To deV8 or not to deV8

I had an hour or so yesterday to have a look at the Rover 4.0 V8 I bought while under the influence of Stella and made some interesting discoveries. While the block is still similar in many ways to my 1973 3.5 litre example it's clear to see just how much things have moved on from there. It's now a digital fuel injected world, the days of carbs and mechanical distributors are long gone, clearly swapping 50 year old technology for 20 year old technology is challenging. Pretty much everything will need to be changed to match the engine including the cooling system, fuel system - it needs a much higher pressure pump and a return pipe running back to the tank - the exhaust needs lambda sensor take offs on both sides, the list is quite extensive. Even small things like an engine management light need to be considered. It came without a flywheel I have bought one so I can crank the engine for testing at least but I have since discovered my engine needs a different crank position sensor as the engine came out of an automatic and they are different. 

All of this came from the smoking my current engine seems to be suffering from. I thought I had worked that out - it's much, much better now but when the engine is fully hot and you give it some serious beans it still smokes. It should pass IVA like that as they don't rev the nuts off them during the test but I don't like it one bit. From some further testing I did yesterday I think I still have a problem with it sucking oil in through the valve stems, it seems to smoke when I let off the throttle rather than when I get on the throttle. That's when you have maximum vacuum in the cylinders and so when the maximum amount of oil is being sucked in. These old rover lumps don't have rubber seals on the valves like the later ones do - the ones on the 4 litre lump do have them. This is where things get interesting.  I was originally looking for a pair of latest spec heads but couldn't find anything under 200 quid, which put me off a bit as there is a chance it still won't fix my problem. It was while searching for the heads that I came across this complete engine for just 150 quids. What I thought was, I could take off the heads and put them on my block - they fit ok but I think I need thicker gaskets as the later combustion chambers are smaller and I would otherwise have too much compression - the later composite gaskets do the trick nicely.

So now I have a choice to make - do I take off the heads and try them on my engine or do I bite the bullet and put myself through a world of pain and go with the later, more powerful and more economical 4 litre monster. I need to have a bit more of a think before doing anything. I got lucky again on the flywheel though, they are very much in demand because the vast majority of engines are mated to auto boxes, manual flywheels are different and in massive demand. They can sell for up to 650 quid, I found one for just 75 quid plus post. In another piece of extremely good luck the car my engine was fitted to had active roll control, which was a fairly rare option, it requires an additional engine driven pump. a used one is 400 quid, there is no way I will ever need that so there's my money back and then some, everything I choose to use is essentially free.

I wrote this yesterday and have had a night's sleep since then so had a chance to reset my thought process. I think what I'm going to do is whip off the heads and have a really good look at the internals. If the heads all look good I can put new seals on the valves, get a pair of composite gaskets and see what my old engine performs like then. If that's all fine and dandy I now have a rather large pile of Rover V8 bits that I have no use for. My stash already includes a good pair of original 3.5 heads, a pair of SU's on a manifold, at least one pair of exhaust headers, a GEMS inlet manifold with injectors etc and whatever might come off this engine that I don't need to use. The question that keeps entering my head is I wonder how much money I could get for that lot and how much is a super charger? I already have the Holley 4 barrel carb that could sit atop such a thing. I have tried psycho therapy, I have rung the Samaritans, I have tried talking sense to myself but nothing seems to do any good - the impure thoughts keep coming. God alone knows where it may lead, I can't imagine for one second it's anywhere sensible.