To consistently make money flipping any of the older rovers for consistent profits and higher prices you won't find what you need just by searching or asking questions. RRC have arguably the highest returns on investment aside from NAS defenders right now. Only issue is the number of quirks between each year is insane and people paying top dollar will generally have a ton of questions that only time and experience will allow you to answer. I do all of my own work as well but let me tell you costs still add up and your time will get eaten up big time especially in the first 6 months to a year of ownership.

Not trying to be a downer, Richard said it well.

In terms of reliability we drove our green disco from Denver to VA over the holidays and a new driveshaft failed on the way there and we started to develop a HG leak on the way back lol. Granted this truck I paid $1000 (had 180k miles and a spotty service history but heads were done at some point) and immediately overhauled all the cooling system and radiator and replaced the front driveshaft with a new unit that was fully greasable. Essentially this truck was "bulletproofed" and still had issues develop. It made it there and back just fine but I wouldn't call it a stress free trip.

Also if you dive in I would 100% never buy one of these if it didn't have a CLD capable t-case already installed. Once I identified the front shaft was on it's way out we didn't lose but 15 min in a burger king parking lot somewhere in KY while I dropped the shaft and manually engaged the CLD on the t-case and off we went.

 

Both of those things are incorrect. A stoic burn is exactly the same ratio no matter what octane fuel you're using, all the way from 85 octane up to 110 octane race gas. 14.6:1 is the magic number. All an octane number is is a fuel's resistance to ignition which is why you need a higher octane fuel in order to run higher compression or poorer combustion chamber design. Once the fuel lights off it burns at exactly the same mix ratio.

As for the injectors, yes, they are adequate. They are 19/lb per hour injectors which is plenty. Remember, you don't choose injectors based on engine size. You choose them based on horsepower number, and how many horsepower each injector has to account for. Those are the same size injector used on my '01 Mustang which is also a V8 with 8 injectors, but it makes nearly 100 more horsepower.

EDIT: small edit because of some info another user brought to my attention. Stock injectors may actually be 16.7 lbs/hr. We are not positive on this, but we both concur that they are plenty adequate.

Another piece is that stoich is actually 14.7:1, I always get those two numbers mixed up.

Thank you for this correction.

 

I think you got that wrong. Octane is defined the fuel's resistance to knocking. But really that's "bro science"... there is a reason octane sounds like "oxygen"... higher octane fuel has more oxygen in it, which helps prevent the knocking (which is the same as detonation.) The computer (engine management) works only after the last combustion to adjust the AFR and therefore is always late to the show. The oxygen sensor is far away from the activity so it's really late. And the ping sensor is late too. That's why they can't stop engines from grenading if something goes wrong. The combustion is happening in milliseconds which is too fast to get a perfectly i deal situation... the idle AFR is not the same AFR under load/full power. Since most cars limit is the intake, it's possible that the V8 rover may have a hard time breathing and not be getting enough oxygen. This can cause the car to run lean, get hot, and detonate/ping/knock and grenade. Just because the computer is trying to do something doesn't mean it's succeeding... and obviously the ECU has not worked well for the Land Rover Discovery V8's, the ECU has just not been working based on how many blown engines.

Shell Oil confirms this about fuel octane being lean or rich. If you don't change your AFR and use a higher octane fuel you'll get a richer burn. (lean just means less fuel, rich just means more fuel) Higher octane fuel has more dense fuel, so more fuel per volume, richer.

[QUOTE]In practice it is even better than this, with ratings more like 106 lean mixture & 130 rich mixture which are far in excess of the comparable 85 - 87 octane of road fuels. To achieve this a lot of TEL is used - around 5 times the quantity that was used in the old Leaded automotive fuels.[

https://www.shell.com/business-custo...00.html/QUOTE]

They call their fuels with more octane a "rich" mixture and their fuel with less octane a "lean" mixture...

And in my research, a lot of people have said that Land Rover designed the 4.6 to run lean in order to burn away more of the pollution and get better emissions. This means it burns HOTTER than the ideal situation. Lean burns hotter it also creates detonation/ping/knock.

We aren't talking about math here, we are talking about what's really going on in the engine... And we don't know (or I don't know) what the AFR programmed into the Discovery 2 4.6 engine at every RPM. Many say it was a lean tune. Do you know the AFR in the 4.6 for every RPM? Is it published somewhere or just gossip?

As to comparing lbs of fuel injectors from one car to another. I don't think that's a reliable or accurate way to do it. According to sources, one reason for a lean/hot/detonating/pinging engine can be not enough fuel. This can be caused by a weak fuel pump or faulty or weak injectors. 19 lbs type A injectors may be different than 19lbs type B injectors. I'm unaware of any international law that forces companies to calibrates injectors between engines. Is there one? If Land Rover skimped on their blocks it's possible they skimped on all kinds of stuff and used the same injectors from the small (less thirsty engines) that weren't strong enough for a bigger (more HP) engine. This is totally possible.

 

So you're saying you did the overhaul before or after the trip where the drive-shaft broke? I read that the drive shafts should be changed to a gressable u-joint style... the front drive shaft is prone to failure that will destroy something sitting right next to it... i think it's the transmission that it breaks...

How many Land Rovers have you flipped for a profit?

 

It was a brand new driveshaft, had under 5k miles on it before it broke. My plan was the flip the green one but it ended up being too nice and we needed another car once I got into it and I'm in the middle of a whole home reno where I'm doing it all myself, my time is at a premium so I haven't had time to jump on and flip the few candidates I've seen pop up in the last year. Even then I doubt it breaks 10k if I went to sell it. I'm in the middle of the HG job and adding a crower cam. Interior is pretty mint, and everything electronically works perfect. Also it's imo the perfect D2 as in it's a 99, no sunroofs, yet dealer had it built to being a 7 seater with real leather, with rear ac and upgraded stereo. Even then with a fresh coat of paint to get rid of any faded areas and a straight body with zero rust and high quality suspension with new tires 10k will be a stretch. I'd still turn a pretty profit for 6k but it's worth it to keep for right now as it's a little more tame than my white one. The number of cheap d2s at least in the mountain region has almost completely dried up and if they do pop up they are so thrashed you'd never recoup your time to make them presentable. One of my friends flips/parts out rovers and is a master tech and the name of the game is volume and how quick can you move them. Much safer bet to reach more potential buyers under $10k and turn 3-4 in the time it would take to prep one with a hope and prayer it goes for $20k.

 

How do you know the drive-shaft was new? You said you just bought it? Why did it fail if it was new? I personally would never drive a new beater on a long trip. Even new cars that are known to be reliable break on long trips.

So you've never flipped a Range Rover? I can't tell from what you said...

It's illegal to flip more than 5 cars in California per year. If I buy them for $2000 put $5000 into them then sell them for $10k that's just $15k a year, not really worth it. It's better to find cars that sell for more than $10k.

 

I know it was new because I bought it and installed it.....it let go due to crappy quality, the center ball developed play and was vibrating at highway speeds with less than 5k miles on it.

Also, at the time of the trip it was not a new beater. Everything had been redone except for the head gaskets and had no reason to believe they would start to let go. At the time of the trip this truck was in a ready to sell condition and was nicer than 95% of the d2s for sale. Based on how long higher priced discos sat on the market here in Denver (4wd vehicles prices are already inflated here and people lover their Land Rovers) I would not have expected it to sell for more than $10,000.

Sounds like you answered your own question that it's better to move on to a different car to flip.

 

Do you think this will ever sell at $19,500?
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/ws...303472553.html

What about this one at $21,990?
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sf...302709912.html

 

Zero chance for the 2002 and there's a chance for the 04 because of mileage and it's an 04. People are really obsessed with the facelift 03-04 however those are precisely the two years I'd never want to own personally.

 

Why don't you want those years?