Fitting a T Series Turbo

Firstly, a long promised article on the T Series Turbo proving it can be done!  

Secondly, and more importantly, my sincere thanks to Trevor Grace of Huddersfield who kindly allowed me to waste two of his Saturday mornings poring over his car and asking numerous daft questions!  Also, a very big thank you to MGMal as he is known on numerous forums for putting me in touch with Trevor, who is an Area Secretary for the local MG club, and no stranger to modified Midgets and BGTs.

When I first spoke to Trevor, my initial question was, "Why not a V8?".  As Trevor said, it's all been done before, but basically he had got fed up of chasing power via the up rated B series so he figured that if Rover could comfortably squeeze in excess of 200bhp out of the T Series Turbo in production form, then this was probably the most reliable route to the kind of power that even V8 owners dream of, (even if they have the upper hand on torque), at a price to make your eyes water...in other words, dirt cheap!

Trevor has also kindly manufactured me five sets of spigot bushes to fit the flywheel and gearbox, and is constructing five sets of engine mounts so that if anyone is interested and wants to save themselves the hassle of making their own, please send me an email. (Applies to both Turbo and non-Turbo engines).

The photos below are taken by me of Trevor's 1976 cross-over model BGT.  He bought the project as almost completed but decided to pull it all apart to get it sorted properly.

My notes below from the visits are in no particular order and also apply to anyone considering a non-turbo engine, but obviously there are some specific issues with regard to the location of the turbo and the intercooler.

The first issue is getting the engine and gearbox seated in the car.  The obvious question is will this bolt straight onto the existing mounts and the short answer is no.

Unlike the O-Series, on the M/T series, the starter motor is on the left side of the engine and will foul with the bulkhead.  So, the first task is to box the area to provide clearance.  See photo below showing the general view of the n/s inner wing with the modifications for the mount and the starter motor.

The actual boxed section is shown in more detail in this photo below.

The engine mounts have been cut away from the chassis rails and new plates have been welded in as shown in this photo below.  Subsequent to taking these photos in July 2007, Trevor has tidied this area up and painted.

On the o/s the same modification has been made, which will be a boon to rubber bumper owners where the steering column passes through the mount.  With this removed the new mount is then welded in as per the photo below:

And in close up...

The engine will need some fabricated mounting plates and again the photos below show the details:

The nearside mount.  The reason for the smaller bracket on top will be obvious further on.

The offside mount.

In this photo I have highlighted the sensor for the engine management system (see further down for comments on the MEMS control system as this sensor is what reads the teeth on the flywheel).

The engine will then sit on standard rubber bobbins as shown below  - note, these photos were taken in November 2007 and shows a much neater finish after Trevor's painting.  The small bracket shown on the n/s engine mount plate above is now obvious as a means of mounting the adjuster for the alternator.

As for the gearbox...much has been written about modifying the cross-member to take the LT77 or R380.  Although the non-turbo owner may consider using the existing 4spd o/d gearbox, the turbo is likely to kill the box in short order so fitting a 5spd box should provide much longer term reliability.  At this stage, Trevor is still figuring out which clutch fork stop to use but I will update accordingly.  The box is shown below.

For an excellent reference web-site try the following link.  For modifying the gear lever remote extension, again the same site gives a very good how-to.

With respect to mating the gearbox to the engine, you will need the bellhousing as shown above from a Rover 2000 SD1 which had the 2L O Series and 5spd, or from a Sherpa that also used the Perkins Prima or O Series with 5spd box.

With regard to the flywheel, the common consensus is the standard flywheel is too heavy.  The Sherpa or LDV 200 flywheel is preferred.  That said, the saloon car wheel could possibly be machined.  However the crux of the matter is that Sherpa flywheels are increasingly rare and so using the Rover flywheel may be the only option.  In this case it will depend on what control system is being used as to what you have.  As mentioned on other pages, the MEMS system was introduced around 1995/1996 and therefore after this date the sensor ring will have 4 gaps and the MEMS unit will have an immobiliser so make sure you get the key fob!  Prior to this the sensor ring only has only 2 gaps and no immobiliser.  Look again at the photo further up showing the sensor mounted on the back plate in the photo of the o/s engine mount.  The photo below shows the two types of flywheel with the one on the right being from a Sherpa and noticeably thinner, and minus the sensor ring gear.  Of course, you could do an EDIS style modification if you are using an earlier unit and lose the MEMS system, or alternatively fit the sensor ring to a plain Sherpa flywheel.

As mentioned at the top of the page, to fit the 5 spd input shaft to the flywheel, a Sherpa spigot bush is suggested but these are unobtainable.  Trevor has had a set of five machined up for me and with the demand for metals from China, it has meant doing them in Brass with a Phosphor Bronze insert to keep the price down to a realistic level.

Once the engine is installed then one of the first modifications that Trevor showed me was the fan in the heater unit.  In the photo below, you can see that Trevor has mounted the fan motor unit to sit further into the casing freeing up room for the inlet manifold.  I asked Trevor why not the same modification as Ed Braclik's K Series car with an aftermarket heater unit in the passenger foot well?  Trevor agreed that it would have been a possibility but the fan mod was actually much simpler than the cost of a new heater matrix.

And from the photo above, this leads onto the inlet system itself.  On the standard FWD Rover cars, the engine would have had the inlet feed from the left or gearbox end, thus meaning either moving the heater unit to the passenger foot well or as above, using an older Land Rover Discovery MPi inlet system which is reversed.  See photo below where it also shows the plumbing for the intercooler feed to the throttle body.

And again, moving forward and linking up, the cooling and intercooler side.  In this instance, Trevor has gone with the standard BGT radiator.  As mentioned, this is what is known as a cross-over car so the radiator is as per the chrome bumper cars with reference to its position, but the rest is very much the V8/rubber bumper cars layout.  Trevor intends to sit the intercooler on the panel in front of the radiator, with an oil cooler below.  Trevor has a tip for fitting an electric fan to these chrome bumper car radiators...get hold of a Rover 400 Diesel electric fan and the lugs will sit into the base of the radiator  and the top can be fixed to the radiator surround panel at the top.  See the photo below.  It also happens to be a relatively thin shrouded unit so will fit comfortably between the engine and radiator.  Of course, if you are concerned about temperature then a V8 style alloy radiator might be an alternative.

With regard to the intercooler, Trevor has used a unit from a Rover diesel (any of the 400/600 or 800) but in this case this unit is from a 420 Diesel.  In order to feed the air through to the throttle body on the upper o/s of the engine, he has cut off the standard elbow on the outlet, then lipped it for the hose and used a 90° elbow hose piece as you can see in the photograph further up.  The intercooler is shown below.

Of course, feeding the intercooler is the turbo itself.  This again raises some issues but these are easily overcome!  The turbo unit needs to be kept at the correct orientation but to avoid it fouling the inner wing or exhaust manifold, Trevor has made a small modification.  See photo below showing the cutting and chopping of the manifold to ensure a good fit in the bay.

Of course, the oil fed to the bearings of the turbo will need to drain back to the sump.  If you are using a Sherpa sump then you will need an inlet or elbow for the side of the sump, but make it as big as possible in diameter to avoid oil back up and foaming in the return pipe.  And speaking of oil and sumps, it is normally recommended to use a Sherpa sump as the engine was used in RWD on the Sherpas with clearance for the cross beam of the suspension.  please note it must be a later O2 Series sump as the original O Series engines had a mirror image sump and these will not fit the O2 or M and T series engines.

With regard to the oil pump, again, on the O2, M and T series, it points downward on the o/s of the engine at the front.  One option is to box the suspension cross member to give clearance for the filter but the easier option is to use a blanking plate over the pump and to then use a remote filter housing.  In this case, Trevor has mounted his remote filter head on the inner wing forward of the radiator, upside down, so if you do this, remember to use a filter with an anti-drain back valve.  The photo below shows the oil pump with blanking and take off hose to the remote filter head.

And the remote filter head with the hose continuing onto the oil cooler.  It would probably also pay to fit one of those alloy finned covers over the filter to aid cooling of the oil given its location in the air flow from the grille.

And don't forget, as for any EFI hook up, there will need to be a return fuel line and a swirl pot.  You could do the same as Ed Braclik, or in this case Trevor has used this custom made swirl pot.

Please do check back as I will hopefully be adding the wiring in of the MEMS unit once Trevor gets to this stage.

And with all the power available here, some serious attentions needs to be paid to brakes and suspension!

Oh, and do you fancy a BGT with 800bhp? Then visit AN-Racing

Top