1972 Rover P6 2300TC - Saab B234 Turbo

It's quite a deep and narrow sump so I don't see sideways forces causing too many issues, yet! The length is of concern hence the priority to put something baffle-like infront and behind the pick-up. If the bowl was shorter then that would require a different approach to oil control. I've read that later Saab engines had oil supply issues because they fitted a finer mesh in the pick-up pipe and that had a habit of getting clogged up and causing bearing failures, no other issues I've read of on oil supply from cornering/acceleration etc.

The test was just plain aviation grade 100LL Avgas poured in a sloshed about, with a coat of etch primer on the outside it's highlighted a few areas which haven't sealed properly. Note to self, pure Argon gas is curse word like CO2 when MIG welding steel! If I can get another Argoshield bottle on the weekend I should be able to complete the sump ready for final sealing on.

We've got a BOC account, not cheap but well worth it if doing a lot of welding and there's an agricultural supplies just down the road so exchanges are easy.

Some blingy aluminium adapters for the oil cooler take off came through the post, will need to source some more fittings and hose then eventually find somewhere to fit the oil cooler itself



With a new gas bottle the welding was finished off on the sump, and then given a coat of primer







Next job was to do a leak test, so I took the sump to work and borrowed an offcut of aluminium, sealed and bolted it down then filled if some aviation grade fuel and waited a few hours....



A few pin hole leaks appeared, most likely caused by the pause in welding. Drilled and ground out the pin holes then re-welded, appears to seal up well now



Hunting on Ebay I've found a suitable throttle body, 68mm throttle, fitted with a TPS and two seperate throttle arms, plan is one for the pedal, and the second for a fast idle as I've been having trouble getting the fast idle valve working







Looks at home on the front of the inlet manifold, only issues are that it doesn't bolt on yet and dwarfs the size of the plenum! My first plan is to split the plenum along it's length, make it tapered and have the throttle body flange welded on the end at 45 degrees...

Also made a start sorting out the ancillaries and making the EDIS trigger wheel adapter for the crankshaft pulley



Sump painted black looks at home on the bottom of the engine now, just internal baffles to sort out now



Got the aluminium adapter-spacer rings delivered so once I take the engine off the stand I'll make a start finishing off the gearbox adapter

Because sunny day













Still got plenty to do, but the initial quick measurements indicate the radiator and intercooler will have to slide further forwards by 2-3" to allow for enough clearance at the back of the head where the water outlets are, and not really a huge amount of work overall apart from plumbing it all in

I'll find out when it breaks! It's an R380, apparently rated at 380Nm, in the real world I don't know how long it'll last? They are damned heavy, larger gears inside compared to the preceding LT77 with all of the larger bearings as standard. The usual Vauxhall R25 and R28 I've read are only rated at 250Nm and 280Nm respectively, and I've read a few people are killing those with hard use with higher power so hopefully the Rover gearbox should fare better for longer.

I've come across a few people claiming to have shredded early LT77's behind V8's, and likewise, not really seen anything bad about the R380. I have one in my Discovery behind the tdi, I drive it hard, foot down hard all the time and it's not bust yet, and no extra volume coming from the transmission tunnel either. Quality gear oil rather than atf is probably the key ingredient!

The alternatives are the usual T5, or go more exotic with a BMW 530d gearbox with a custom welded casing. In my situation, having a few R380's spare and the fact that there's already one in the car makes it a no-brainer to fit a custom bellhousing to get it running. The clutch is most likely to give out long before the gearbox fails.

What suffix were they and what failed? Also what oil was in them?

Yep that's what I've seen by pulling them apart. Upto suffix C they had quite small bearings throughout and were more or less standard fit with all the BL cars including V8's apart from the SD1 Vitesse that had the marginally better suffix D which wasn't in reality much of an improvement. Suffix E and F were I think the Land Rover equivalents so pretty poor too. I have a spare suffix G LT77 from a Sherpa van and those are quite chunky in comparison to the earlier rwd variants. I think there was then a dual synchro variant upto the mid 90's when the R380 superseded the LT77, and they cope happily behind most of the mid to late 90's Land Rover's when used, abused and tuned! I think it's just the old myth of running atf with the early suffix C 'boxes that gives them the poor reputation with many people.

Loving the fabrication in this thread. It's FABulous!

I had a delivery of 630cc Siemens Deka fuel injectors in the week, should flow enough fuel for what I want to be doing to start with



During the week I shoved the manifold in the blast cabinet at work, then gave it a few coats of clear lacquer to help stop it going fuzzy over time. Looks really good with the new injectors and rail refitted. I've even found a spare AN6 alloy banjo fitting so I can run Aeroquip style braided fuel hoses onto the engine