Hi All,

Nice to meet you all. I'm Charlie and I live in Vermont, USA.

I've always wanted a land rover, and recently picked up a 2001 for my son for his first car. It is in great shape, but we're doing all of the typical disco preventative maintenance - hoping to teach him about mechanical work in the process.

Somehow I got swept up in it and bought a second "parts" vehicle (another 2001), but this one with a blown engine. Now that I have it home, I'm considering putting an engine in it and making it a trail rig (saving my 200 series land cruiser from the harder trails). I haven't heard it run (radiator taken out) but I'm told it is bad. Not just a bad head gasket, but full on sliped sleeved destruction. I'll probably pull it apart for fun when the weather gets nice, but 99% chance needs to be repowered. If I do keep it, it will be gutted except the front seats and I'd build cargo boxes for the back to hold recovery gear, tools and spares.

I've spent hours and hours looking into LS swaps, primarily with the ACE kit. I have a line on a decent L33 that would do the trick. I've read the gigantic ACE thread, browsed this forum, watched the whole Youtube series from Lost Cause Ranch.

I've done a lot of mechanical work including several swaps of engines into vehicles where they never belonged. I've rebuilt engines and transmissions. I have a well equipped DIY shop with a lift and pretty much any tools I'd need (but never enough tools ). I mig, tig and gas weld, but my welding skills are *super* rusty (I'm probably not going to weld my own exhaust), I don't do my own alignments, or set up diffs. I'm not afraid to tackle most anything else.

Before I go down that road and spend myself into to poor house, is there a thread for engine swap newbies? Or just keep chugging away reading whatever I can get my hands on?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Pics:

 

There isn’t really a simplified thread, but the Lost Cause Ranch videos are pretty good at showing what to expect generally. You sound completely qualified to do the ACE swap. Once you get the instructions, read them all several times over (even the troubleshooting guide). That way you are knowledgeable going into the swap when the parts arrive.

Other than that, just take your time and follow the instructions. There are some difficult parts, but once those are completed its pretty smooth sailing.

 

Thanks. I watched all of those lost cause ranch videos. They were really helpful.

I was a little surprised by how close the fan ends up to the radiator, and the janky flex hose air intake/airbox setup, but the rest seems great.

It'd be cool if someone clever with 3D printing could design some intakes hoses that could be printed out of ABS...

 

The LS is a little bit bigger than the Rover V8, so it gets a bit tight. The ACE kit actually moves the engine back a little bit because the bell housing is shorter. The fan does fit though, and you can take it off without removing the radiator.

For the air intake, this is the other option ACE has on the parts list: https://www.jegs.com/i/Airaid/028/100-300/10002/-1#. It looks a lot nicer.

 

With your set up and skill set I'd look into dumping the rover trans for a 6L80 or 6L90 (can't remember which but one set up is a little shorter than the other). Little more work to get the trans to play nice but a stronger gear box and should rob less power. Plus 2 more gears, push to shift ability and full control over shift points to me would be worth the extra time and money.

 

The 6L90 is about a inch or two longer than the 6L80. With adapters both of them are several inches longer than the 4HP24. 6L90 is overkill in my opinion and it has a 29-spline output shaft, meaning it needs a special adapter versus the 6L80's 32-spline.

The difference in the two options is really about time and budget. I am planning a LS/6L80 swap for my other Disco. I am fully anticipating an all-in budget of $12k for parts with that swap. The newer stuff adds up quick with the hoops you have to jump over for tap shift etc. The ACE swap is doable for around $5k and possible to do for less if you hunt for deals. If you had all the parts for the ACE swap ready to go and an experienced helper or two, I think you could probably do that swap in a couple weekends if you were focused.

Going to the 6L80 is substantially more work when it comes to the electrical. The electrical is the bigger issue - I’d say probably triple the amount of splices overall. It is troublesome that a bunch of the stuff for 6L80 is on can-bus, so you have to work around that. Extra length of trans also means changing driveshafts and/or moving radiator forward, probably changing engine mounts ... It's a much bigger project.

 

In short it is a much bigger project. That's about where I landed on it also. I contemplated the 6l80 with a stand alone trans controller and after adapters, new driveshafts, etc... It's getting pretty expensive pretty quick. I still don't like the idea of the stock trans with so much more power from the GM engine, but that's the cheapest way to get a better engine inside the vehicle.

Now if you want to ditch the lt230 and run another transfer case and lose the hill descent and traction control the 6l80 could be a slightly more reasonable option. Hill descent doesn't seem like much if a loss and traction control seems like a tool to get around not having lockers and lockers seem like a good idea to strengthen the diffs for the extra power anyway. See that, we just fell into mission creep again!

 

Torque rather than horsepower is what is important when considering transmission strength. A 4.8 LS doesn’t make any additional torque beyond a 4.6. A 5.3 makes only about 30 ft-lbs more than a 4.6. That is really only about a 10% increase in torque and it’s still within the ratings of a 4HP24.

There is really no good options for a different transfer case besides the LT230. Few (if any) modern US transfer cases have a front and rear passenger side drop for the driveshafts. I wouldn’t bother with any of the old stuff. Going to a foreign transfer case like a Toyota means more adapters, meaning I might as well just adapt to the LT230.

Both the ACE swap and the 6L80 swap are good options (provided the 6L80 electrical is sorted out more, which I don't think is too far off), but they are really aimed at two completely different builds. The ACE swap is more aimed at replacing a factory engine and costs similarly. The 6L80 is for the scenario where you want to build the best possible Discovery with no expenses spared or are doing a complete restomod.

I’ll do a write up of the info I’ve gathered for the 6L80 swap soon before I start on it. It’s quite an extensive list at this point.

 

I suppose the transfer case would need to match the custom width 9" rear axle you'd have to swap in also for the smokin burnies that would happen with a part time transfer case.

I think you nailed the scope. The ace swap is a nice way of upgrading the power. The 6l80 upgrades most of the powertrian.

Here's me hoping a couple people drop out on the next batch of ace kits and I get one. If not I guess I figure it out myself or wait.

 

Hello,

New to this site but I owned a 2011 LR4 for 5 years. I sold it about 1.5 yrs ago and miss it bad. I am flirting with purchasing another one, On FB Marketplace I found a 2010 with 106k miles that claims an engine swap from another lr4 that has 55k miles. Wondering if I should consider this option. Price is $10,500. Its an HSE but not LUX. Looks better than my 2011 that had 130k miles when I sold it. Should I consider this a good deal and should I trust this type of engine swap? This is not an LS swap but feels like same type of car engine is even better. Are there any questions In should ask