I have a 200TDI in my S3 109 bolted to the stock S3 transmission. The only modifications are a Fairey Overdrive and Electric fan.
real world 80mph freeway speeds, tons of torque and 28mpg are all big pluses. Additionally there's no modification of the engine mounts.

Downsides, I'm driving an engine that no one can work on.

My next Series truck build will be a crate motor LC9. You can either go with a GM slushbox or a Rover R380. "All the cool kids" are now doing LS3's into Defender's, but that's a little too much for my wallet.

 

Yeah they are spendy Robert but oh so sexy lol

 

Crate LC9? That should be enough to keep up with traffic. The price on those is pretty impressive, especially when you consider the fact that it includes the injectors and the coils. An aftermarket fuel injection setup can easily cost you $2k+ so by the time you add that to a rebuilt smallblock you will spend more money for less motor.

I know this is turning the thread off topic a little, but how do you set up the controls for an LC9 in an application like this? Is there a stand-alone computer or can you used one out of a donor truck?

 

Series trucks and early defenders are about the easiest lc9 swap out there. You can use marks4wd.com adapter or nick's out of San Diego. The adapter out of San Diego breaks at the transfer case and assumes you're going to go with the 6speed gm trans. As you mentioned, you use a ecm just for the engine. I've been keeping my eye on his movement for a while and over on defendersource it's becoming something of a revolution once the first couple of D110 ls3's were built. East Coast Rovers is building them now for their high end builds.

I love the 200tdi in my series. It's economical and gives good power but in this country, with a Chevy mechanic on almost every corner, a brand new ls crate engine backed by a Chevy warranty represents a tantalizing vision of what could be for legacy Rovers.

 

Robert you forgot the best part of the LS swap, horsepower and a bit of MPG as well

 

well yeah, dealer support, massive HP gain, improved fuel consumption (on regular not premium)

I'm currently working up the moxie to pull the trigger on an LS3 to put into a D2 I want to build as a demonstrator truck. Anyway you slice it, it's a lot of money to tie up into a project. Driving my Series into work this morning, I couldn't help but think that for 90% of what i do in my cars day to day, the LS is hands down the better engine choice.