‘ While many updates to the V8 were beneficial, there are early parts that people want to retain on newly-built motors’
The Rover V8’ s sheer number of different capacities means there are lots of different crank throws
‘ While many updates to the V8 were beneficial, there are early parts that people want to retain on newly-built motors’
That encapsulates a gentle but improved motor for a Range Rover to a full-on Group 1 race engine. It will come as no surprise, then, that John has had a hand in the engine’ s competition success.‘ We did all the Paris-Dakar engines for Land Rover in the late Eighties. We ran works cars for about four years and we did a limited edition road version.’
The intercontinental off-road rally wasn’ t the only competition the Rover V8 entered. Its simplicity and fairly modest power output might not have made it the most obvious racecar powerplant, but it saw significant successes. In the Triumph TR7 V8 rally car, it won in Belgium and the Isle of Man before the Audi Quattro totally revolutionised rallying and rendered it, and the rest of the rally field, antiquated. The four wheel drive revolution also meant the SD1 rally cars that followed the V8 TR7 only ever saw moderate success, too.
It was a different story on track. A Tom Walkinshawprepared works SD1 Group 1 touring car won its class in the 1982 British Saloon Car Championship( BSCC) and, before it was stripped from the team for the use of illegal rocker arms, the overall 1983 title too. Andy Rouse in a privatelyentered SD1 took the 1984 BSCC title. If it hadn’ t been for the strange scoring system of the BSCC in the Eighties, where overall wins weren’ t as valuable as class wins, the SD1 would have certainly taken more championships.
Internationally, the SD1 was successful in the European Touring Car Championship and, in 1986, won the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft( DTM), forcing the Mercedes- Benz 190E 2.3-16 into second place in its inaugural year. An engine that made sports cars and off-roaders a success, and counted up race and rally wins … the Rover V8 sounds perfect, but there are one or two areas that need attention, as John explains,‘ If they’ ve been overheated, the liners quite often move. And on the later engines, the aluminium around the liner got so thin because the patterns were getting worn, that you could get porosity.
Twin SU carburettors were Rover’ s initial intake system. The aftermarket has added many more options
26 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 04