Bang goes the Ventora "resto" idea?

[akku]

I keep joking that I'll hoik the straight six out of the Ventora and drop in the V8 out of my Buick. I keep saying that I'll keep my eyes out for another Buick V8 (although they are pretty much like hens teeth, especially the '64-'67 only 300 and '66-'67 only 340.

I know Chevys are what everybody wants and does, but they have a few fitment issues. I've measured up the early Buick and it looks like it would slip in with real ease.

But as they were only done for a few years and so few came over here, well, what are the chances of ever spotting one, eh?

Well, just spotted an ad on another forum for a Buick 300 V8 for £150 complete.

I think we'll be V8ing it sooner rather than later - so long as no one beats me to it. But then thinking about it, who else would want the darn thing?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I think you should put an injected senator 3.0 engine in it.

[akku]

fuel injection? whats that all about then?

[BenzBoy]

Ah, there's nowt like amking more work for yourself when you're up to your neck already! ;D I'm good at that one.
A V8 sounds like a great idea, especially if you've got a complete donor car.
If it doesn't come off, a 3.0 Senator lump would be sweet. If you don't fancy injection you could always strap three Weber twin 45s on the frigger! ;D

[jizzy gillespie]

great idea alisairk, i fancy a 350 /tremec combo for the carlton wagon.it will go in using holden vk commadore engine mounts, unfortunatly I'm several grand short

[akku]

AH, you may mistunderstand me, its a complete engine at £150, no box (although I'd want to use a different one anyway), and certainly not a whole donor car. Although I can use my existing Buick as a template.

[reanimation]

They seem to be getting some dissing, so please go easy on me cos i got some money wrapped up in mine, but have you considered a Rover V8?

How come the Senator lumps are so good?

[Lewis]

Rover V8

No, no, no ;D

There are better, cheaper, more tunable alternatives out there! Gone right off Rover V8's - great engines, but if you're doing a swap, there are better choices

Like a small block Ford ;D

[Davenger]

Rover V8 is basically a Buick engine anyway, so why not?

[reanimation]

Yep I don't have all the facts to hand but I went for the Rover powered car as it offered IMO a good compromise; Light for handling/ performance and economy, yet powerful enough to offer more than enough, and a sexy noise

Obviously I realise small blocks start of with more power.

I'm sure Alistair will make a good choice for his needs, based on his knowledge.

[Revolution 9]

If you had the cash availible (I certainly don't!) and wanted a GM V8, you could always try PPC Magazine's current favourite, the Chevy LS1 as seen in modern Corvettes putting out big power and torque as standard, and as its still in production you could get bits with ease. On a more real world scale, I'd say the Rover V8 is ideal for a sort of period 70s custom car, that way you could even having the enigne bay looking dead period, or there's always the heavier but hotter small block Chevy. (Or the big block if you can find one and fancy making a your Ventora go really well. Not that I'm an expert.

[reanimation]

revolution said:

If you had the cash availible (I certainly don't!) and wanted a GM V8, you could always try PPC Magazine's current favourite, the Chevy LS1 as seen in modern Corvettes putting out big power and torque as standard, and as its still in production you could get bits with ease. On a more real world scale, I'd say the Rover V8 is ideal for a sort of period 70s custom car, that way you could even having the enigne bay looking dead period, or there's always the heavier but hotter small block Chevy. (Or the big block if you can find one and fancy making a your Ventora go really well. Not that I'm an expert.

Great point rev9, I was going to mention a LS1 as PPC do seem keen on em. However i realised that alistair might not have the budget to throw an a new engine.
I'm currently trying to work out, 1. where i can get the money from for a nice big budget LS1 powered project, and 2. exactly what i'd put it in.

[TwincamGTi]

Yep, stick a Rover V8 in, they are cheep, everywhere and I believe easy to mount in because the vauxhall 4cyl was 'half' a buick V8 so to speak, yes?

[bstardchild]

reanimation said:

How come the Senator lumps are so good?

Ideally you want a post 91 3.0i 12V Senator Lump as opposed to the earlier lumps but they aren't bad either just not the pick of the crop

Why.....

- 99% of the Senators were auto (that means the engine got an easy life, most pounded motorways as directors cars)

- 12V engines are virtually unbreakable

(24V's slight more fragile but don't dissmiss it it just has a couple of well known problems)

- Last 12V heads had bigger valves and higher compression to compensate for the "cats" that were added

- Removing the cats gives close to 24V power

- Last engines had Motronic 1.5 which is easy to map

- Last engines had a better fuel rail and injector set up - no risk of leaks like the early 18 joints in a loop set up

And lastly 99% of the Senators look tatty with rusty arches and as a result they are buttons money wise.

Of course I would say all that cos I'm biased but ^ it's all true

[akku]

The Rover V8 gets a bit of bad press from the bar stool experts just because they've gone out of fashion a bit. Back when, a 3.5 litre V8 was impressive just to say. There days with the cheap and easy availability of American V8s and Japanese turbo 4 & 6 pots the 3.5 V8 no longer strikes fear with the very mention of its name.

However, all the things that made the Rover a great and popular engine still hold true: its fairly compact and light weight. It has a broad power and torque curve, although the specific output is not that high it moves a smaller/lighter car well, even fairly stock.

The issues with the Rover are mostly that other better things have come along, like the Gen III and Gen IV GM small blocks. Same size, same weight (near enough) and 300+ BHP with EFI as stock. But the LSx game is still one which requires serious coin to play.

The other thing people will continue to point out is that Rovers are more expensive to buy parts for than Chevy Gen I V8s and with the same parts a Chevy will make a lot more power than a Rover. Same goes for the Chevy over the Ford or other brand US V8s.

The thing I have against the Rover for this application is that it isn't a significant hike in power over the stock engine considering the amount of effort to install it. With the Rover the Ventora would handle a lot better and be a few tenths quicker. The Rover sump conflicts with the FD corssmember and a custom sump is required or messing about modding the stock one, which ever source you pull the Rover out of. I've known a fair few people who have built FDs with Rovers in over the years, its a nice conversion, and one thats worth stepping up from a 4 pot Victor. But not what I want.

The Chevy Gen 1 is a route I have taken before with the FD. I had a Victor with the 1600 which ended up with a 350 SBC. It was a stout motor for a low spec and built on a budget. Pre smog high compression lump with closed chamber heads, huge stainless steel headers (the most expensive single part of the project), Comp NX284 cam, Rhodes lifters, true roller timing, Holley 650, Edelbrock filter, B&M equiped TH350 trans but a stock converter. I ran 4.1 gears and 13" wheels.

That thing was a monster. If you put the car in D, then released the handbrake with your foot on the brake pedal it had enough torque off idle to spin the rear tyres! Without your foot on the accelerator! That thing did rolling burnouts without a linelock, and in fact without the use of any brake or even a neutral drop. You just put your foot on the accelerator and smoke poured out of the rear wheel arches (usually filling the cabin as well). Oh god I miss that car so much.

The problem with the Chevy is that its heavy. 575 lbs in all iron config. Its also physically quite large compared to the other small blcoks as it came along before the thin wall casting technology was being done. This however does mean that a stock factory block will take an almighty amount of abuse. But its bulky. And there are no stock or aftermarket manifolds thatt any one Iknow whos gone Chevy can tell me which will clear the fixtures in the engine bay. I ended up paying £700 for custom headers on mine. But they were real beauties. There was little space for anything else in the engine bay, including hands to work on it! IIRC the oil filter fouled on somethng and wore away the case, and I ended up having to run a remote oil filter which I am always just a little dubious about. The other issue is the distributor is at the back of the engine and this sits exactly where the heater is so its hard work to run a heater in the car as you have to come up with a custom solution of some sort, or do without the heater.

The TH350 box also requires the transmission tunnel to be enlarged a little.

A big block will fit (Andy?) but I'm not sure how much cutting and where is needed.

The Buick 300 is basically a slightly enlarged Buick 215 (a.k.a. Rover V8) so theres a lot of benefits. Its cast iron which makes it heavyier but its thin-ish wall casting so its not too bad. However the sump appears to be in the right location for fitment in the Vauxhall, the distributor is at the front, its narrower than a Chevy so the stock manifolds look like they might just clear the steering and subframe mounting "ears". If not then Rover manifolds will fit the Buick heads, the same flange and bolt pattern is used. I also like that Buick is part of GM (as is Chevy) so its keeping it all in the family. I also regard the Rover as being a GM engine so thats "family" as well if swapped into the Vauxhall.

The Ford V8 usually comes with a front hump sump, but either and aftermarket or Fox sump and oil pickup should make it easy enough to fit into the Vauxhall. I have a problem of concience fitting a Ford engine into a Vauxhall though (and vice-versa). It has all the same advantages as the Buick 300 as its a front distributor, thin wall cast iron V8 with a fairly small package size. Tuning parts are cheaper and easier for the Ford than the Buick. But its a Ford. I would put a 302 in a Cortina or Capri no hesitation.

The other thing is the Buick will fit up to a t200R4 trans - this should fit the Ventora trans tunnel OK. The Ford equivalent box is the AOD and this is a far wider unit and woould reqire cutting and fabrication to the tunnel to fit it. I could use a C3, but the car will be undergeared in top.

Now before anyone (Andy!) points out that the Chevy is the only real option $ per BHP and all that, I have to say I don't think thats the issue with this car. It will be a mildly tuned V8 with overdrive for fast road use, not a strip warrior. If I was building a "strip first" kind of car then the Chevy would be my first choice, and sod the heater...

[akku]

twincamgti said:

the vauxhall 4cyl was 'half' a buick V8 so to speak, yes?

The Slant 4 was half of Vauxhall's own in-house developed V8 which was overhead cam.

Rover V8s also foul the steerign column unless suitable manifolds are used.

[reanimation]

Well put, and it all sounds pretty well thought out as i imagined it would be.

Mines not gonna be a strip warrior either. Work started on my Sierra 13 years ago so i shouldn't expect it to be hi tech but i knew the bits were the right ones. It set out to be a fast road sleeper using as many propper bits even with an alien engine, so i'm sticking to that brief.

Before i handed over the cash, i couldn't help wondering what 90's J treasure i could buy. This does seem to be the way forward, but not for me, theres the can of electronic worms and obscure bits to worry about. I'm sure i'll learn more on this than i would a modern J car. The guy I bought mine has a 2.5 modded Soarer and didn't cost too much more than than i paid for the Sierra, and he seems pretty converted and in awe of the power, economy*, handling, oh and creature comforts/comfort!

*for a performance car.

[Paul H]

Alistairk - a couple of pics that I thought you'd like (from the Ace cafe earlier this week)




Is this the colour your one is going to be?

[TwincamGTi]

alistairk

Today at 4:28, TwincamGTi wrote:the vauxhall 4cyl was 'half' a buick V8 so to speak, yes?

The Slant 4 was half of Vauxhall's own in-house developed V8 which was overhead cam.

Oh right

But what was Vauxhalls V8 and what used in?

[akku]

Paul - thats about the colour mine was as stock. I know that VX4/90 as well. Nice car. Nice guy who owns it as well.

TwincamGTI - the Vauxhall V8 was developed to be used in the FD series Victors & Ventoras as well as a diesel version for Bedford trucks. There were two capacities a 3.6 petrol and diesel and a 4.0 petrol only. Engineering versions of these engines were built in 4.0 and a diesel and evaluated at Luton. They were both SOHC and to save money on castings the same head was used on both banks with the head reversed on the left hand bank. The heads and cam carriers etc were the same castings as the equivalent parts on the slant 4 which was in development at the same time as a 1.6 and 2.0 litre. The engineering prototype 4.0 V8 was fitted to a black pre-production FD Victor in late 1966 which was last seen dumped on the roof at the Vauxhall design centre in Luton. A few cars have been rescued from this "scrap yard in the sky" but all attempts to rescue the V8 Victor prototype have failed so far and the cars condition is now deteriorating. Last person I spoke to who had seen it commented it was "Looking very sad".

The only figures I have seen for the Vauxhall V8 petrol engine were from early dyno sessions and there were fueling issues preventing the motor from achieving its full potential but IIRC (and my memory for numbers is sometimes false) it was making 225 BHP in "rough" form. There was an expectation of cracking the 250 BHP mark with it by production readiness time.

Sadly some short sighted person decided that the 3.3 litre straight six was good enough and thats what got fitted in the Ventora FD and FE and stayed in the PC series.

Vauxhall tried other V8 options. In 1971 Gordon Keeble built two prototype Ventora FD with the 327 Chevy V8 in. One used a Getrag 5 speed manual and one used an automatic. The cars also came with LSD, Sony stereo, Lucas fog lights and matt black bonnets. The Vauxhall griffen badge on the bonnet was replaced by a Gordon Keeble tortoise logo badge. These cars were called the Black Prince Special.

The project was canned because the FD was due to be retired and replaced by the FE in February 1972. I believe GK went bankrupt shortly afterwards?

There is no record of the automatic car, in fact some people believe it is a myth, but the manual one survived until the early 1990s when someone broke it up to use its running gear in a cobra kit car!!!!

Vauxhall made one last attempt at a V8 in a Vauxhall car with the FE Viscount. "The what?" I hear you ask. As the PC Viscount was being withdrawn the company looked to have something "up" from the FE Ventora to replace it as the flagship model. They used the FE body shell with some tweaks to the interior and such and capped it all off by installing a Holden 4.4 litre V8. It is believed that six cars were completed and put into the evaluation fleet. At least one is known to have escaped from the company and was seen in Wales in the early 80s but in a tatty condition. The fuel crisis kicked in before Vauxhall had the FE Viscount ready to announce and all work on the project was cancelled.

I did come across someone who claims that they'd got as far as mocking up the brochures for the FE Viscount. I don't know how true this is.

The only other V8 Vauxhall was the result of badge engineering the Holden Monaro to a limited run of 250 cars per year, and Vauxhall have not managed to sell all of them yet...