Defender 200 Tdi intercooler upgrade

Bajab

New member
Thinking of upgrading my stock intercooler for more power. Does anyone know of A good land rover diesel shop in Orange county or San diego co. Also has anyone swapped out the stock fan for an electric fan?
 

Rberkel

New member
Not sure if they are available in US but Allisport and Allard offer good quality upgrade intercoolers, either full width or double thick. Make sure you have the HP diesel pump set up correctly to maximise the benefits.
Electric fan will give you some reduction in fuel consumption and also offers the benefit to manually switch it on or of if wired correctly (good for wading or towing).
I have a double thick core intercooler on my Defender 300Tdi and also an electric fan (just get one that has the correct size and fab your own brackets, no need for a fancy Kenlowe). Fuel consumption is reduced by about 10% at normal driving conditions and I have more power when needed.
 

Red90

Adventurer
Unless you have a larger turbo that produces higher boost a larger intercooler will do nothing to improve power.
 

Red90

Adventurer
Also an electric fan does not increase power. The stock fan uses a viscous unit and uses no power except when required which is very rare.
 

Bajab

New member
Not sure if they are available in US but Allisport and Allard offer good quality upgrade intercoolers, either full width or double thick. Make sure you have the HP diesel pump set up correctly to maximise the benefits.
Electric fan will give you some reduction in fuel consumption and also offers the benefit to manually switch it on or of if wired correctly (good for wading or towing).
I have a double thick core intercooler on my Defender 300Tdi and also an electric fan (just get one that has the correct size and fab your own brackets, no need for a fancy Kenlowe). Fuel consumption is reduced by about 10% at normal driving conditions and I have more power when needed.
Thanks for the input. I will do some research to locate those items.
Also an electric fan does not increase power. The stock fan uses a viscous unit and uses no power except when required which is very rare.
Thank you
 

Nonimouse

Cynical old bastard
Red is correct on the Engine driven fan vs electric, but not on the larger intercooler

However it's not quite as simple as just chucking on a bigger 'cooler. Read Daan's post on LR4x4 about inter-coolers - very interesting

What you need to improve is flow, as well as charge cooling, in fact flow is more important. The 200tdi standard inter-cooler has ridiculously thick wall pipe at the inlet and outlet end, so reaming out with a Dremmel or similar can work wonders, as can doing the same on the inlet manifold. Alternatively if you can Tig, then remove and replace with non cast pipe work of about 2mm

A manual boost control valve is a cheap upgrade as well - but use a boost gauge so you avoid over-boost

The 200Tdi is particularly happy about head work - flowing the inlet and outlet ports works wonders, as does re-seating the valves, of re-cutting the valve seats for bigger valves

Fitting Boost pins or rings is a pointless waste of time, unless you want to destroy the engine in a short time, whilst using fuel up like it's free. But careful tweaking of the pump works wonders
 

getlost4x4

Expedition Leader
You should do the headgasket, head studs, then a bigger turbo and intercooler. In that order. Unless you want to replace headgaskets a lot.
 

wuntenn

Adventurer
Local Land Rover mechanic/shop owner/owner of multiple LR's from TD5 to V8's gave me a simple tip for the air filter on my 200TDi (which was put into replace a 19J 2.5TD, and still using the TD airbox) simply carefully hacksaw off the plastic surround on the air filter. It has the fins on it and acts as a swirly thing but if you remove the plastic you significantly increase the air flow through the filter and you will notice the engine response improving - I certainly did, and it has little to no effect on the filtration ability.
 

Nonimouse

Cynical old bastard
Head gasket is a given - but do get a decent head-gasket. I'd suggest Elring. Whilst the head is off get it skimmed to true and do the other head work mentioned

I don't see the need for a bigger turbo to honest - but I do know of people who have done it. It depends on just what power you need (note 'need' not 'want')

I run a '93 Discovery 200tdi, with 111k on the clock. It is over maintained (example: I have a clutch hydraulic issue at the moment, so will replace Master cylinder, slave, damper and flexi pipe at the same time; all new parts and all OE or better (so AP Lockheed or Lucas)
At 90k the head was removed and to quote:

"...has a Hamlin's stage 2 head, with matched inlet and outlet ports. the inter-cooler inlet and outlet and inlet manifold have been ported
The engine has now done 110,000, with 20 odd k since the top end rebuild.
The pump has been tweaked to match the work, but no ring or pin upgrades.
It's rolling road figures are 131bhp@4250rpm and 242 ft/lb@1800rpm
I'm particularly happy with this and the 35mpg I get at 65-70mph on the motorway, 33mpg around town. Towing sees very little drop, to about 32mpg.
I run Shell Rimula 15/40 Non Synthetic, with 5-6k changes. The right oil makes huge differences in a 200tdi"




At the same time as the porting, the valves were reground to match re profiled seats. It runs a standard, but ported intercooler and the inlet manifold has been ported on it's inlet. Note that the fuel consumption is UK gallons, not US

I wanted reliability, with the option to tow, comfortably up to all up weight 3,500 kgs (7,700lbs), carry my family at modern day traffic speeds in Europe (so 75mph) and get sensible fuel consumption. Tuning a 200 is often a difficult balance of 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' so you lose bottom end grunt in favour of top end (made worse by using a larger turbo and intercooler). I don't run huge tyres, so my gearing is near enough factory. I am going to fit a slightly bigger intercooler in the future - but only to reduce EGT.

In the UK, changing engines is a pita. It effects insurance in a big way - if you want to stay legal. It's also a pita when you travel abroad, as engine numbers and spec need to match (in some countries) and it's only when you've actually experienced the resultant problems that you know what it's like.
Additionally I like to keep parts commonality simple - LR parts are not expensive and are easy to get, even in remote places. I like that the 200tdi will run on pretty much anything that will compression combust.
More power is always nice, but generally it's a want, not a need; and it often comes at the expense of unreliability

This is my 11th 200tdi powered vehicle in 29 years. So I'm about getting the hang of them
 

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