Well, it won’t shift out of first, but there are a couple of reasons that may be the cause of that. Neither which are the fault of the kit. I know I do have something wired wrong to the magic-converto box since I lost my tach signal immediately after installing it. The second reason could be low transmission fluid. ZF has to have the worst serviceability of any transmission ever! Laying underneath a running car with open headers and a non-tuned LS pumping transmission fluid in is awful.

one of the main draws of the ACE kit was full integration and budget since I wouldn’t in theory have to buy much additional stuff to integrate the rover accessories, however with hindsight and my current knowledge, I’d probably go the full GM route and throw a 6L80 in there. But this is my first engine swap and has been a great learning experience. I’ve made just about every mistake you could make (from buying a junk motor to messing up the Bellhousing installation and having the pump fall out the front of the transmission). Overall I am very satisfied with the kit because it facilitated my education, however now I would place far less emphasis on retaining rover accessories and the transmission. I’ll probably do a full write up when I “finish”.

 

Has anyone yet to find a Bell Housing or adaptor to mate the 4HP24 to the 5.3 LS? I got the engine and other stuff planning on the ACE conversion then boom. Last kit was sold out never to be made again. I can fab and mod. Engine has been blown up for over a year. I miss my Disco2

 

https://www.marks4wd.com/mfk564ta.html


this might be what you are looking for, I would contact them to confirm. However, the secret sauce with the ACE was never the Bellhousing adapter, it was on the electronics side. Quite frankly, the disco transmission is not the best for this swap, and simply bolting the ls to the transmission is not going to make it work. Now that ACE is gone, you have the same amount of electrical work to do if you were to retain the 4hp24 or if you were going to swap in a better transmission such as a 6L80.

since you have the same electrical mountain to climb, you would be better off swapping in a GM transmission for this conversion than retaining the rover one. It’s the same amount of work and you will wind up with a weaker transmission. Not trying to talk you out of the swap, but I would not place so much emphasis on retaining the 4hp24.

 

I went through this with Mark's, as of a few months ago, they have no parts that can be put together to mate an LS to our trannys.

 

Jensen,
I'm praying things are going well figuring out all the quirks. I hear you on the fill method of the ZF. I worked at a transmission shop for a while and, unfortunately, these weren't the only ones to receive this treatment.
I would love to see a write up. I'm always impressed with how people put this all together. It always has a unique touch on each installation.
Faust,
I am with Jensen. I contacted Mark's about using this specific kit. They told me it would not work. I'm not entirely certain about why. I can do did through some emails. I think their concern was the electronics more that the actually mechanical side. With ACE gone, I think your options are, buy an ACE swapped vehicle, follow alternative (albeit less documented) paths that have already been cut, or blaze your own path with something else. I will say, the Gen 4 LS/6L80 path gets the engine and trans running together well.

 

thanks! Didn’t get a chance to work on it this weekend, had a pretty large honey do list that kept me busy. Hopefully I’ll get back to it this weekend!

 

Hey Jensen,
I saw your other thread. Congrats! Sounds like you got the transmission figured out! What else do you have left?

 

well I just dropped it off at the muffler shop today. Still having a unique electrical issue. As you know I’m using an ACE kit, one of the very early ones. If I have both the LS and the Rover CPS sensors hooked up to the box, I have no tach. However, if I disconnect the LS CPS, the tach comes back! But with the LS CPS disconnected, it feels like the transmission goes into a limp mode being stuck in third gear. Apparently there are two different versions of the magic box, the newer simplified boxes have 4-5 Wires? The early box has 15 wires!! No schematic is included in the kit, the wires are labeled with paper tags taped to the individual wires…….unfortunately, some have become damaged or removed during this installation, so there is no way to verify the wiring once the label is gone……also due to the small production numbers of the kit and the “human factor” there is a non-zero percent chance that maybe some wires are mis-labeled. Not knocking anyone, I understand this stuff happens. But much harder to troubleshoot!!!

so right now it seems like my two choices are no tach but shifting, or tach but no shifting Ż\_(ツ)_/Ż either way, to continue troubleshooting, exhaust is needed in order to maintain neighborly relationships 🤣

didn’t you plug the LS CPS directly into the rover ecu? Does it drive the fuel pump? Any other issues from that? As later ACE boxes eliminated the CPS connections……I may bypass that, it would be nice to go one step further and eliminate the rover CPS altogether.


I wish I had done this wiring a little better…….so messy!!!

 

The version of the ACE box you have was an early version designed to work with LS Gen 3 or optional Gen 4 engines / sensors. The CKP wiring portions of the box should be not be used if using a Gen 3 engine with a Rover CKP sensor.

Gen 3 LS engines have a different crankshaft position sensor layout (24x), with a different number of teeth and different sensor voltage compared to the Gen 4 (58x). The Gen 3 / Gen 4 sensors and wheels are electrically incompatible as the waveform produced is different. The Land Rover also uses a 58x CKP sensor, which is similar to, but not the same as Gen 4. Therefore, the Gen 3 engines have to run the correct CKP wheel to produce the correct pattern for the Land Rover sensor (in addition to their 24x one for the GM ECM).

With Gen 4, the factory GM CKP 58x signal (hall effect) can be tapped and converted to the 58x signal for the Rover (variable reluctance) without the need for the additional wheel.

So, for a typical ACE setup with Gen 3 and using the Rover CKP sensor, the GM 24x CKP wires should be left alone in the GM harness (untapped). The Rover CKP sensor should have its wires running directly to the factory Bosch ECU without going through the ACE box.

 

omg you saved me literally weeks of troubleshooting!!!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!