Project Grover

Drizzly day in the hills, so a good excuse to hang out in the shed and progress this project a bit!


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Unfortunately I can only get out to the shed after about 8pm these days, so it's usually cold and dark. But I have still managed to make some progress.

I've made the engine mount brackets. The driver's side (rear of the engine in the Pug) was easy, as it just used the same position and fixings as the original Peugeot lower engine mount bolts on. A piece of 4mm plate bolted to the motor, and a piece of 50x25x1.6mm RHS was welded to it to reach backwards to the original Range Rover rubber mounts.
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The passenger side was a bit more involved. There are limited options to bolt to the motor on what was originally the 'front' of the block. At the very front, the alternator and power steering mount removes any options. Behind that is the oil filter and oil cooler. So it's in the back half of the block that there is some space. There is a flat section where there engine number is stamped, and it is surrounded by 4x M8 threads. Higher up on the block, is an M6 thread with some castings to locate something (not used on the 406, not sure what it's supposed to be for).

I made a bracket that used all of these fixtures to support the engine. The finished product still allows the original oil filter to be installed and removed easily.
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The next project was the sump.

The Range Rover has no front crossmember, just the chassis rails either side. The diff is immediately under the engine and goes up and down with road contours. It has air suspension, so the clearance can be adjusted, but needs to be adequate even with the car lowered fully, and sitting on the bump stops, in case you hit a bump that causes the diff to travel that far. The last thing I want is the diff contacting the engine at speed, which would smash the sump, immediately causing the oil to depart the engine and engine failure shortly afterwards.

Unfortunately the oil pickup in the Peugeot engine is almost in the exact centre of the sump, which is exactly where I needed to create a 'hump' to clear the diff.

So, I modified the back of the oil pump and made a pipe to go to another oil strainer (which I raided from a 406 V6) at the back of the sump.
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I then cut a section out of the sump, and brazed in another piece of aluminium to fill the gap. I also drilled and tapped a hole and fitted a second sump plug, as the hump would make it impossible to fully drain the oil from the original drain plug.
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With clearance all sorted, I was able to do the final fit of the engine to the engine bay (well, hopefully final).
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LH engine mount arrangement (note - I modified it since this photo for extra strength):
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RH engine mount arrangement (this photo was before I finished the sump, but you can see where it needed clearance):
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I have also made the wiring loom for the engine. It is a cut-and-shut of the Peugeot loom and the Range Rover loom. I have relocated some components and re-routed some cables, but the result is a modular unit that uses the two original Range Rover plugs to connect the whole engine assembly to the car.

This week I will unlock the ECU, and confirm the CAN bus connection with the transmission ECU. I have already tested all other lines of the loom - oil pressure switch, alternator D+ connection, starter motor, ignition feed and relays, and fuel pump relays. The ECU turns the pump on to prime when you first turn the ignition key on. At the moment, it all looks good to run once the ECU is unlocked!

My main concern is that the transmission ECU might not communicate properly with the engine ECU. I have confirmed that they both operate at the same baud rate, but the protocols themselves may be different. I am hoping that since they are both from about the same era, and this engine was used with ZF transmissions, it should just work, but if not, I have an Arduino with a CAN bus shield that I can use to interpret the commands and responses. Failing that, I'll swap to an earlier (pre-1999) transmission ECU, which uses discrete signals instead of the CAN bus, and the Arduino can provide those discretes.

There are two inputs that the Range Rover instrument cluster requires that aren't provided by the Peugeot ECU - tach signal and coolant temperature. In the Peugeot, these are provided through data link connections between the instrument cluster and the ECU. Once the engine is running, I will use an oscilloscope to analyse this 'data link', and see if I can interpret the data that is on there. If not, I will use the Arduino to pull the data from the CAN bus and interpret it to the signals that the Range Rover instrument cluster needs.

The tach signal is the only thing that might stop the car from driving, as the air suspension requires that the engine is at a minimum of 500RPM before it's compressor will run.

Things still to do:
- Fuel lines
- Mount the throttle position sensor and connect the throttle and cruise control cables
- Radiator hoses
- Heater hoses
- Air filter and inlet ducting
- Intercooler and plumbing
- Exhaust
 
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Very cool. I'm most interested in your engine mounts, it's relevant to an idea I've got too.
 
Very cool project with lots of progress on some very unusual locations for the conversion.

So you're not the only one to go looking for torque converter nuts, 9 x 1.0 threaded anything. Not even machine shops can help with tap or die.

A good mate said he would manually turn some down if we had to but managed to find second hand replacement.

Onwards and upwards

Sent from my SM-G900I using aussiefrogs mobile app
 
Demannu, does it not matter in any situation that you have slightly separated your sump into two sections ?

Uphill ? Downhill ? Even long, sweeping left-hand turns which would be unhealthy for a 406 V6? :D

(Or was that right-hand) ?
 
Demannu, does it not matter in any situation that you have slightly separated your sump into two sections ?

Uphill ? Downhill ? Even long, sweeping left-hand turns which would be unhealthy for a 406 V6? :D

(Or was that right-hand) ?

Hi Mark,

I blew up my 405 Mi16 on the long right-hander at Mallala. Sofar, I haven't managed to starve a V6 of oil!

In a 406, the engine sits perfectly horizontally, and the oil pickup is in the middle of the sump. In this application, it now has a bit of a 'nose up' attitude, so the gearbox end is about 25mm lower. So I'm quite happy to see the oil pickup further toward the rear of the motor.

As for splitting it, the minimum oil level is still about 25mm above the level of the hump, so it will still behave as a normal sump, except when it comes time to drain it!

Any oil that descends to the 'front sump' will quickly overflow into the rear sump, be picked up by the oil pump and recirculated. No different to usual.
 
Cool project, thanks for sharing! Did you happen to weigh the two engines? Possibly a bit lighter upfront without the V8?
 
It runs! I reprogrammed the ECU today to bypass the immobiliser, put some oil in the engine and gave it a kick. It fired up straight away, but without a fuel supply it only ran for a moment.


Next step is to provide it a constant supply of diesel!
 
Cool project, thanks for sharing! Did you happen to weigh the two engines? Possibly a bit lighter upfront without the V8?

I didn't weight them - I don't have the facility to do so! But I actually reckon they're about the same weight. The V8 is physically larger but is completely aluminium, the more compact 4 cylinder Peugeot motor has a cast iron block.
 
Like ya work Scotty.
If there is a will, there is a way...

Dano
 
Cool project, thanks for sharing! Did you happen to weigh the two engines? Possibly a bit lighter upfront without the V8?

I should probably also mention, the 4 cylinder is significantly shorter than the V8 (150mm at least), and I have set the diesel engine further back in the engine bay. So the weight distribution might be improved a touch!

I didn't worry about the weights too much, because the P38 has full self-levelling air suspension, so it will still ride at the same attitude without any suspension modifications.
 
It may handle a little better. I thought a potential lower engine weight might offset some of the comments earlier in the thread re the engine having less torque.
 
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