I’ll start by telling you all a bit about me.
My name is Andy Quinn, I’m 43 years old and work as a maintenance technician and safety officer for a furniture manufacturer.
I’ve owned TVR’s since 1997 following a long love affair with motorcycles, which is still my true passion, but due to health reasons I can no longer peruse.
I’ve always had an interest in things mechanical and will have a go at most things.
I’ve rebuilt a number of engines but this is only my second V8.
I decided that it would be far more satisfying to record what I did, and pass it on for other enthusiasts to use.
This is in no way a manual or instruction document; it has been produced for information only.

The project has been split into 4 parts
Engine strip down.
Engine cleaning and inspection.
Rebuilding the bottom end.
Rebuilding the top end and dyno testing.

There are loads of photos and not much text, so hopefully there is something for everybody with an interest in the Rover V8.

So how did this project come about?

Well it began due to the fact that my car is going to be off the road for at least a couple of months following an accident that smashed the front end to such an extent that the engine had to be removed for proper repairs to be undertaken. I decided that it would be an ideal opportunity to give the engine a rebuild, and include a few upgrades.

The car is a 1994 Griffith 500, with the pre-serpentine engine; it’s covered just over 40,000 miles, has been serviced regularly, and uses very little oil. Although mechanically the engine is sound, I’ve had a few problems recently with pinking, so I thought with the rebuild and upgrade I should be able to sort out this issue as well.
I’m going to treat the rebuild as a project, and I hope that the information given here will give others the confidence to tackle a few jobs on their own TIV’s.

Where do you start?

Well the approach I’ve taken is to first decide on what I’m trying to achieve.As the car is used only on the road, I’ve had to take into consideration a number of points. The main one obviously being cost, and secondly the engine has to be usable, reliable and nice to drive.

It’s all very well trying to build a 400 bhp turbo monster with a budget of £500.00, but you have to be a bit more realistic and set an achievable goal. It would be nice to have an unlimited budget, and the skills and equipment to build a monster engine, but that’s not the reality of this type of project for me, and I suspect a lot of others out there.

To this end I’ve decided, my objective is to build a strong and reliable engine that produces around 300 bhp at the flywheel. The engine must have a good spread of torque, be smooth and mechanically quiet. I must be able to do the majority of work myself, with readily available and affordable parts. Obviously I will have to use some of the specialists out there, for machine work etc, but this will be kept to a minimum.

My budget for the project is going to be around £1800.00, but this doesn’t include parts I already have. But it does include a new clutch.
The whole basis for the project is that I already have about one and a half engines, so the aim is to reuse the best bits from both, and replace serviceable items such as bearings, piston rings, cam and timing gear etc.

I’m not going to include removal and installation of the engine in this project, as frankly it really is as easy as just undoing a few bolts, disconnecting a bit of wiring, a few fluid hoses and lifting it out, with the correct equipment of course.  As with everything though, if you haven’t done it before, take your tim, use plenty of labels to identify connectors and so on. And don’t force anything.

This is the state my car was in following the accident. This picture was taken the day after. I was also broken, as I’d broken my wrist in the accident.	The Day After
A few weeks down the line and the engine is out, ready for me to take home and start work on.	Engine Out
If anyone had any doubts as to the effectiveness of waxoil, how’s this for an 11-year-old car? Now that all the accumulated crap’s been cleaned off, it’s as good as new.	Pretty clean at 11 yrs old

One of the great things about the Rover v8 engines is the fact that there is so much information readily available. 
With this in mind I’ve spent a fair bit of time talking to the experts about my objectives, and how best to achieve them.
Without exception, the people I’ve called have been willing to talk with me, and have given information freely.
The problem I’ve had is that if anything, there is too much information. If you ring five experts and ask how best to achieve 300 bhp with a Rover v8, you can bet you’ll get five different opinions. But to be honest if you pick the bones out of the info you receive, it soon emerges that most of the experts are saying roughly the same thing. It’s just that some get their results in slightly different ways to others.

All the experts I’ve spoken to agree on a few things though, such as that 300 bhp is a realistic figure, and that to reach it, you definitely have to concentrate on the top half of the engine, in particular the heads, inlet manifold, cam and induction system. All this is good news for me, as over the years of TVR ownership I’ve managed to accumulate a few quite desirable components that I’ll now get the opportunity to use in the rebuild.

So I now get the chance to use my almost new Cross bolted block that’s been sitting on a shelf for the past 5 years.
Stage 3 V8 Development cylinder heads that I bought a couple of years ago.
Inlet manifold found on Ebay
And trumpet base from Tim at ACT.

X Bolted cylinder block, stage 3 heads, inlet manifold and trumpet base. You can clearly see the enlarged inlet ports and polished combustion chambers on the heads. These parts are yet to be inspected and cleaned.
Note the 5 holes for the Cross-bolts along the bottom of the block (arrowed) The block is also the later type that only has 4 bolts around each cylinder, and does not have the outer row of head bolts. It has been long known that the outer bolts tilt the head towards the outside and cause inlet manifold sealing problems.
Now you can really see the amount of work that’s gone into the polished and enlarged inlet and exhaust ports. The heads are also the later type, which do not have the outer row of holes.