Newbie alert!

[V6GTE]

Hi all! I have recently purchased a very tidy Reliant Scimitar GTE SE6a. The rebuilt V6 has only done 12,000 miles but I want to shove a V8 motor in it, question is what?? Has anyone done a Scimitar? What are my options? I'm looking for awesome power and noise. Nothing else matters!
thanks in advance

[Alley Kat]

Welcome mate. Our own Katanaman has done that very thing, no doubt he'll be along in a while...

Enjoy...

[katanaman]

hundreds of people have converted the Scim to Rover power. Being the 6 its a fairly easy conversion but I haven't done one myself. So far as I know you just use the standard rover mounts and it lines up pretty well with the pickup points on the chassis. You might have to cut a bit out the firewall down by the drivers leg (where the head sits) but its nothing to what you have to cut out on the 5. The LT77 fits in ok as dose the T5 gearboxes. I don't know if the SD1 prop needs shortened or not but I do know that most just re-drill the diff flange to suit. Header wise you can use the 4x4 cast headers with a different pipe or you will have to make/get made headers. Radiator wise most of the Scim guys are in denial and think their original radiator is perfectly ok for the V8. That's up to you but I don't see how it can be given that it cant keep the V6 cool half the time, I personally think it would be borderline at best.
On other V8's a Ford 302 will fit as will a Chevy LS1 but the older iron Chevy you might have a problem with. Your probably pretty much on your own with anything other than the Rover engine as not many have used the alternatives for various reasons.

[V6GTE]

Thanks for your help. Rover V8 power seems like a really decent candidate, especially given that over 5000cc is possible! I think you're right about the radiator, I'm quite lucky and have had no over-heating problems but a bigger rad is certainly on the shopping list. Off to browse the RPi website now for a bit of inspiration! Unless you guy's know anywhere else I could try?

Cheers

[V6GTE]

Just spotted the V8 developments ad at the top of this page so will give them a look first

[Lewis]

Why not try a Ford smallblock V8 - either a 4.7 or 5.0 - dimensionally they're more compact than the Rover so shouldn't be too bad to squeeze in, plus a basic one will make 250BHP - which is considerably more than majority of stock Rovers - with the potential for a fair bit more.

It'll weigh a bit more though - unless you splash out on an aluminium intake or aluminium heads.....

Just a thought

[V6GTE]

Thanks for all your help and input guys, have bought 2 Rover V8 engines, a P6 motor and a cross-bolted motor (They were too cheap not to have the pair) If anyone is in the Shropshire / West Midlands area and fancies joining forces I would love to help out with other peoples projects in return for a spare pair of hands now and again? Just a thought.
Im sure i'll be asking hundreds of daft questions in the future but for now, thanks again everyone for your help!

Ian

[Darkspeed]

Shropshire's a long county but bear me in mind if you get stuck our projects are similar with steel and glass fibre.- Just added my motor to the Garage scene area.

If you stumble across another too cheap cross bolted motor let me know

Good luck with the build.

Andrew

Thanks for all your help and input guys, have bought 2 Rover V8 engines, a P6 motor and a cross-bolted motor (They were too cheap not to have the pair) If anyone is in the Shropshire / West Midlands area and fancies joining forces I would love to help out with other peoples projects in return for a spare pair of hands now and again? Just a thought.
Im sure i'll be asking hundreds of daft questions in the future but for now, thanks again everyone for your help!

Ian