N/A 90 - TDi

[Chris Putt]

I have fancied a 90 for a while and have just been offered a nice 2.5 N/A 90 for a sensible price, having driven it, it drives very nicely but obviously being the 2.5 NA is a bit slow...........well very slow.


How easy is it to drop the TDi out of a discovery into it and anyone got any ideas how much it will effect the insurance?


Chris

[Rasbo]

to stick in a 200tdi disco engine is v.simple, just drop it in on the existingengine mounts, keep the lt77 gearbox. think you may need to remove one stud. the turbo is below the manifold on the disco engine rather than on top of it, and therefore is very little room for the down pipe. so you would need to fabricate one up or the easier option is to just buy 1 from Steve Parker http://www.steve-parker.co.uk/exhcon200tdi.php.  The tdi's are intercooled so you'd need the rad assembly. oh and you'd need to move the air filter IIRC.

Think you'll be hard pushed to find a low milage disco engine (or complete car) at a decent price now tho, i managed to get a defender 300tdi engine plus rad asm, air filter, glow plug timer etc for £510 with 68k on the clock less than 200tdi disco engines with 120k.

The only extra work envolved with the 300 was to drill 4 holes in the bell housing, and 1 tapped hole in the backplate (could just remove the studs or switch the back plate but i'm fussy) you can use your existing loom and then its just extending 5 or 6 hoses. oh and make up 1 or 2 engine mounts. all in all i reckon ive done the conversion for about £700 and that includes rental of a van to get the engine, the picture on my mums face when she saw the drive way priceless :lol:

[Les Henson]

Putting the engine in is pretty straight forward. The clutch is the same and you use the N/A engine mounts to line it up. You can either alter the 200TDi flywheel housing to fit your bellhousing or just bolt the N/A flywheel housing onto the 200TDi.
Thread here on how I did it.

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=2394


Les.

[Litch]

Yes it will affect your insurance but not by much.
It isn't the fact you are putting a more powerful engine in but the fact you are modifying the vehicle. You must ALWAYS inform your insurance company of any change or modification otherwise they will use it as a reason not to uphold a claim whether it be from yourself or a third party.

[Chris Putt]

With the insurance, just wanted to check and make sure things would'nt get too ridiculous!

I have been looking around And think I am just going to save up a bit during the summer and get myself a 200tdi 90, having priced up getting hold of all the bits and the time and effort involved I think its probably nearly as cheap- And easier to just look for a half reasonable 200tdi...........

Shame really- that N/A is really nice- someone has spent quite a lot of time and money on it!

chris

[Litch]

If the 2.5NA D vehicle really is as nice as you say then don't discount it out of hand as they can be quite easy to live with and then you can spend your time sourcing a really nice TDi to drop in at a later date.

When I bought my ex-MOD 2.5NA D 90 I intended dropping a 200TDi in quite quickly (10-years of V8 LR's had me convinced I would not be able to go back to 4-cylinder driving) but I found the NA was quite a good performer and the MPG reasonable so it was over 5-years before the new 300TDi re-power kit was purchased and only then it was only because I had heard they were soon to stop production of it. If you are after a secondhand engine then there are plenty out there and you can spend your time sourcing a nice one as remember all 200TDi's are going to be very long in the tooth now (the youngest will be 13-years old) and even the 300TDi can be getting on a bit.