Running gear = Rangy V8 V's Comm V6

[maxtrax]

I am looking for constructive info; I am considering Rangy 3.5L v8 factory auto and Lt 230 or Commadore 3.8 V6 with t700 and hilux transfer.
I would like to know the diamentions of each and the pro's and con's of each? I think both will be around the same money but weight, power strenght, and reliabilty? I am going to use disconect as well how do I do this in each?

[craz3d]

personally id pick the v8 just for the sound, sole reason.
why not the rover 3.9i v8?

[bad_religion_au]

rover V8, because mechanically they are tougher. commo v6 = one of the worst mass produced engines in history.

v8 sounds better.

lt230 has access to lower low range i think.

hilux transfers are weaker.

[shortyq]

those rover v8 things actually dont go to bad!
plenty of aftermarket gear available
but id ditch the rover auto in favor for something gm

[oozuk]

a little more information.... what are you planning to fit it to ?

[maxtrax]

ShortyQ how did you get a GM auto to bolt up?
I'm rebuilding my old rocky as a TTC car/buggy should any comps come up for buggys. I'm aiming for a cross between Pete's new 40 and a full no door tube buggy, F/R steer GQ with cal axles.
What would the power of the 3.5L and 3.9L Rover motors be?
I do totaly agree that V8 sounds best but I had considered 4cyl turbo only duo to small size to make the front of the car shorter and lower as the 4cyl is alot smaller than a V8. But I origanlly used a V8 due to the fact most like the sound of a V8.

[shortyq]

ShortyQ how did you get a GM auto to bolt up?
I'm rebuilding my old rocky as a TTC car/buggy should any comps come up for buggys. I'm aiming for a cross between Pete's new 40 and a full no door tube buggy, F/R steer GQ with cal axles.
What would the power of the 3.5L and 3.9L Rover motors be?
I do totaly agree that V8 sounds best but I had considered 4cyl turbo only duo to small size to make the front of the car shorter and lower as the 4cyl is alot smaller than a V8. But I origanlly used a V8 due to the fact most like the sound of a V8.

dellow,crs or you get an adapptor laser cut!
if you are going to put so much effort into it then its not really a big deal!
personally i wouldnt bother with either!
go gm,gmh or ford!preferably the ally ls1!

[Slunnie]

those rover v8 things actually dont go to bad!
plenty of aftermarket gear available
but id ditch the rover auto in favor for something gm

Just out of curiosity, why would you ditch the ZF auto? I thought they were pretty good in the buggys.

[shortyq]

those rover v8 things actually dont go to bad!
plenty of aftermarket gear available
but id ditch the rover auto in favor for something gm

Just out of curiosity, why would you ditch the ZF auto? I thought they were pretty good in the buggys.

availability,simplicity,dollars,vendors who want to know,or not!

[Loanrangie]

those rover v8 things actually dont go to bad!
plenty of aftermarket gear available
but id ditch the rover auto in favor for something gm

Just out of curiosity, why would you ditch the ZF auto? I thought they were pretty good in the buggys.

availability,simplicity,dollars,vendors who want to know,or not!

Then just use a TF727 with LT230 and 3.5/3.9 .

[bazza_108]

bad_religion_au. commo v6 = one of the worst mass produced engines in history

how can you say that

the buick 3800 is widely reguarded as one of the best six cylinder engines ever made

they are extremely reliable, they are easy to work on, they make good power, they are easily tinkered with, they are a dime a dozen, they run well on gas.

My mate has a vn which was rebuilt 300,000ks ago and we cannot kill it.

But back to the topic,

I would probly go the 3.9 rover or a 253, cos there is no substitute for that sound.

[v840]

ShortyQ how did you get a GM auto to bolt up?
I'm rebuilding my old rocky as a TTC car/buggy should any comps come up for buggys. I'm aiming for a cross between Pete's new 40 and a full no door tube buggy, F/R steer GQ with cal axles.
.

Didn't you have a VH45 in your rocky? Why not run that?

[Micka]

I'm rebuilding my old rocky as a TTC car/buggy should any comps come up for buggys. I'm aiming for a cross between Pete's new 40 and a full no door tube buggy, F/R steer GQ with cal axles.

For a start, you are picking the right rig to aim for in terms of ability and strength of components.

But you are falling way short by using GQ diffs, even with CAL cvs and axels. They have trouble holding up to front end steering let alone rear steer, and for the cost of setting them up you can have front and rear steer Mog404s. These will give you WAY more strength, gearing, steering lock, clearance...and the list goes on.

If you are wanting to be competitive in Tuff Truck style events, then you need to be looking at stickies, portals and rear steer at a minimum.

But it all needs to be strong. GQ diffs are not. Not compared to Mogs.

[nottie]

By my calcs a set of mogs landed and set up allready come in about 2 grand cheaper then shitty Gqs that will beak with front steer let alone rear steered.

Murry a Rover V8 has been proven time and time again how well they can be flogged and still come back for more. I know of a heap (and im shore you have seen them aswell) that have been run upside down and smoked, boiled and various other harsh crap thrown at them and they still run today. They are light and to top it off they are cheep.
ZF autos hold up well when looked after. Fluids new filters and coolers help them. Yeah the old buggys used a few but most were pulled from a car and thrown straight into abuse.
They can be built with HP24 internals to beef them right up. Mal Vs buggy is still a ZF and i have never seen it have problems with the auto.
And most important no adapter needed. With mogs you get good gearing without the cost of reduction gears in a transfer as the lt230 is a 3.1 from factory. Show me a yota or nissan that can claim that with the same strength of an LT.
Lts only need a $100.00 single piece cross shaft fitted to the centre diff and they are done. A full rebuild can be had for under $450.00 with cross shaft if you do it yourself (they are easy as to do)
As far as the commo V6. Yeah they are ok The auto is better geared but will need an adapter to a transfer. Just carry spare motors

You can get hold of a wrecked Disco at Auctions for under a grand with a 3.9 ZF and LT230. Oh and no need to worry bout left hand drop if you get the front pumkin reset on to the drivers side when ordering them from OS
Cheers Nottie.

[maxtrax]

I am using the vh45 in a GQ that is why I would stay with GQ diffs as my spares would be the same. But if GQ's cost about $3000 each locked/cals if I can get danas or 404s for same money would be good.

[bazooked]

u should be able to get a couple of 404s steers for about 5k

[maxtrax]

So where do I get mog diffs from? Any info...
do you need custom rims made?

[bad_religion_au]

bad_religion_au. commo v6 = one of the worst mass produced engines in history

how can you say that

the buick 3800 is widely reguarded as one of the best six cylinder engines ever made

they are extremely reliable, they are easy to work on, they make good power, they are easily tinkered with, they are a dime a dozen, they run well on gas.

My mate has a vn which was rebuilt 300,000ks ago and we cannot kill it.

But back to the topic,

I would probly go the 3.9 rover or a 253, cos there is no substitute for that sound.

according to who?

they hate gas. ask any cab company.

reliable? no more so than any common engine. and there are plenty of more reliable ones out there.

300 000k's? is that supposed to be impressive? all my cars (apart from the Rx-7) have hit over 350 000k's without being opened up. any that didn't hit 400 000 were wrecked out because the bodies were rusted out. the RX-7 hasn't done 300 000 yet, but it still runs, and is unopened.

[chimpboy]

bad_religion_au. commo v6 = one of the worst mass produced engines in history

how can you say that

the buick 3800 is widely reguarded as one of the best six cylinder engines ever made

they are extremely reliable, they are easy to work on, they make good power, they are easily tinkered with, they are a dime a dozen, they run well on gas.

My mate has a vn which was rebuilt 300,000ks ago and we cannot kill it.

But back to the topic,

I would probly go the 3.9 rover or a 253, cos there is no substitute for that sound.

according to who?

they hate gas. ask any cab company.

reliable? no more so than any common engine. and there are plenty of more reliable ones out there.

300 000k's? is that supposed to be impressive? all my cars (apart from the Rx-7) have hit over 350 000k's without being opened up. any that didn't hit 400 000 were wrecked out because the bodies were rusted out. the RX-7 hasn't done 300 000 yet, but it still runs, and is unopened.

lol I was wondering about that post too.

[CWBYUP]

bad_religion_au. commo v6 = one of the worst mass produced engines in history

how can you say that

the buick 3800 ... cannot kill it...

[garrycol]

A few landie people have replaced their V8s with Commodore V6s and the general consensus was that the V6 was less suited to 4wd/offroad type work than the V8.

Also both engines come from the same family of engines. The Buick V8 of the early 60s was sold to the Poms and became the family of Rover V8s. However back in the good ole USA the Buick V8 had two cylinders cut of it and has progressed on its own evolutionary path to become engines fitted in various cars including the Commodore.

Both engines are really cousins to each other.

Garry

[Loanrangie]

A few landie people have replaced their V8s with Commodore V6s and the general consensus was that the V6 was less suited to 4wd/offroad type work than the V8.

Also both engines come from the same family of engines. The Buick V8 of the early 60s was sold to the Poms and became the family of Rover V8s. However back in the good ole USA the Buick V8 had two cylinders cut of it and has progressed on its own evolutionary path to become engines fitted in various cars including the Commodore.

Both engines are really cousins to each other.

Garry

No good in a rangie/landy but in a small lightweight buggy they would be fine especially with the right cam grind.

[Wendle]

I once saw a VN Commodore drive from Cooma to Polo flat (about 5km) without a sump with no ill effects. I thought to myself that that engine would suit my hack-tacular off-road driving skills perfectly.

So I bought one with ~300,000km on it hoping to get maybe 6 months out of it and built a buggy around it. 4 years later it is still going strong in it's second buggy.

Can't comment on the Rover engines as I've never owned one. They sound nice running though.

[Micka]

I once saw a VN Commodore drive from Cooma to Polo flat (about 5km) without a sump with no ill effects. I thought to myself that that engine would suit my hack-tacular off-road driving skills perfectly.

So I bought one with ~300,000km on it hoping to get maybe 6 months out of it and built a buggy around it. 4 years later it is still going strong in it's second buggy.

Can't comment on the Rover engines as I've never owned one. They sound nice running though.

Same sort of stuff happens with the Rover V8s. It seems the worse you treat them the more they like it.

[dave]

I once saw a VN Commodore drive from Cooma to Polo flat (about 5km) without a sump with no ill effects. I thought to myself that that engine would suit my hack-tacular off-road driving skills perfectly.

So I bought one with ~300,000km on it hoping to get maybe 6 months out of it and built a buggy around it. 4 years later it is still going strong in it's second buggy.

Can't comment on the Rover engines as I've never owned one. They sound nice running though.

Same sort of stuff happens with the Rover V8s. It seems the worse you treat them the more they like it.

Ill testify to that

[RUFF]

I once saw a VN Commodore drive from Cooma to Polo flat (about 5km) without a sump with no ill effects. I thought to myself that that engine would suit my hack-tacular off-road driving skills perfectly.

So I bought one with ~300,000km on it hoping to get maybe 6 months out of it and built a buggy around it. 4 years later it is still going strong in it's second buggy.

Can't comment on the Rover engines as I've never owned one. They sound nice running though.

Same sort of stuff happens with the Rover V8s. It seems the worse you treat them the more they like it.

Ill testify to that

I built Daves buggy in 2004. The engine came out of my old hilux and had 140,000 on it when i fitted it from memory. I put a new set of big ends into it when I fitted it to the buggy. It blew a headgaskit within the first 6 months after running a couple of stages with no water in the engine. This was "fixed" with Chemiweld and I then abused it for almost 2 years like that till Dave started "driving" it in 2006. Dave then replaced the headgaskits. It has been run upside down or on its side more times than any buggy I know of. It has prob been cooked as many times for a variety of reasons. It has compeated in more buggy events than any other buggy in Australia. It has also been abused by Dave in the US as well. And the engine still runs as well as the day it was fitted. In all this time the totaly stock ZF auto has never even had an oil change. This auto has also done a lot of neutral drops and first to reverse at high RPMs. I damaged one transfer case due to not fitting a one piece cross shaft in the centre diff and another had a centre diff failure due to running 2 very different diff ratios in a desperate move to finish an event.


The 3.8 is not a bad motor and if you want a cheap semi-reliable engine then these are not to bad. But i have seen more 3.8s fail in Rockcrawling than any other motor. There are obvious exceptions and Wendles is one. But from my experiances im not sure i would run one unless i was looking for a real cheap way out.

To be honost if money was not an issue i would not use either of these engines. I would use an LS series engine, C4 and an Atlas.

[maxtrax]

Hi Tony

"To be honest if money was not an issue i would not use either of these engines. I would use an LS series engine, C4 and an Atlas."

If this is your choice why would you use these as your running gear?
# LS is this for more power
# C4 for strength or size
# Atlas is this for ease of adaptation or strength.

[dave]

I once saw a VN Commodore drive from Cooma to Polo flat (about 5km) without a sump with no ill effects. I thought to myself that that engine would suit my hack-tacular off-road driving skills perfectly.

So I bought one with ~300,000km on it hoping to get maybe 6 months out of it and built a buggy around it. 4 years later it is still going strong in it's second buggy.

Can't comment on the Rover engines as I've never owned one. They sound nice running though.

Same sort of stuff happens with the Rover V8s. It seems the worse you treat them the more they like it.

Ill testify to that

I built Daves buggy in 2004. The engine came out of my old hilux and had 140,000 on it when i fitted it from memory. I put a new set of big ends into it when I fitted it to the buggy. It blew a headgaskit within the first 6 months after running a couple of stages with no water in the engine. This was "fixed" with Chemiweld and I then abused it for almost 2 years like that till Dave started "driving" it in 2006. Dave then replaced the headgaskits. It has been run upside down or on its side more times than any buggy I know of. It has prob been cooked as many times for a variety of reasons. It has compeated in more buggy events than any other buggy in Australia. It has also been abused by Dave in the US as well. And the engine still runs as well as the day it was fitted. In all this time the totaly stock ZF auto has never even had an oil change. This auto has also done a lot of neutral drops and first to reverse at high RPMs. I damaged one transfer case due to not fitting a one piece cross shaft in the centre diff and another had a centre diff failure due to running 2 very different diff ratios in a desperate move to finish an event.


The 3.8 is not a bad motor and if you want a cheap semi-reliable engine then these are not to bad. But i have seen more 3.8s fail in Rockcrawling than any other motor. There are obvious exceptions and Wendles is one. But from my experiances im not sure i would run one unless i was looking for a real cheap way out.

To be honost if money was not an issue i would not use either of these engines. I would use an LS series engine, C4 and an Atlas.

Poor car ive even pulled the auto dip stick to check the oil and it been to low to register. and this was about 10mins after id been driving on my side with no problems

[RUFF]

Hi Tony

"To be honest if money was not an issue i would not use either of these engines. I would use an LS series engine, C4 and an Atlas."

If this is your choice why would you use these as your running gear?
# LS is this for more power
# C4 for strength or size
# Atlas is this for ease of adaptation or strength.

LS= Reliable HP and relatively light. Aftermarket upgrades and replacement parts everywhere.
C4= Both size,strength and gearing.
Atlas= Proven Strength, Front and Rear Disco.

[nottie]

Hi Tony

"To be honest if money was not an issue i would not use either of these engines. I would use an LS series engine, C4 and an Atlas."

If this is your choice why would you use these as your running gear?
# LS is this for more power
# C4 for strength or size
# Atlas is this for ease of adaptation or strength.

LS= Reliable HP and relatively light. Aftermarket upgrades and replacement parts everywhere.
C4= Both size,strength and gearing.
Atlas= Proven Strength, Front and Rear Disco.

Oh yeah!!! Thats the Shit right there.

Only problem is cost. It would be very nice to be able to do a drive line like that and run on gas the same as Petes set up.


But for budget i would stick with the Rover drive line. ( Even though i am thinking bout a V6 for a project of mine )