Ed Evans speaks out
You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to the different engines you can fit in your Land Rover
“Has anyone tried fitting a Tdi engine into an Evoque yet?”
Perhaps we Land Rover enthusiasts are difficult to satisfy. Take Land Rover engines, for example. Our movement has a history of replacing the engines that were designed for our vehicles. Series I models were retrofitted with Series II and III engines, and SIII mills were replaced with Tdi units, and with long-stroke rogue diesels that never worked properly with Land Rover gearing. Mostly, these were logical improvements, fitting a newer and better Land Rover engine in place of a primitive early unit, but it’s backfired since the Series models gained classic status where originality is important.
Some engine conversions were more than practical. A Ford 3-litre V6 from an old Capri would transform a Series I for as long as the driver could control it. Some would describe that conversion as a sacrilege today, but I recently discovered a V6-engined SI that was ripe for restoration, and I found that a lot of my contacts thought this a great project because, although not original, it was an ‘original’ modification of the era, and therefore of special interest.
Lately, we’ve stopped complaining about the earlier engines, enjoying them for what they are. Instead, grumpiness is directed towards the very latest engines because the combination of packed engine bay and electronic control makes them less rewarding and less practical to maintain ourselves. But we should remember that modern engines don’t go wrong with anything like the frequency of the old ones. That’s probably down to two things: they’re just so much better, and uninformed people and garages daren’t fiddle with them. In LRM Technical we differentiate between the jobs on modern Land Rovers that are suitable for DIY, and those that should be tackled only by technically trained owners or a competent garage. In the case of the latter, we show how a garage will repair the vehicle, enabling owners to understand what they’re paying for and to talk knowledgeably to their technician.
Despite their complexity, even the newer engines are being fitted into earlier Land Rovers. Puma diesels and supercharged V8s into Td5 Defenders; TDV6 diesels into Defenders and Range Rovers; but these are jobs for the pros involving specialist knowledge to integrate the electronic systems. So maybe we’re not difficult to satisfy – it’s just that, with a Land Rover, the possibility is always there to fit whatever engine we like. Has anyone tried fitting a Tdi into an Evoque, yet?