Hello All,

I have a friend with a 2004 Disco with ACE and because we live in the USVI, we are far away from LR dealers or anyone that knows enough to work on our discos.
He wants to remove ACE entirely and I'm sorry if this topic is out here somewhere but is there anyway to remove it and have a NON ACE setup on his rig with springs and traditional sway bars etc??

Thanks.






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I think he might be creating more problems by removing it, since its not broken, yet.
With out the dealer to turn it off in the ECU, the ACE light will be on and he will have a fault code for it.

 

Thats what my advice to him is, "wait till it breaks"

BUT....theoretically speaking, if we ship his ECU to a dealer and have them turn off the ACE function in the ECU and then swap out all the hardware for springs etc, it might work? I have never looked at a Disco with ACE long enough to understand how the hydraulic lines run. I think that may be the biggest issue?

 

Well that I dont know.
Urban Panzer had a ACE sensor go bad and so his ACE didnt work, it drove just like a normal non ACE Rover.
So maybe your friend just needs to leave it alone, thats what I would do.

But sounds like he is stubborn, so tell him it cannot be done. At least not for a resonable cost. Tell him it will cost him 8 billion million trillion dollars to convert to a non ACE suspension.

 

HAHAHA... Yeah from what im reading in the RAVE manual it seems very difficult to remove it completely and with OUR circumstance being MILLIONS of miles away from the US main land, I wouldn't attempt anything but an actual repair. I will give him the bad news..... lol.

FROM RAVE

"In the event of an ECU or hydraulic failure the system will fail safe to a 'locked bars' condition. The 'locked bars'
condition will allow the torsion bars to operate in a similar manner as conventional 'passive' anti-roll bars. Prolonged
cornering forces will allow a progressive increase in roll angle due to hydraulic leakage through the actuators and
valve block."

Off-road driving
Off-road detection is achieved by the ECU by monitoring the signals from the upper and lower accelerometers for
varying degrees of body movement. Off-road driving generates differing signals to the accelerometers which in turn
produce differing outputs due to their vertical separation and the location of the roll centre of the vehicle. The two
signals are passed through a filter to remove any offset caused by the vehicle leaning or the terrain. The ECU then
uses this signal to calculate the percentage of road roughness.
Below 25 mph (40 km/h) the percentage of road roughness calculated is used by the ECU to limit the operation of the
ACE system. The system is completely inoperative at speeds below 2 mph (3 km/h). At speeds above 25 mph (40
km/h) the system disables the percentage road roughness signal and full ACE system assistance is restored.

THANKS AGAIN!!

 

Well, as Spike has already posted, my ACE pressure transducer just went **** up, so I had an anoying light on the dash, and she drove like a vehicle with standard roll bars............All I can say is this, if your used to how good the D2 handles "on road" with ACE, when its gone, its like driving my D1 when conering with bodyroll etc.....it may not bother your friend, but I did not like it and it felt a lot less assured on the road.

I do know of 2 people who have removed the system, but that was because they did not want to fork out the money for new replacement pipes as they were leaking. Im yet to hear of anyone who has had a valve block or DCV failiure and the only other 2 faults I know off to date, are the accelerometers can go bad (2 off) or as In my case the Pressure transducer gives up.

The one "good" thing with the ACE system, if you get a fault, and you manage to diagnose / fix it, the Dash light / ECU resets itself, it does not need a Testbook session, if there is no fault, there is no dash light. My "advice" would be to keep it...........but

To remove it "completely" you would need to :-

remove the pump
pipework in engine bay
valve block
chassis mounted pipework
ACE actuators
roll bars

Replacements needed :-

New shorter drive belt
complete front and rear rollbar assemblies
ECU reset to Non fitted ACE vehicle

The D2 with ACE allows more flex / articulation than a standard "roll bar" non ACE setup to

Btw watch this vid in my youtube vids, helps explain ACE a little if your not sure
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fCgFYJ1VFAc

 

Thanks everyone. As this discussion was taking place a maintenance worker at my place of work shattered my front passenger window while cutting the grass!!!

So i'll be learning how to replace the window soon (I dont trust the Islanders down here to work on my Rover) they will pay for the replacement parts but I will install it.

.... if you have any advice on this let me know... otherwise I'll resort to RAVE.


PEACE!

 

The ACE hardly ever fails and is a big driving pluse, don't be foolish and remove it, which is near impossible and expensive.

 

It turned out his 2004 G4 Challenge Disco doesn't have ACE!! However it does have SLS. I thought Disco models came with ACE & SLS or without either. I didnt know you could just have SLS by its self.

So new question is. SLS to coil springs conversion possible?

 

There sure is.