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My 1988 LHD 110 Heritage Buildup

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110 lhd
29K views 156 replies 40 participants last post by  diesel_jim 
#1 ·
OK everyone. I had been looking for several months for a LHD Landy and finally settled on buying one from Johan. It has the 3.5 V8 and good bones. Just paint and interior. Easier said than done. Here is the plan. I would like to make a 2015 Heritage Clone. This is my favorite color combination for this vehicle. As the process slowly unfolds, other members told me that they thought it would be nice to chronicle the restoration. At this time, the only major upgrade I plan on doing is adding A/C, purely for the reason of having people on the forum make fun of me for adding it. I will definitely need it considering I live in Austin and this will be my daily driver once finished. I will update brakes and other various mechanicals as time goes on. The only thing that I am still working on is trying to find the grille setup that is used on the 2015 Heritage. I was told to wait a few months and see if anyone starts producing a knockoff, but we will see. Here are some pics. The last picture is hopefully what it will look like when finished. Thanks for everyone's input over the last few months.
 

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#4 ·
my thought exactly ... nothing worse than a bulkhead a different color to the rest of the vehicle!
 
#7 ·
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but it won't be a complete teardown. I plan on keeping the V8 for the time being, so I figured I would leave the engine bay alone. I really don't want to toss another $15k at it right now. I figured that if I did the engine, I would do the bulkhead at the same time. I don't know what engine I want.... 300 tdi, TD5....I've even heard some some people putting EFI on the V8 and are happy with it. I don't have any off road plans for it, unless you count parking in the grass at the school during parent teacher conferences. Who knows? A running / driving car with some flaws is better than a perfect car sitting in the garage with grand aspirations as to what it could be. Looks like I will be keeping my hood down to hide the orange.
 
#18 ·
You should talk to Dave Short/fireman short. He put a holly carb in his 3.5v8 years ago. Every year he drives 13 hours up and back to Winter Romp and during the year he attends other events 4-5 hours away. Point is his seems happy with it and it's a fraction of the hassle and cost of an engine swap.
 
#21 ·
Hey Stancey, I've read up on the holly/weber setup, but would love to see whatever you dig up.
 
#24 · (Edited)
I've done some research about going from the Stromberg setup to the edelbrock 2198 4 barrel manifold with efi on top. It seems like there are a lot of very simple efi setups on the market and I'm considering moving in that direction. I spoke to someone that said an efi setup along with polishing / porting the cylinder head on a v8 can give you around 260 hp. That is a huge difference. Not sure how accurate that is. There is not that much out there on the web about this upgrade and if it almost doubled the hp, you would think everyone would be talking about it. Is anyone running efi on the v8?
 
#25 ·
Eh, it's not SUPER shocking, but my guess is that an EFI and a port and polish is twice as expensive as dropping in a 300tdi, which will be more modern and reliable.
 
#26 ·
Just playing devils advocate, but by just modifying the v8, you will spend about $2-3k for the efi and whatever it costs to machine the head. I can only assume that the reliability of the v8 would be better with the efi and a top end rebuild. A 300 tdi replacement ($3-5k for most of the bits) gives you a new, used engine. From what I understand, engine mounts would need removed / replaced and most of the drivetrain would need swapped out as well. That's a pretty big gut. At the end of the day, you are still getting much less hp and torque from the diesel, but better mpg I imagine. So, is the diesel swap that much better?
 
#27 ·
So, is the diesel swap that much better?
Go for the LS Swap. I'll help work out the kinks, and then one it's all figured out on your truck, I'll be ready to do mine! :whistling:
 
#29 ·
As to the V8/EFI conversion. I have both EFI V8 and Tdi Land Rovers. The V8's are much more driveable for long trips and everyday use in the USA. Petrol is more readily available and the EFI motors will happily run on 87 octane with a little timing adjustment.

I wouldn't try to put EFI on a low compression carb'ed V8. There are lots of carb setups that work well and more consistently than the Stromberg/SU setups which require careful tuning and setup. That said, I have seen a 4.6 with those carbs that gets double digit MPG and can light up the tires.

Tdi engines are fun on the road when you first get them and make more sense as a swap into trucks that are already diesel or already 4 cylinder, or where somebody just really really wants a diesel.

The Tdi's are infinitely more roadworthy than the old NA 4 cylinder gas and diesel engines but they are still a little slow for US highways.

If you want to go EFI, the parts are readily available from any RRC or early D1. The whole harness and system is an add-on so easy to retrofit. And no need to port and polish. Once you have the heads off, just do the cam, lifters, and timing setup. Port and polish are fine if you want to bring up the top end, but that is extra $$$ that isn't a must-have to do the swap.
 
#30 ·
Hey Ren, I couldn't sleep last night, so I was on the forum doing some "research." I saw that you did an a/c system awhile back. How is the cooling capacity of that. I'm contemplating the elite system vs just doing the puma bulkhead. Both similar amounts of money. One requires a whole bunch more work. Does the puma offer that much better cooling?

Also, it seems like you recommend just switching out the carb setup rather than the efi. What did you use? Thanks for the advice...
 
#31 ·
So I spoke to the machine shop that is doing the machining on my xke engine. He said that he knows the buick engine well and he gave me some suggestions. He said that a port / polish / valve job on the cylinder head is about 800 bucks. He recommended going with EFI from FiTech. He said that they were pretty good and under 1000. He felt like the wiring was really simple to do at home and the LCD readout is on the side of the throttle body, so that you wouldn't have to mount a screen on the dash. He liked that is was really automated and easy to implement. You would need to change the down pipe coming from the exhaust manifold to accommodate the sensor, but all in all, he said there is no reason you couldn't get 1 hp for every cubic inch. so about 215 hp. Anything more and he said you would need to mess with the cams and crank. FYI. I'll keep everyone posted on this.
 
#32 ·
Hey everyone, plans have changed and I am now in the process of bringing the vehicle to Austin un-painted. I'm still planning on the exact build, but turns out that the painter up in Michigan won't be able to start on the vehicle until after summer and I don't want to wait that long Sooooo...... my question is if anyone knows of any enclosed transport companies I can call. The car runs and drives, but has everything except the driver's seat unbolted off (no windows, door locks, etc...) so Johan and I think it would be best that it makes it's journey in something enclosed. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
#35 ·
I saw that grill, but it looks different than the heritage grill. I'm still a few months out from taking the Landy out b/c it needs to get here first, then painted, interior, etc.... so I have some time. The guy at RN said to hang tight for about 6 months (about 2 months ago) b/c he said nobody has had the chance to make a knockoff of the 2015 heritage grill yet, but he said that they will for sure.
 
#36 ·
OK.. As I work on getting the 110 shipped here, I am trying to tie up some loose ends as far as ideas go. The Landy is completely stripped on the inside and will be freshly painted. Now is the time to rustproof / waterproof / insulate / sound deaden the cabin and chassis. Here is my plan. Dinitrol the chassis following their protocol (steam, power wash, soap, etc..) This is what I am thinking for the inside. Wurth makes an underbody seal product that I was going to spray the interior doors and maybe the inside chassis. It is supposed to be sound deadening, waterproof, rustproof, etc. I have heard that some people will drill a small hole in the bottom channel of the doors to allow water egress. I have also read and saved some stuff about the modified / improved the door seals. Also read something about wrapping the entire inside of the door in a waterproof sound deadening material. As far as the inside goes, I don't want to do anything that collects water. Once painted and after everything is attached, I plan on putting it through the car wash several times so that I can identify the leaks. It doesn't rain that much out here, but when it does it really comes down. I don't plan on seeing how deep of a river I can ford. I've read that there is no easy way to address egress on the floor considering there is no general low point. The underseal is supposed handle rattles really well, then I was going to put a waterproof insulating layer over that (160 mm butyl typoe of product or as thick as I can make it work). I plan on insulating the whole cabin so that the A/C has a fighting chance down here. Insulating the hood is also on the list. Wow, I just realized that is a lot of stuff. Any tips / suggestions would be helpful. Thanks everyone.
 
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