American ex-pat power becomes Blighty's favorite V-8 By Jeff Koch from April 2011 issue of Hemmings Sports and Exotics Detroit's scared-of-imports phase in the late '50s took on two distinct personalities. First, GM and Ford brought in imports from elsewhere in its sphere of influence: Pontiac sold Vauxhalls, Buick sold Opels and Ford sold European Fords. This was just a place-saver, though, while Detroit readied its own small cars. Other than the adventurous Corvair, Detroit's idea of an American compact looked like a 3/4-scale American car. Falcon, Valiant, Chevy II, Olds F-85, Pontiac Tempest and Buick Special. And for GM's more premium brands (Pontiac, Olds and Buick) this meant V-8 power. But existing V-8s would be too heavy for the more compact platforms. Enter Buick's all-aluminum, 215-cubic-inch V-8. Spread between Buick and Olds over three years, and just two years in the Tempest, GM built nearly a million engines before the design was quietly laid to rest. Casting issues meant a high scrappage rate, which meant reduced profitability on a car that was already squeezing the General's pockets. Radiators clogged with effluent, a result of using the wrong type of coolant, didn't help; oil and coolant sealing were also issues. Not helping matters: The import threat had receded for the time being. GM's B-O-P compacts were growing to intermediates for 1964, and standard-issue iron V-8s were okay to power them. It was early in 1964 that Rover's U.S. operations chief J. Bruce McWilliams realized that this fully developed, lightweight V-8 weighed less than most British-built, cast-iron fours of the day. With permission from his English bosses, it took McWilliams a year to convince GM to sell the tooling to Rover. With the exception of a new intake manifold and a switch to SU carburetion, Rover started using the 3.5L V-8 in the mid-'60s, in the P5B, and expanded it to other machines in the lineup starting in 1967. Once Rover became part of the British Leyland combine, the 3.5 also ended up in Land Rovers and Range Rovers, MGB GT V-8s and the Triumph TR8, and was outsourced to both Morgan and TVR. The last Rover car that the 215 lived in was the Vitesse, which passed in 1987. But the engine lived on: an overbored, 3,946cc version launched in the early '90s; the 4.0, launched in 1995, had the same displacement but offered several revisions, including additional block reinforcements, and new intake, exhaust and pistons. This lasted through 2001 and saw duty in various TVRs, Land Rovers and the revived MG RV8 of the mid-'90s. The mid-'90s also saw a 77mm stroke crank added to make a 4,275cc version, exclusively in the 1992-'95 Range Rover. The ultimate iteration of this engine, launched in 1996, offered an 82mm crank for 4,552cc, badged as a 4.6L. The 2004 Land Rover Discovery was the last vehicle to have it from new, although it is still manufactured for the specialty trade. The Buick/Rover aluminum 215 V-8 even had some racing success, if in highly modified form: Australian Jack Brabham asked parts component maker Repco to design a racing V-8 that would conform to the new-for-1966 3-liter rules. Destroking the basic block, adding Daimler connecting rods and race-prepared, ported, custom-modified two-valve SOHC heads, the Repco 620 V-8 was reliable, low in weight, and compact enough to fit in an existing F1 chassis built to the 1.5-liter formula. Brabham scored six poles and four consecutive wins in a nine-race season, good enough to capture both the F1 Driver's and Constructor's championships. (For '67, Repco also designed the block.) At one point during the OPEC-trampled '70s, GM contacted Rover to buy the tooling back; the English firm declined. GM also investigated the cost of importing completed engines into the U.S., but the costs (which surely helped pay for ramping up entire factories to cope with the General's intended volumes) were too great, and GM set to work on its own small-cube solutions. There are enough parts out there that the U.K. hot-rodding set treats it something like Americans treat the small-block Chevy: lots of mix-and-match parts interchangeability, with basic parts cheap and plentiful enough to keep 'em running forever. Or at least a lot longer than GM would have let it go.
![[TH] VCT Pacific Stage 2 - Week 4 Day 3 // GEN vs TS | PRX vs ZETA](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nspkjQuZve0/mqdefault.jpg)
Good instructor.
I've owned rv8s for over 40 years ,never heard of a 3.5 and liner ...3.9 and above yes ..
American ex-pat power becomes Blighty's favorite V-8
By Jeff Koch from April 2011 issue of Hemmings Sports and Exotics
Detroit's scared-of-imports phase in the late '50s took on two distinct personalities. First, GM and Ford brought in imports from elsewhere in its sphere of influence: Pontiac sold Vauxhalls, Buick sold Opels and Ford sold European Fords. This was just a place-saver, though, while Detroit readied its own small cars. Other than the adventurous Corvair, Detroit's idea of an American compact looked like a 3/4-scale American car. Falcon, Valiant, Chevy II, Olds F-85, Pontiac Tempest and Buick Special. And for GM's more premium brands (Pontiac, Olds and Buick) this meant V-8 power. But existing V-8s would be too heavy for the more compact platforms.
Enter Buick's all-aluminum, 215-cubic-inch V-8. Spread between Buick and Olds over three years, and just two years in the Tempest, GM built nearly a million engines before the design was quietly laid to rest. Casting issues meant a high scrappage rate, which meant reduced profitability on a car that was already squeezing the General's pockets. Radiators clogged with effluent, a result of using the wrong type of coolant, didn't help; oil and coolant sealing were also issues. Not helping matters: The import threat had receded for the time being. GM's B-O-P compacts were growing to intermediates for 1964, and standard-issue iron V-8s were okay to power them.
It was early in 1964 that Rover's U.S. operations chief J. Bruce McWilliams realized that this fully developed, lightweight V-8 weighed less than most British-built, cast-iron fours of the day. With permission from his English bosses, it took McWilliams a year to convince GM to sell the tooling to Rover. With the exception of a new intake manifold and a switch to SU carburetion, Rover started using the 3.5L V-8 in the mid-'60s, in the P5B, and expanded it to other machines in the lineup starting in 1967. Once Rover became part of the British Leyland combine, the 3.5 also ended up in Land Rovers and Range Rovers, MGB GT V-8s and the Triumph TR8, and was outsourced to both Morgan and TVR.
The last Rover car that the 215 lived in was the Vitesse, which passed in 1987. But the engine lived on: an overbored, 3,946cc version launched in the early '90s; the 4.0, launched in 1995, had the same displacement but offered several revisions, including additional block reinforcements, and new intake, exhaust and pistons. This lasted through 2001 and saw duty in various TVRs, Land Rovers and the revived MG RV8 of the mid-'90s. The mid-'90s also saw a 77mm stroke crank added to make a 4,275cc version, exclusively in the 1992-'95 Range Rover. The ultimate iteration of this engine, launched in 1996, offered an 82mm crank for 4,552cc, badged as a 4.6L. The 2004 Land Rover Discovery was the last vehicle to have it from new, although it is still manufactured for the specialty trade.
The Buick/Rover aluminum 215 V-8 even had some racing success, if in highly modified form: Australian Jack Brabham asked parts component maker Repco to design a racing V-8 that would conform to the new-for-1966 3-liter rules. Destroking the basic block, adding Daimler connecting rods and race-prepared, ported, custom-modified two-valve SOHC heads, the Repco 620 V-8 was reliable, low in weight, and compact enough to fit in an existing F1 chassis built to the 1.5-liter formula. Brabham scored six poles and four consecutive wins in a nine-race season, good enough to capture both the F1 Driver's and Constructor's championships. (For '67, Repco also designed the block.)
At one point during the OPEC-trampled '70s, GM contacted Rover to buy the tooling back; the English firm declined. GM also investigated the cost of importing completed engines into the U.S., but the costs (which surely helped pay for ramping up entire factories to cope with the General's intended volumes) were too great, and GM set to work on its own small-cube solutions.
There are enough parts out there that the U.K. hot-rodding set treats it something like Americans treat the small-block Chevy: lots of mix-and-match parts interchangeability, with basic parts cheap and plentiful enough to keep 'em running forever. Or at least a lot longer than GM would have let it go.