You could just do the ferry ride for fun!

 

Q&E in Anaheim CA will do top hats for $1500 out the door. You supply the block they supply and install the liners.

 

Looking at their website, You might be better off shipping your block and heads there to be done than using your local guy. They are really reasonable.

 

Q&E appears to have similar, if not higher costs to do the heads, though.

Small update. Finally pulled the engine.



Now here's my dilemma. So I've been comparing costs of rebuilding the engine myself, vs buying a Turner long block. The price difference is not that big.. can anyone tell me if I am crazy or not?

Buy Turner
$5332 USD - $985 Core = $4,347 including shipping (core return shipping TBD)
Buying new allows me to sell off a few parts I have on hand totaling perhaps $300-500.
Net: ~$4,000
Or, since the engine is basically fine, I could probably sell it somewhere here in the states for more than $900?

Rebuild
$1700 Top Hats
$150 camshaft
$800 machine shop (heads + block, hot tanked, valves, tolerances checked, etc)
$30 main bearings
$30 conrod bearings
$150 piston rings
$60 conrod bolts
$50 travel expenses
$70 rockershafts
$150 rockers
$50 cam bearings
$50 push rods
$3290 total

Intangibles:
$___ time value of money. For me, the time and cost of having to deal with a machine shop is high.
$___ peace of mind to go turner and know everything is ready to roll
$___ value of brand new pistons
$___ value of joy in deleting SAI


I guess it really comes down to whether top hats make sense or not. If I'm going to get top hats, I see no reason to rebuild myself, and should go turner.

 

I think your thought process is right on the money. I'd say to go ahead and give Turner your business. $750 isn't chump change, but when you are talking about this large of an undertaking I'd say that it's worth it.

 

Got a quote from Turner. I'm going to pass, and proceed with the rebuild. Next up I'm going to disassemble the block, pistons, crank, etc, take some measurements to get an idea if I'm in for any trouble... and take the heads & block to the machine shop this week for a full clean, valve job, and any other work as needed. I wont disassemble the valves... I'll just leave that to the shop. Skipping the top hats. Let's just get this thing back on the road...

1 4.0l. V8 Petrol Engine (high compression – secondary air injection)
Stripped engine, no external parts
Remanufactured with block casting fitted with ductile iron flanged liners £ 3800.00
1 to fit H180 Kent Sports torque camshaft & gasflowed performance heads add £ 450.00
http://turner-engineering.co.uk/images/4.6V8_1.jpg

1 New front cover including oil pump £ 225.00
1 STC 4378 water pump £ 65.00

1 DHL air freight – door to door customs cleared £ 425.00
(Local tax/duty may apply)
1 insurance £ 30.00

 

A few words of advice: don't miss the boat here. Having the block out and not arranging for the installation of top hat liners will almost certainly come back to bite you in the ****.

Wise old saying if you don't take the time to do it properly now you'll need to find the time to do it again later. And that will double your costs at a minimum. Not to mention the inconvenience, aggravation, anger, frustration, etc., etc.

 

I dropped everything off at the machine shop - AutoSport Seattle - this morning. I disassembled most everything and gave him: heads (valves still in), block, crank, main bearing bolts, main bearing caps, pistons (organized in a 2L coke bottle tray), valve seals, old bearings, etc. He will get back to me with a proper quote, but estimated:

$400 for the heads: clean, valve job (3-angle), resurface if necessary. He noticed right away that the factory installed 2 of the valve springs upside down - as the height was different from the rest. He said that's a common Land Rover QA thing.

Block
Clean - $75
Crank Polish - $45
Cam bearings install - $45
Glaze/coat block in something I can't remember - $40?
Measure everything including pistons, pressure test - ?$ can't remember

We talked extensively for 25 mins. Especially regarding the top hats. He was actually doing a top hat install when I walked in. He's done hundreds of top hats for our engine. He said at his peak he did 32 in a month. He said he's used both Darton and LA Sleeves and is pretty adamant on LA Sleeves - it's what he uses for all of his jobs. He had sizing issues with a few Darton sleeves. Can anyone comment on this? Cost would be 1000-1200$ labor + sleeves. I will get a quote for his LA Sleeves, but he thinks around 600-800 for those (whereas Darton's are $530 shipped from Turner).
Heavily leaning towards doing the top hats, given the advice here and from the machinist. I guess it will be a question of Darton vs LA Sleeves - though if the machinist wants to use LA Sleeves... I should probably follow his lead.

He also said not to replace any of the freeze or oil galley plugs - only the camshaft plug. His reason is that they never rust, and there is a greater chance of scoring/gouging the aluminum when removing them is high. Everything I've read said REPLACE THE PLUGS...hmm.

 

Biggest difference as I understand it between Darton and LA is that the Dartons are supplied with o-rings that fit around the bottom of the sleeves about 1/4" from the bottom.

The machine shop will have to bore the cylinders in order to fit the top hats, so this increases the possibility of cracks between the water jacket and the bore since the walls will now be even thinner.

The top hat seals the top of the liner against the head gasket so no problem with coolant leaking up there, but without an o-ring there is nothing stopping coolant from entering the crankcase at the bottom of the liner. If one or more cylinders develop cracks you can have an intermix problem, which would suck after spending the time and effort to fix the engine properly.

Far as I'm concerned using any liner that does not have an o-ring only addresses half of the problem.

 

He showed me the LA sleeve and it had a groove on the bottom for what I suppose would be the o-ring, but when he calls with the quote I'll double check.