Project Ninety: Part Nine

A V8 engine will be the cream on this classic Ninety rebuild, and Ed has one in stock. But will V8 experts, ACR, give him the go-ahead?

A V8 engine could transform this Ninety rebuild, and Ed Evans has one, but will it be good enough?

“Ican see a problem with the block right away,” announced Roland Marlow of ACR before we’d barely started to assess my V8. It was a bad start, but as the engine had been given to me to use for parts, I wasn’t expecting too much.

Earlier in this project I had an option on a 1960s 3.5-litre Rover V8 engine from a P6 Rover Saloon. Completely the wrong engine for a 1989 Ninety, of course, but it ran nicely on a test rig and I was seduced by its old rounded and fluted rocker covers and other tasty aluminium castings. But its front cover wouldn’t accept power steering, which I needed, and the crankshaft had been machined to fit a Series III gearbox, which I didn’t need. To get around these problems I was given a surplus 1992 3.5-Iitre injection engine (without the manifold and injectors) to be cannibalised for the front cover and crankshaft. To cut this story short, those parts weren’t suitable, nor was the tasty looking 1960s V8. But, in arriving at this engineering cul de sac, we had stripped the 1992 V8, and it didn’t look too bad, which is why it has now landed up at ACR to see if it can be built into a good engine.

Special case

This inspection is not to ACR’S usual rigorous standards applied to their re-manufactured engines. If it was, much of my engine would be scrap. Instead I’m using Roland’s expertise to see if the engine can be made useable again with a minimum of work and expenditure.

The real concern here is the number three cylinder liner that has moved. Movement is normally seen on the larger capacity V8s and, in the case of our 3.5-litre version, it may have been due to severe overheating causing the piston to partially seize in the liner. It could also be a factor of the original machining process in which the interference fit, which holds these liners in place, has been less than required. However, the peening of the block material directly below the liner suggests the piston has gripped the liner and repeatedly pulled it down with force.

Regardless of the reason, Roland explains that the cure is not simply a matter of fitting a new liner. The liners are

such a tight fit that the removal of one will allow a slight change in the shape of the adjacent cylinders. So, if one is changed, they all have to be changed and then re-machined. And if all eight liners are removed, the whole engine block can slightly alter shape – only thousandths of an inch – but enough to distort the alignment of the camshaft and crankshaft bearing seats, so these would need to be re-honed. By now, I was aware that things weren’t looking good, but we continued with the inspection.