TR8 with stag motor......

[drbob]

Here is an odd one for ya'll

I used to know a bloke (sounds promising   ) a police driving instructor, who in a previous job had worked for what I seem to remember he refered to as 'The Special projects dept.' at Leyland - and I have always assumed this was Speke and not the midlands. One day when chatting about TR7 sprints he casually mentioned a TR7 they had built with a Stag V8. He said that no one would ever admit to it but it had been done - more to the point he said that he was involved in the fitting of the engine.

Now however far fetched this may have seemed to me, I have always been intrigued by this and was wondering if anyone had ever heard a similar 'urban myth'?

Now I know what all you Buick ....sorry Rover fans are thinking, but it would be nice to think that this avenue was explored at least once.

comments..........

[Guest JohnG]

That would be quite a nice car,the stag engine is not as bad as people make out.

A colleague of mine has 2 stags ,a show car and a daily hack,the latter has now covered 125,000 with no major surgery.

[Guest stagman]

Bob.

Have you ever thought about asking Nigel? If anyone knows, im sure he will.

[Guest tr7 turbo]

Usually in cases like this the people were always involved "in the building of" not many were actually floor sweepers,its easy to see how true it is by asking a few pertinent questions like ,why in 1976 or 1977 would they fit the troublesome Stag engine into a car which was designed to take the virtually trouble free and cheaper to produce Rover nee Buick V8.The Stag engines cooling problems would not have been cured by the smaller frontal area of the TR7.Having said that a well looked after Stag with its original engine is an exceptional car but at that time BL were trying to reduce production of the engine as it was only used in the one low volume car,whereas the Rover V8 was being used in a few different applications.

[drbob]

Well i agree. I love the stag engine (i can put them together with my eyes shut....after all thats how leyland did it!)

I think that much of the bad reputation was created by ignorance of the mechanics who were used to doing points and valve clearences on minis - then faced with a V8 OHC motor - just didnt know what to do.

Im not saying it was a perfect engine but not as bad as made out, and would or should have been the logical V8 motor to go in the 7 as the sprint should have been for the 2 litre.

R

[Guest stagman]

Do ya wanna put Glyns back together Bob? I'll let ya do it with your eyes open  

[Andy Moltu]

Im not saying it was a perfect engine but not as bad as made out, and would or should have been the logical V8 motor to go in the 7 as the sprint should have been for the 2 litre.

R

I agree the sprint engine should have been the standard fitment but when you have an all alloy V8 3.5L in the same manufacturing group it never made sense to build a 3L V8 (with heavy cast iron block)

[Guest ron]

but when you have an all alloy V8 3.5L in the same manufacturing group it never made sense to build a 3L V8 (with heavy cast iron block)

Must admit that has always puzzled me as well, probably just goes to show what a shambles BL was back then.

As a matter of interest I was led to believe that the Buick V8 design was originally either bought or copied from BMW.

Ron