1996 Discovery V8i

[lunnmj]

Hello all members

Hopefully some one will be able to give me a few good pointers.
I have a 1996 Landrover Discovery 3.9L V8i that I use daily, I am very happy with it except that it seems to lag power for a 3.9L.
I have been told that this is the way they are tuned as standard.
Are there a few tricks to getting more performance out of the motor, I am even considering buying a performance chip for the ECU, but where?

 

[obi_waynne]

There is a company called I believe Overfinch who do a lot of work on the Landrovers. The 3.9 is a good engine, I would put on an an air induction kit and get it a custom remap rather than just fit a performance chip. Are you happy with the handling of it there are some good suspension mods around?

 

[lunnmj]

I have contacted Overfinch and waiting for a reply, hopefully they are able to help. What sort of air induction kit are you talking about, are you reffering to the snorkel and how well do they improve performance.
I am happy with the suspension it has a soft ride, all I have done is installed a raiser kit to give more ground clearance and better 4x4 looks.

 

[obi_waynne]

On the 3.9 a cone styling induction kit (with a cold air feed or mounted near the front of the engine) should be good for a 4-6bhp increase.

 

[PhatKat]

The heads off the Twin plennum Rover Vitesse V8 should fit on and they have the higher compression ratio, that is the main difference as well as adding tubular exhaust manifolds they make a lot of difference on the Disco

 

[lunnmj]

Thanks for your reply. I have had a stage 1 performance mod done to it by SAC, that is induction kit from the grill, 67mm Wildcat free flow system, banana branch headers and a Dastec Unichip. After all this it was still sluggish and only put out 86.2kw on the rear wheels. This was the same compared to a standard one.
I was not happy and SAC "Steves auto clinic performance center "did not know why.
I started stripping it thinking that it was a worn camshaft when I found that 6 tubes in the plennum chamber had come loose and were up against the cover not allowing air in.

Now it runs like a bomb. It was re-tuned on the Dyno and now pushes out 109kw on the rear wheels and revs easily.