Hey,
I have an LS2 from a corvette in my challenge truck- the LS2 is a 6.0l
variant of the same engine as the LS7 (the 7l from the Z06 corvette below)-
same block, same heads, same intake, same ECu- basically the same apart from
the stroke. It's mated to a 4speed yank overdrive auto box.
dimensionally the engine is almost exactly the same size as a rover 8- it's
around 4cm higher but a touch narrower across the block. It would slip into
the frankly massive engine bay of a landcruiser without any trouble. My
engine weighed 204kg wet with no gearbox- a rover V8 wet weighs 189kg so not
a lot in it really- I would guess the 4.2tdi straight six weighs well over
350kg in a landcruiser. The whole engine is ali apart from the rotating
assembly- even the sump is ali which is a bit of problem- I have already
holed the sump once as it is so brittle- I am having a Steel sump made up at
the moment to take the knocks whilst off road- my ali sump guard didn't even
help!
I looked at dry sumping the engine to prevent oil starvation but to be
honest I've only really suffered oil starvation twice- both whilst being
winched up near verticle cliff faces. However dry sumping is not as easy as
evreyone thinks- you need to have extra oilways as you no longer get splash
lubrication from the Crank- you need to make up for this by spraying the
undersides of the pistons ideally- not the easiest thing in the world and
not really worth it when you can get an engine already dry sumped.
realistically off road unless you are into competition work I can't see oil
starvation being an issue- I've never come across it during green laning or
expedition work. In the comp truck I got round the problem by using a
"pre-oiler"- these are designed to bring the oil pressure up quickly as you
start the engine and are basically a large cylinder with a sprung plate in-
when engine pressure drops below a certain level the cylinder releases oil
into the oiling system and can cover 30 seconds or so of the oil pickup
benig out of the oil in the sump. Frankly if you are at such an extreme
angle for any longer then you are better turning the engine off as your
winch has probably failed or you are wedged against a tree or similar.
As to fitting to a landcruiser this would be surprisingly easy and I would
suggest using a diesel cruiser for the conversion. Basically you would get
yourself an LSx (being either an LS1, LS2, LS6, LS7 or LS9) secondhand from
the states- expect to pay =A32k landed and cleared, then you would bolt it up
to either the AFbox or using a yank box bolt it to the landcruiser transfer
box. Personally I'd keep it simple and bolt the LSx to the auto box from the
cruiser- reckon it probably has enough strength to cope as long as it iwas
in good nick. the AF box in thecruiser is most deinfnitely far stronger than
the ZF boxes in range rovers which are only rated to 280lb/ft or 320lb/ft
depending no variant.
www.marks4wd.com are the guys to talk to- not great on
customer serrvice but do lots of products. they also sell replacement engine
mounts as well as exhaust pipes to fit etc. Id use the diesel cruiser as you
woun'd thave to worry to much about splicing into a wiring loom- I would
used the existsing LSx ECU using LSedit to program the ECU and keep it
pretty much separate to the cruiser electronics. Alternatively you could
megasquirt It and go totally custom (although no one can translate the
magnetic timing ring in the LSx to Megasquirt). I ended up fitting my LS2 to
a custom 4L80e (built to 900lbft torque specs) and then bolting this to a
land rover transfer box (on the grounds that they are cheap and plentiful to
replace) which then drive a set of chopped up Unimog portal axles. Works
well and with 400bhp on tap with gearing that tops out at 110mph it really
shifts too- 0-60 in around 5 secs or so! Makes quite a nice noise too!
Head gasket is no different to an iron block, although to be honest the LSx
range of engines are so blooming amazing that you probably will never have
to do the head gasket unless you overheat the engine.
HTH
JIm
From: [Email address removed] [mailto:[Email address removed]] On
Behalf Of john byrne
Sent: 16 April 2008 10:52
To: [Email address removed]
Subject: [ELCO] just wondering
Hi Guys
Watching a program the other day and it has prompted me to ask a few
questions.
It was about the new Corvette which has a 7L V8 engine.
Now it appears that the engine only weighs in at 200kgs all in being mostly
made form Alu.
They said it can get 10 miles per litre of fuel on a long drive.
It has dry sump tecnology which pumps oil all the time to the engine.
Because their point was while cornering as the car leans, it can result in
oil starvation to the engine if it relied on a normal oil pan configuration.
So as we know our cruiser lean a lot at corners/ roundabouts etc, so does
this mean theri could be a slight oil starvation for small periods of time
as the oil moves to one side of the pan or the other.
If this engine they have only weighs in at 200kgs could an engine like that
ssomeday be used for the cruiser.
At 10miles per litre and having all that power would it suit a cruiser,
there must be a reason why it has not been fitted or at least something like
it.
Can you fix a head gasket on a Alu engine.
cheers
john 92HDJ 80 1HDT
So