Bought A V8 Capri For Parts LIsten To The Engine, Sounds Dry

[nokia_aid]

Bought a v8 capri for parts, i bought it as having a good rebuilt engine but not running right due to the carbs needing tuning, i just assumed the worst and figured the engine was scrap just to be on the safe side, had it delivered the other day and this is what the engine sounds like, kind of sounds a bit dry,looked in the oil filler hole and the rocker there was dry.

Im ok with the engine being crap as i assumed that, bodyshell is rusty thats fine cos he told me on the phone, sent it with the wrong wheels though which was very annoying.

What do you guys think of this engine then, i have been through the receipts and its had some money spent on it in the past and was once 250bhp according to a rolling road printout.


click on picture for video, might need to do another one as my finger might have been going over the mic or something

[kiwicar]

Hi
sounds like an old-ish rover engine running on a boxer manifold to me, because of the pairing of the carbs on this set up it will always sound "unbalanced" and carb four's piston always "rattles" , it has two cylinders opening 90 degrees apart then nothing, allowing the piston to drop before being lifted again next time around. the set up is very has a lot of induction noise by virtue of not having a proper air box to smooth things out.
Someone has spent time and money on it and it sounds like whoever built it realized, or was told to use a cam with a fair bit of duration and decent compression and with the cam a little advanced because it seems to idle well
best regards
Mike.

[nokia_aid]

well that sounds positive then, my plan was to sell the boxer and carbs and go back to a standard twin su manifold n carbs

[kiwicar]

Hi
it depends what you want to do with it, the boxers offer good pick up, good economy and very good drive ability provided you are willing to spend time keeping the whole thing properly set up. You need to set up carb four differently to the other three because of the two cylinders firing so close together, getting the piston to rise with the other three is a challenge but worth the effort, it may need a different needle to the other three as one of the two cylinders will run lean relative to the others. But get it running right it is well worth the effort.
if you are planning to drive it every day, use a pair of SUs on a dual plane.
The carbs look good.
best regards
Mike

[ChrisJC]

if you are planning to drive it every day, use a pair of SUs on a dual plane.

Which is exactly what Rover did. (i.e. the factory manifold is a dual plane design)

Chris.

[Eliot]

was once 250bhp according to a rolling road printout.

If its a 3.9 - i wont be making 250bhp. 200 if you are lucky.

[Coops]

my 3.9 only made 240bhp at the fly

[nokia_aid]

its only a 3.5, an old ebay advert from years ago says it has gas flowed heads, supposed to have a camshaft too,

is there any way to tell if the heads are actually gas flowed, i have bought a lot of cars and generally i find they dont have half the things people claim they have

[Coops]

if they are legit and done by a company they are usually stamped on the casting somewhere,
mine are stamped under where the alternator bolts and says V8D stg2 (now stg3) and a ref/serial number so they can be logged if another head etc is needed,

[Ian Anderson]

my 3.9 only made 240bhp at the fly

Beat you Coops
Last time mine made 256hp but at something like 6675rpm

Ian

[Coops]

mines started running out of puff at 6250, plus I ended up with valve bounce,

but the 4.6 is shite loads more than my old 3.9

[landrovernuts]

I had a 3.5 engine that I sold on its own to someone in Plymouth back in the late 90's. I relise there are probably quite a few engines with a Boxer set up however the breather set up looks very familiar. If it was my engine, the heads were gas flowed by an ex employee from Janspeed that it knew at the time. The exhaust manifolds were matched to the ports (but I have them here!), the inlets were matched and some resin parts were fitted to the carb inlets to smooth the airflow. A kent H200 cam was fitted, along with kent followers and valve springs. The engine was however only low compression (8.13) and from memory only made 160 bhp, however seemed to make my Land Rover fly (although not as much as the 4.2 currently fitted!)

I remember going up Haldon hill outside of Exeter in it and masses of steam appearing from the exhaust one day. Turned out the gas flowing had made the exhaust port very thin and it went through. Another head (right hand 1, 3, 5, 7) was fitted free of charge.

It spent a fair time on a rolling road setting it up and experiments were made with fitting an odd needle to one of the carbs as already mentioned.

Was not a bad engine, just didn't have the grunt for a Landie - assuming it was my old unit of course!!!

Toby

[nokia_aid]

yeah looks like this car was owned by someone down south that way, i have a receipt here from 1996 for some parts from real steel to a P A Lear, is that you

[landrovernuts]

Not me, so may be not my old engine.

Toby