I mean this with the utmost respect to anyone that works for Land Rover but I am also a little bitter with the powers that be (or were anyway) when I say Land Rover should be ashamed of themselves for offering the Discovery to the public with any of the engines that they selected for the D2.

Also the seemingly pointless corner cutting that was done to save a buck and keep their head above water at the expense of reliability and customer convenience should be tacked onto the list of charges against Land Rover.

I know. I know. How dare I buy a Land Rover, join a Land Rover forum and start a thread rambling on about how terrible Land Rover is.

However let me say this:
I don't Hate Land Rover.
As a matter of fact I still love my D2 and get crazy excited when I think about what it could be and what it is capable of.
Then I get sad thinking of the work and money tossed at my lowly 4.0 only to have the same turd leaking, stinking and sputtering away under the hood

Realistically it will never be what I want it to be as long as it has the worthless scrap of aluminum that is the 4.0 passing itself off as an engine.

This forum should serve as proof that these engines are the single most horrible engine that myself and many others have some across.
There is page after page of "leaking this" "knocking that" Missing here" or "overheating there"

These engines are under-powered, inefficient, unreliable boat anchors at best.

I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow failed even when being used as a boat anchor.

Seemingly simple fixes cost $250 (plugs, wires and coil packs) and takes 5 hours of cussing and smashing.
Then once that is fixed you have the pleasure of driving it for another week before the next simple fix or, worst case scenario, a catastrophic engine failure.

I know there is a sizable likelihood that I just bought the wrong one.
These things often get neglected and need a lot of work to get them back to what they should be.
But I have spent a lot of money and countless hours doing just that only to have one thing after another fail.

People accept the fact that these things have regularly occurring issues passing it off with a clever limerick or quote.
I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of just such antics.
However, this, in my opinion, is unacceptable.

There needs to be real fixes fir these things.

This may all sound pretty harsh but be certain that I am not just spouting off to be all edgy and against the grain.

I am an ASE certified tech and have been since 1996.
I have also owned and worked on many other piles in my days of wrenching and have seen some abominations nearly as appalling that rank right up here with this engine.
While this is my first Land Rover it is not unlike anything else I have worked on and still has all the things in all the places that define what a vehicle should be.

I bought my Disco as a project but I also hoped that I might drive it some while upgrading at the same time.
I knew they needed work and maintenance but this is ridiculous.

I think this brings me to my point.
A recent head gasket failure and serious oil leak after just spending $600 and a week of my life to fix another coolant leak and oil leaks has forced me to abandon this engine altogether in favor of something better.

I have not worked out the exact details of the swap but for many reasons I may just go with a plain old late model LS based 5.3l chevy engine and transmission.

What are some of these reasons one might ask?
Most are pretty obvious.
If you search around or know the right people you can find complete early model trucks with this engine that have been crashed for less than $2000.

The fuel mileage should be as good as or better than the lump that's in there now.(likely better)

I believe the weakest version of the 5.3l engine made 270hp and 315lb-ft of torque in stock form and can be easily and inexpensively bumped to 300+.
That's nearly 100 more HP that the LR 4.0.

The 5.3l can run on plain old regular pump gas which should leave more coin in my pocket for upgrades.

Obviously this is not a simple plug and play conversion but the small block chevy can be put into nearly anything and the Disco is no different.

During the swap I also plan to eliminate a lot of the electronically controlled doohickery that is also known to fail on the land rovers.

Of course we have all read the threads by others talking about swaps and seen nothing happen.
This thread may be no different.
It may turn out that after all the research I am better off bailing on the whole thing and looking into something else.
However I really like the size and shape and capability of the Discovery.
I think its primary weak point is the engine
With that said it seems worth it to me and I owe it to a very capable platform to give it an honest shot to see what I can make happen.

I would say wish me luck but after my rant I would expect more people telling me to take a long walk off a short pier than wishing me anything.

Until Next time...

 

Good luck and I agree 100% with you. It's pathetic that LR only offered that pos v8 in North America. It would be 10x the truck if it came with the 300tdi or td5 engine from the rest of the world. I can't see a single draw back from going with LSX family of engines. 100% you'll get better gas mileage and reliability.

See if you can find an entire driveline from a 4x4 truck and slap it in.

 

re: I knew they needed work and maintenance but this is ridiculous.

Amen.

 

That thought had crossed my mind but arguably the LT230 is one of the best transfer cases on the planet and I would like to stick with that.
It's half the reason I wanted a Land Rover.
I find it especially useful in the winter to have a center diff that is not totally locked.
Then when the going gets rough it can be locked up with the push of a lever.

It would be awesome if there was a limited slip diff offered for the transfer case rather than open or locked.

 

Apparently Ashcroft and Quaife both make a gear driven torque biasing limited slip for the LT230 and both still allow the function of locking the center diff for the tough stuff.

This would make the drivetrain function a lot like my old Audi Quattro and still have the benefit of locking the diff solid.
Let me tell you that thing was unstoppable and dead stable at speed in the snow and ice.

Great! Add another thing to the pile of parts that I must have for my Disco.

 

Fun.... Hope to see this through to completion. I picked up a 327 and tranny, love to stick that in if the need arises.

 

Though I can't imagine what issues you have come across on your truck my 4.6 has been fairly good to me. However I say that having done a ton of maintenance myself(you can my sig for the repair list ahah).

Coming from someone that hasn't worked on a lot of vehicles the Discovery has taught me a lot about mechanics and how repair and fix things. She's been a PITA *** at times for sure but I do not regret the experience.

The 4.6 is underpowered HP wise but the torque isn't bad. I think the quality of the parts are pretty good but it's the gaskets and seals that are garbage.

The engine was made with too many parts just working on the threshold to failure.

Go for the conversion and never look back. Never mind any land rover purist who gets in your way. The Rover V8 comes from a Buick in the first place.

 

Completely agree. Best of luck

 

More power to ya, dude! While my Disco has been rather mechanically sound, I feel ya. For me, I'm more disappointed with the quality of the plastic, the ****ty leather or vinyl that cracks and falls apart, the water that leaks from the seat belts or the rear view mirror or wherever... oh, and he crappy paint that fades in the exact same spots on each and every roof.

 

These are all very good examples of failures that should not have been hard to get right in the era in which they were built.
However they did not get it right because they were pinching pennies and cutting corners.

I should also mention that these are are failures that I am also dealing with on my Discovery.

It also brings to light just how crazy some of us are with our love of the Disco.

Why would we deal with these things when you could get a Land Cruiser for the same price.
I can't really answer that question but I do know that I am fully prepared to deal with these things.

Oh I should also mention that I have some pretty serious frame rust in the rear that I also have to fix.