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Fitting GM HEI to P76 or Rover V8

Tech Talk for Rover owners.

Moderator: Micka

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Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:11 am
Location: Athenree, New Zealand

Fitting GM HEI to P76 or Rover V8

Post by SOLIHL »

OK, i have just finished a little project yesterday thay may or may not be of interest to many, but for those that are interested this is what i needed to fit an HEI to the P76 (or rover) V8.

The main reason for doing this was to overcome inconsistant spark when on LPG or wet conditions. I had a modified standard distributor with aftermarket electronic conversion but it never really performed. I had in previous projects (hotrods) run HEI's in open engine bays in all weather with no problems. I could hose down the engines, including dizzy, while running without a miss, where my rangie just needs to see water, then splutters and dies. This is why i decided to convert the P76 to HEI.

First there was the two donor distributers, with the std rover for comparison,

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This is the buick V6 that supplied the body for the conversion

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and this is the OldsmobileV8 dizzy that supplied the shaft with reluctor etc

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As you can see the reluctor etc unbolts easily and is a direct swap, once the shafts are removed. This was easy, knock out the pin, remove the drive gear, plenty of CRC and out they came.
Once the rover and HEIs areput together the size difference becomes obvious as you can see from this photo,

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and i wondered if this space was big enough

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Well after a lot of grinding of the intake manifold it was

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The Hyprid dizzy is topped off with a chev rotor and cap, and being a cheap bastard i changed the plug ends on the old leads to suit the HEI cap. I also fitted an aftermarket centrifugal advance kit to recurve the advance, it now comes in very quick and has 20 degrees at 4000rpm. You can see in the next photo the fitted kit and the grinding required to fit this to a tall deck motor. I would expect it to fit in the std rover easier as the manifold would be below the dizzy height.

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Another photo of grinding reqd,

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and finally a photo of how tight the top hose is to the cap.

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The main thing is that it does fit and has transformed the starting and running of this old rangie. Plugs are now gapped to .050" and it never misses a beat and with good scrounging skills the whole conversion cost under $200 and took about three hours all up (once all the bits and pieces were sourced).
On both petrol and LPG is now starts and runs fine, and feels to have more torque which could be in part due to the changed advance curve, but i beleive that the HUGE spark from the HEI makes the biggest difference. I have only done about 100km on it so far but i pulled the plugs last night and they look as clean as new (they are 18 months old), so things look good.

Kevin
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Post by TuffRR »

Nice tech. :cool:

Good to see it works well.
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Post by Aquarangie »

Well done!! It's amazing what can fit if you investigate what needs doing.

I see that you clean your engine bay as often as I do (Never). One thing is that it keeps the oil in on mine. No bullshit, every time I clem it, I see leaks, so I don't bother unless it really coverd in mud and sludge after a muddy day's off-roading (not a commom occurannce in Queensland, although the recent rains have changed that!!).

Regards,

Trav
Land Rover- The Collingwood of 4WD's!!!!
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Post by mickrangie »

I run compressed air into my std rover dizzy and since it never has skipped a beat even in water over my bonnet...

Good to see you found another way around the problem

Mick
TD5 96 Discovery UTE.
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Post by derangedrover »

What did you do about the drive gear and oil pump drive?

Cheers
Daryl
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Location: Athenree, New Zealand

Post by SOLIHL »

Darryl, The buick drive gear was the same as the stock rover one so it fitted straight in, not surprising as the rover/P76 started out as a buick V8.

Mick, Waterproofing was only part of the problem, what i wanted was big spark all of the time and the HEI will fire a 1" spark. I had a plug lead come off yesteday and the cover was just sitting on the end of the plug. There was no miss but i could hear a crack that sounded like a clattering lifter from inside the rangie. It was firing the spark the length of the plug lead insulation cover to the plug without a miss, just the loud CRACK everytime.

The main thing for me is it now starts first time every time on LPG, hot or cold which it would never do before even with the electronic conversion, good coil, leads etc.

I also took it off road yesterday, just had a little play at a mates farm and it pulled great up hills etc, and ran real well on the 60km drive each way. Hottish day but did not overheat so the extra advance coming in earlier obviously work OK as well. $200 very well spent.

Kevin
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Post by Loanrangie »

Hmmmm, i have 2 buick v6 hei dizzy's in the shed. So what model oldsmobile is the dizzy from and will anything else fit ? I have been using a buick v6 drive gear on my bosch dizzy for 9 years as i had a spare lying around from a busted dizzy i had.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Post by SOLIHL »

Not sure what model Olds V8 it came from, I just scrounged around a pile of oddball HEI's until i found a V8 the right length. The numbers on the side of the Old's dizzy were 1103347 7L4 which may help. The shaft from this is perfect length for the Buick V6 and the drive gear swaps over perfectly. Everything else unscrewed and swapped over to make the V6 into V8 and the chev rotor & cap fitted right on (good old GM USA).
The result is heaps better spark, better running and cheap to do!
Kevin
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HEI

Post by Ley269 »

I have fitted one to my P76. I used an '85 Buick V8 HEI. The lower half is identical to the P76 dizzy. I had to grind away a fair bit of the intake and head for clearance and I had to bend the alternator bracket a bit as well. I also fitted a advance curve kit and adjustable vacuum advance. It does work a lot better, looks neater (only two wires, one from batt pos, one to your tacho) and parts are easily available.
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HEI to Rover

Post by Loanrangie »

You can also get a cap without the coil in it which will solve the clearance issues and mount the hei coil where the original was.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Post by SOLIHL »

Quick update.
The difference with the HEI is huge, (but i did also replaced the old leads with some nice new 8mm ones and new plugs). The old girl now goes 15% further on a tank of LPG which shows the value of good spark. No starting issues and can wash the distributer cap with a hose when cleaning the car and no trace of a misfire!
Kevin
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Post by Loanrangie »

Kevin, i have just started converting my v6 hei using an olds hei i picked up for $50, but i notived that the vac advance unit is facing the opposite direction to the olds ? Does the olds run anti clockwise ? Also what is the degrees of the vac advance, did you use the v6 or v8 one. 1 more thing , my rangie is an 85' with the elctronic dizzy, so where should i take the power from for the hei.
Thanks for any help you can offer.

regards,
Nick.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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This sounds wonderful...

Post by RedRhinoProducts »

Hey guys,

This is an interesting disscussion, could someone explain to me a bit more about HEI and how it works different to the Dizzy. This sounds very solid and I am willing to try anything to keep this thing running. I have tried everything, sealant, pressure, praying....nothing works. Right now I am reading about MSquirt and am thinking about going that route for more reasons that one but this sounds good in it's own right.

Thanks for the schooling in advance!

Regards,
.
..
...

Yer arms are too short to box wid gawd bitch!
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Post by Loanrangie »

Get yourslef a hei dizzy off a Buick 350 v8 as it fits straight in with no mods. I have an oldsmobile hei that i modified with a 79 buick V6 hei body that is ready to be fitted.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Location: Jacksonville, FL USA

Post by RedRhinoProducts »

Lone,

Could you explain the difference? Does an HEI not have the moving parts? How does it connect to the coil? With the Rover now you need the amplifier module connected, will an HEI use all the wiring the same way?
.
..
...

Yer arms are too short to box wid gawd bitch!
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Post by Loanrangie »

The hei has no points and uses a magnetic pickup to sense the timing, the coil is built into the cap so ther eis only 1 wire to the dizzy to connect. Basically you just find the positive power lead that went to the original coil and plug it into the hei coil - the amplifier module is not needed. Clearance as you can see in the earlier pics is tight but those that have converted are happy with the results especially with lpg (propane).
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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I wish I could find those HEI parts in Spain.........

Post by cybersniper »

I am unable to find those HEI parts in Spain.... if anybody could find them and ship them to me I would be really greatfull and maybe in exchange help finding difficult parts that we have in here....
Just tell me $$$ and I will send you the money or send you a paypal payment...

HELP ME

I have the same water problem.......

Eduardo
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Post by Loanrangie »

Eduardo, it would be easier to source a hei dizzy from the US, check out ebay or a wreckers. You want one off a buick 350 CI V8 as they fit straight in with no mods other than clearance.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Post by RaginRover »

Loanrangie wrote:Get yourslef a hei dizzy off a Buick 350 v8 as it fits straight in with no mods. I have an oldsmobile hei that i modified with a 79 buick V6 hei body that is ready to be fitted.


Ok so if I grab one of these I will only have the clearance problems
with the manifold and the rest is a straight fit - the one still has the built in coil so run the +ve wire from the existing coil to the dizzy and no amplifier module is required.

Do I have that right,

Loanrangie, any suggestion on local suppliers ?

Thanks mate
Tom
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Post by Loanrangie »

I picked mine up on ebay for $50 but you should be able to get one from a yankee car wrecker. Yep, ditch that module, fit your drive gear with oil pump drive and off you go, there is also a tach output on these if you have an early model without the tach in dash.
If you have access to a lathe then you could get a cheap and plentiful chev v8 hei and cut it down and machine a sleeve to fit.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Location: Athenree, New Zealand

Post by SOLIHL »

Hi Tom,
You are correct, only the +ve wire is needed to the HEI, The tach terminal is also useful if you are running LPG as you need the signal to keep the LPG flowing.
If you have money to burn, Jason from redrhinoprodcuts has leeched all this info (see posts further up in this thread) and is now selling HEI's for rover V8's for the not so bargin price of USD $349.95!!!!!! http://www.get-rhino.com/images/hybrid1.gif
Nothing more than a old buick piece, freshened up which you can do yourself for a lot less money.
Kevin
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Location: Brisvegas

Post by Ley269 »

And to think I genuinely thought he needed my help to fit one to his Rangie... Seems you can't trust what anyone says these days.
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Post by Rangie Motivated »

The P76 block is the same as the 3.5 isn't it ??

So this dizzy will fit into my 3.5 ??

Love the article
Guess I could buy one for $349.95 but, na, I'll have a play and save some $$
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Post by Loanrangie »

It will fit but you will have clearance issues with the manifold, if you get a holden or even chev hei you may be able to have a longer shaft and then the body of the hei will be clear of the manifold.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
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Post by DCTECHO »

Another option I've found,I tried to locate buick hei parts and was unsucessful, then I found that the chev hei had the same shaft size as my old rover lucas dizzy so I bought a new chev unit $189 ,removed the drive gear ,turned down the aluminium housing , cut the base off the lucas dizzy welded it to the chev hei ,fitted the rover gear to the end, redrilled the roll pin hole.

this works sweet as,and because the chev dizzy shaft is longer it clears the manifold completly.
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Post by Philip A »

Would you believe there is a how to in the Victorian Range Rover Club "Tips and Fixes" or whatever it was called from about ten years or more ago.
But they adapted a Holden Bosch in exactly the same way as you have.
Regard s Philip A
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