TUNING THE ROVER V8
The Rover V8 engine is a major success story, breathing new life into many vehicles and making icons of most it was fitted to. It was found in Rover/Land Rover models from 1967 to 2002, plus 1960 to 1963 in original GM vehicles with development having started in the early 1950s. Its heritage has a similar timeline to the BMC A-series engine. The tuning potential with this engine is huge, very wide-ranging and would be difficult to cover in a book, so this feature will simply focus on what can be done with V8 MGBs.
Officially there were 2591 Abingdon-produced MGB GTV8s, and then just 1983 production MG RV8’s. It was a relatively small number but this is supplemented by hundreds, probably more, of MGBs converted to V8 power. These can be traced back to 1970 and conversions are still being done today so there is a healthy car park of V8 MGBs.
The Range Rover V8 engine needs to be subdivided into the pre-1994 and 1994-on specs. but that dividing line is only accurate for Range Rover since other Land Rover vehicles didn’t catch up for a couple of years. All MG RV8s are pre-1994 spec. The pre-1994-spec. engines are 3 .5-, 3.9- and 4.2-litre (plus an Australian 4.4-litre), with the later engines designated 4.0 and 4.6. The differences are significant and very obvious if you sat new- and
