I wouldn't say anything was mis-represented at all. Very few engine swaps are truly easy and no two are ever the same especially since not everyone is a skilled fabricator with years of experience. I think ACE has gone above and beyond what others who have done this swap have done in so much to actually try and put something together for the masses to attempt.

 

I have to agree with @robert.juric and @whowa004 nothing was misrepresented, I have pulled and replaced engines designed for the vehicle and run into issues with wiring, engine fit and any number of other stupid little things. The idea was to produce a kit that would allow an LS swap "relatively" simply.
It may been that it could have been better documented from a troubleshooting and potential problem point of view, but you do not know those until you have enough units installed.

I am sorry this is coming to an end, but it was a good effort and @ACEngineer deserves a thank you for making the effort.

 

All things considered 2.8 Cummins Re-power is a nice option. It's a bummer that it's expensive and down on HP though and that part's are not in the market. Worse yet it's reliability is not up to the standard of general Cummins IMO. It's no 6.7, from what I've read it has a LOT of issues. Otherwise yes, a diesel, reliable and small in size sounds great, could be run on alternative fuels in a pinch etc. Very fun idea. There's of course some other options too, most of them hard to source, get support on install for and demand a lot of custom work, more than folks on here doing this swap are having to worry about.

 

That or even have one Northwest and one South East (himself) shop as the main two options perhaps. It's another route, that is, having the vehicles dropped off. I imagine once I finish mine, I'll say "that would be easy now that I know what to do".


The swap in my mind was said to be a bit demanding. The more frustrating side of things for me actually is three things.

1. The parts list meant I ordered things I didn't need, didn't include other things I would need and then finally left me to source my own things needed as I learned about them. This meant closer to $1000 dollars in random parts added to the bill, probably quite bit more in the end which, still hasn't come. However, it's VERY difficult to lay this out from his end as there's a bit of variation between our vehicles and also a bit of variation on the GM side of things which is impossible to avoid.

2. The instructions. The photos are vague, sometimes misleading and simply incorrect, finally there's not many of them. A video is worth a 1,000,000 photos. The written instructions were clearly thought out and had good work put it but needed to be updated once or twice more but the community was indeed in a big hurry for this to be released right? Your answer should be an overwhelming "yes".

3. The suspension issue. This is the most troubling one for me, the entire point of this is to walk away with a reliable motor and traction control etc. all working because it needs to be able to go off-road but as it sits, can't at all and until I work through a solution or partial solution, it's enough that I'd never have considered it in a million years without that issue fully resolved. I'd have just bought a different vehicle and been on my way. Now with my worthless Disco I'm into about $10,000 in total for it and the kit and a lot of hours of restoring it thinking this kit would be a long term solution to provide a reason for ownership. So I'll of course finish this kit and have it working but it's been quite bit more involved than I had ever imagined. I've done quite a few swaps, this one is not the hardest but its been the most surprising.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

Ace has provided support and answers any time I've contacted them. Todd has been thorough and helpful in my questions not only on install but in regards to sourcing engines and components and what to seek and avoid. With most anyone else online I'd feel like I was duped at this point, not having it yet finished but instead due to his thorough actions, I hold ACE in rather high esteem. I don't think producing this kit is any easy task nor is providing support. This was a major undertaking on his end. When you look at the custom bell-housing it becomes quite apparent that things were measured and carefully thought through. I feel for them having put in so much time to make it work and then not be able to provide the hours of support to make it a success for them in regards to time vs money. I would very much like to see them produce the key components of the kit and outsource the support or installs and such elsewhere if need be so at least they can continue to reap a profit for the ECB units and other efforts put in. Perhaps something more can come of this if things fall into place.

The primary reason I posted concerns and problems here in many cases before asking ACE was to avoid overwhelming them and spread out some of the effort to the community here that has a little time to help. Unfortunately I imagine they got swarmed with questions and problems by many at once. That's a bummer.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to work on this install (be it slowly I've been working no less than 75hr weeks, sometimes with no days off for a while) and document it. Once completed I'll continue to stick around and help others and those on here have been doing for me. There's a great advantage we all know of having an LS motor above most any other and this vehicle badly needs solutions.

-Greg

 

This swap was i no way misrepresented. I've swapped engines into vehicles that never came with them using kits that were proven and still had hiccups. IMO the swap kit needs refinement and revisions and that takes alot of time which @ACEngineer doesn't have the liberty to give anymore seeing that this isn't his only job. This kit is great stepping stone. This is the only kit (at the time) that was publicly available. If possible it would be nice for the community if 1, someone who has the time to pick up where he left off or 2, 3D scan the parts for others who want to try to fabricate it on there own.

 

So I have reached out to ACE and offered a possible solution but it would involve all of us.

I have offered to see about setting up a sub-forum specifically for engine swaps. This would make it a crowd sourced support option. Taking the burden off of them to an extent. Obviously they would still be involved but it would allow us as a group to support each other. I have seen this work extremely well in other forums for engine swaps.

So all the beta testers on the forum would need to be involved and some of our big brain Land Rover guru’s to help out as well.

Thoughts folks?

 

Above ideas from last two posts sound great.

 

I would hate to see this go away but, I completely understand the business model and the overhead cost of the support. As suggested, if the overhead support can be outsourced to folks who have done this or if people can start making YouTube videos I "think" this would reduce cost and allow ACE to get back in the black.

 

That's an incredibly irresponsible statement to make. From day one ACE cautioned that this was a work in progress and that he, as much as anyone, was learning as he went. Kudos to him for even trying this (given he has a day job) -- he certainly got further than anyone else. While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, I think the amount of contrary feedback you've received (and so quickly) should cause you to reconsider your post and perhaps even offer an apology.

There's a saying in Texas: "if one person calls you an ***, it's just their opinion; if twelve people call you an ***, strap on a saddle." m

 

Whether it's ACE or someone else, this would be $15-20K in a shop due to the cost of labor and overhead....m