‘ The biggest and most powerful is a 5-litre version in the Griffith 500’
‘ The cylinder head gasket sits outside of the rim of the liner, too. You get compression pressures going between the liner and the aluminium into the water system. So we top-hat line them. Not only do we get rid of the porosity by using a better liner, but the gasket sits on top of the liner so you don’ t get any of that creep. You can’ t get pressures going back into the block. We rarely build an engine without top hat lining the cylinder block.’
Improvements were made throughout the engine’ s life, including how the oil pump was driven.‘ Early ones were a distributor-driven oil pump; off a skew gear, off the front of the cam. Late ones are a crank-driven oil pump. As you start to load the distributor-driven oil pump, it wears the drive gear out because it’ s a tiny little skew gear. It’ s always been an Achilles heel.’
While many of the changes made throughout the V8’ s life were beneficial, there are early parts that people want to retain even on newly-built motors. Water pumps, for instance.‘ It doesn’ t look original, which matters to a lot of people. Also, a lot of people still want to use early water pumps in MGBs because everything gets in the way. The later alternator, power steering, all that sort of stuff, isn’ t totally compatible.’
‘ The biggest and most powerful is a 5-litre version in the Griffith 500’
TVR’ s reputation for brawny sports cars is, in part, thanks to the Rover V8
28 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 04