpg I get with my vw but the little 1.6 won't do for a rover. What sort of fuel economy are people getting with rover diesels ? I am also wonderig if anyone has tried retrofitting a turbo on a 2.5 n/a with any success?

Thanks, Rob
88RRC
18mpg v8

Hi

I converted a V8 110 to a td5 a couple of years ago. To do this you really need a donor vehicle as there are a lot of different parts (everything form the radiators, intercoolers, exhaust, wireing harness, gauges, etc...)

My 110 is fairly loaded with racks and bumpers and stuff which I am sure hurts my fuel economy. I normally get between 23 and 28 mpg with it. If I try and cruse at over 110 km/hr then it definitly sucks down the diesel. Typically off road I don't drop below the 23mpg figure unless there is a lot of mud, deep sand, or technical driving.

I converted it in South Africa where there were a lot of older 110s with V8s in them and also a lot of the newer turbo diesels around so there was always discussion over which was better. At the time the general concenses was the the increased maintenance cost of the tdi engines would almost equal the savings in fuel between services never mind the cost of the actual conversion. Obviously things have changed in the last 3 years, fuel is now more expensive and at a lot of places diesel is actually more expensive.

For off road ability the diesels loved to bring up water fording ability and range on a tank of fuel while the V8s would always bring up their power and the simplicity of their engine.

In the end both engines would still make it to that deserted location where their owners could continue to discuss the merits of their own engine.

Good luck with your choice.

Ryan

You will get around 10 l / 100 km with a TDI. A little worse with a TD5 or a 2.5 NA.

My 200 tdi gets a consistent 33 MPH, I did the math and I figured that with my current driving habits and fuel prices I will have to run the engine for 4 years to pay for the conversion. This may seem expensive but it is really nice visiting the gas station half as often.

Bill, 33 MPH?!? I'm sure you were doing faster than that when you blew past me a few times! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Dave

If anyone is interested ....

My non working 2.5NA (presumably repairable - but not by me..), good LT77 and good 1:6 LT230 are for sale. As are 2.5NA engine spares - timing belt, 4 injectors, glow plugs, and some other small bits and filters.

Aart told me that it was a bad idea to turbo a 2.5. Needs special heads and pistons etc. In effect the 2.5T was quite a different engine than the 2.5NA.

Take out 200Tdi's are available from several sources in England at @1600 pounds, but manifolds and timing covers are not too common and are'nt made any more.

Found this link to be VERY interesting. Dixon at Rock Island Rovers confirms the information in the link.
http://www.nicksjungle.co.uk/

Rgds
JD

Roverfites...

I have spent the week running around the interior of BC shopping for Series 1's in my diesel 2.5T and I must say it is fantastic and isn't smoking like it did in the OK run. Must have been the altitude.

Alan Simpson fitted the Fairey O/D yesterday and with the new Santana gearbox it just idles down the highway and pulls great up the hills.

In fact, it is better up the hills than the 3.9L in my Range Rover. I will do a fuel economy test today but I did notice the gauge didn't move much on the run from Spences Bridge to Kamloops last night.

I will have it out on Sunday's run for all that are interested and at tonights meeting.

Smiling from ear to ear.............. :lol:

Thanks to Stuart for the kind words above.

JD, the only difference between the 2.5T and the regular 2.5 is the pistons and Turbo manifolding. The block, crank, head, connecting rods are all the same. If you have to rebuild your 2.5 you would be doing pistons anyway….

I think the 300Tdi is the best conversion but the 2.5T is the easiest (read least expensive).

The 2.5 T had a poor reputation in the UK primarily because the farmers were not aware of the importance of frequent oil changes on a turbo engine.


Alan
Rover Works B.C. Ltd

Well Roverfites.....The run home down the Fraser Canyon today produced 31 mpg but I was going much faster that Bill's 33mph. Ran at 65-70 the whole way loafing....I think.....I broke the speedo...opps.... :lol:

Cheers,

Are you guys using US or Brit gallons?

Anyway... in UK gallons I'm getting about 20mpg in my 2.5na 90. My 87 RR gets any where from 14 to 22mpg depending on how hard I run it and what I'm carrying or towing.

My new 2.8 on its first tank of fuel took me 879 km on 71 liters of diesel in the city :D they tell me it should get better :)

Bernie you sound very happy isn't diesel life wonderful.

Now if you just kiss and make up with the guy at the Chinese Food Restaurant and start running that old cooking oil through it you will be able to get Dream Catcher painted - Red I think would be good!

Andrew,

Not sure what type of driving you are basing those numbers on but 20mpg is not very good I don't think. In my Series II I used to get low to mid 30's during my commute which was combo city highway.

John

I've had a 90 and a 110 and 4 2.5na engines between them and they all got about 20mpg on hwy trips where I average 100kph. Stupid think is on this last trip the RR would have been cheaper because diesel was up to $0.25/L more than gas at most of the stations I refiled at.

Maybe you have a heavy foot like me... in my Series IIa Rover driving down the Coquihalla for Founders Day, followed by a day of driving in the lower mainland, the Snowflake Chase on Sunday and the drive back up to Armstrong, I filled up 3 times and my average fuel consuption was 22.5 imperial MPG. Not as good as I hoped, but lots of power heading over the passes. One of these days, I'll have to drive it for economy and see what kind of number I get.

Still, much better than the 15 mpg I averaged with the gaspot, and at least I have reasonable power...

Dave

The funny thing is that I get as good or better milage in the RR sometimes. I think that with the RR I don't feel the need to drive with a heavy foot as it has goes just fine but the 2.5na (at higher elevations in particular) takes a heavy foot to make any sort of decent speed. Based on the amount of black smoke I get at elevation it really could use a turbo which is why I've got a bunch of incoming parts to turbo charge the one in my 90.

To add to an old tread I just did a 2500km trip from Calgary down to Aberdeen and back again using my old 1987 RR 3.5V8 with ZF auto box.

Over each stage of the trip my mpg in US ranged from a low of 15 to a high of 28 with an overall average for the trip of 18 US mpg (22 mpg UK). Considering that I carried a complete 2.5na diesel and other parts down and a 200TDI longblock and three LT230 boxes back (approximately 800lbs of cargo each way) I'm very happy with that. The trick to keeping the mpg up seemed to be to keep the speed to a max of 100 though I was averaging closer to 110 on hwy 5. Total cost of the fuel for the trip was $413. My 2.5na diesel 90 might have done the trip a thouch cheaper but it would not have been worth the extra effort. However, when the 200tdi finds it's way into the 90 that should change and I hope the 90 will be my long distance rig of choice for these trips.

Hey 18mpg ...not too bad, I have heard RR owners moan about getting an average 13mpg :shock:

Glad to hear the journey went well, great you were able to be at the RL meeting in Fort Langley last week.

Andy