Rover V8 қозғалтқышының тарихы және дамуы

The Rover V8 engine is a compact OHV V8 internal combustion engine with aluminium cylinder block and cylinder heads, designed and produced by Rover in the United Kingdom, based on a General Motors engine. It has been used in a wide range of vehicles from Rover and other manufacturers since its British debut in 1967.

The Rover V8 began life as the Buick 215, an all aluminium OHV pushrod engine introduced in 1960 for the 1961 US model year (it was on their drawing boards in the late 1950s). The compact alloy engine was light, at just , and capable of high power outputs: the most powerful Buick version of this engine rated , and the very similar Oldsmobile "Jetfire" turbocharged version made , both numbers SAE gross. Based on sales volume and press reports, the engine was a success. Buick produced 376,799 cars with this engine in just three years. A comparable number of Oldsmobile 215 engines were produced. In addition, some Pontiac models were fitted with the Buick 215, leading to the nickname "BOP 215" for the engine (BOP standing for Buick/Oldsmobile/Pontiac). The aluminium engine was relatively expensive to produce, however, and it suffered problems with oil and coolant sealing, as well as with radiator clogging from use of antifreeze incompatible with aluminium. As a result, GM ceased production of the all aluminium engine after 1963, although Buick retained a similar 300/340/350 cid engine (iron block and alloy heads, later all iron) (1964–1980), as well as a V6 derivative (1962–2008) which proved to have a very long and successful life. In January 1964 Rover gave American operations head J. Bruce McWilliams permission to investigate the possible purchase of an American V8 engine for Rover cars. History relates that McWilliams first saw the Buick V8 at the works of Mercury Marine, where he was discussing the sale of Rover gas turbines and diesel engines to the company (Mercury Marine did indeed use the Land Rover diesel engine in marinised form). However, it is likely that McWilliams was aware of the Buick engine before this. In any case, McWilliams realised that the lightweight Buick V8 would be ideal for smaller British cars (indeed, it weighed less than many straight 4 engines it would replace). McWilliams and William Martin Hurst began an aggressive campaign to convince GM to sell the tooling, which they finally agreed to do in January 1965. Retiring Buick engineer Joe Turlay moved to the UK to act as a consultant. The Rover V8 has long been a relatively common engine for kit car use in Britain, much as the Chevrolet small block V8 is for American hot rod builders (though many British hot rods have traditionally used four cylinder engines, like the Ford Pinto and Crossflow units). Even in the US there is a strong contingent of builders who select the Buick or Rover aluminium V8 engine for use in small sporty cars like the MGB The 1964 Buick iron block engine had aluminium cylinder heads, 3.75 bore and a longer 3.4" stroke crankshaft, which with modification can be used with the Buick 215 or Rover engine blocks to produce a high output, very light weight V8 with displacement of up to about The 300 crank, after machining the mains to the 215 size in the 215 block yields Traco in the USA were prominent builders of such engines. The British made engines were run on two SU carburettors, initially HS6 then HIF6 and HIF44 variants (14 years), then two CD175 Stromberg carburettors (2–3 years), Bosch L Jetronic (7–8 years, aka Lucas 4CU Flapper), then Hitachi Hotwire (5 years, aka Lucas 14CUX), then the GEMS system (many years) and finally Bosch Motronics for 2 years. The engine is still cast now (2011), in an improved version, by Coscast in Birmingham, UK. As well as appearing in Rover cars, the engine was sold by Rover to small car builders, and has appeared in a wide variety of vehicles. Rover V8s feature in some models from Morgan +8, TVR, Triumph TR8, Land Rover and MGB V8, among many others. By the early 2000s, the Rover V8 had become uncompetitive with other V8 engines in its class. It produced between 80 100 hp less than more modern V8 engines, it used much more fuel compared to newer V8s, and used an aged 16 valve pushrod architecture, while V8 engines made by other luxury automakers often used dual overhead cams and 32 valves. After Land Rover switched to the BMW M62 V8 in the 2003 Range Rover, and the Land Rover Discovery 3 switched to Jaguar AJ V8 engines, the last mass produced Rover V8 was made in May 2004, after 37 years of production, and just under 1 million engines produced. The 2004 Land Rover Discovery was the last mass produced vehicle to use it. The last Rover badged vehicle that used the Rover V8 was the Rover SD1, which was discontinued in 1986 and replaced by the Rover 800,which used a 2.7 litre variant of the Honda C engine as its top engine choice. MG Rover Group used the 4.6 L SOHC 2 valve Ford Modular V8 engine in the Rover 75 and MG ZT 260 from 2003 2005. The Rover V8 remained with Land Rover when it was sold to Ford by BMW. Although Land Rover has switched to the Jaguar AJ V8 engine for new applications, they wanted production of the engine to continue, and they arranged for production to restart in Weston super Mare under MCT, an engineering and manufacturing company. MCT will continue limited production of the engine for the foreseeable future, supplying engines for aftermarket and replacement use. The Rover V8 based on the Buick design was not the first V8 engine produced by Rover. When the Rover Company was having engineering differences of opinion regarding the development of the Whittle turbine engine, the Wilks brothers did a deal with Rolls Royce to swap technologies. The turbine engine project at Barnoldswick went to Rolls Royce and Rover Co took over the V12 Meteor engine production used in a range of world war two tanks and the post war Centurion Tank (the Meteor V12 was a 'detuned' version of the Merlin aero engine). From this a V8 variant was developed. The Rover Meteorite, also known as Rolls Royce Meteorite, was a V8 petrol engine of capacity. In essence it was two thirds of a V12 Meteor, and it shared the Meteor's 60° bank angle. Meteorites were built for heavy duty vehicles, for marine use and as stationary power units: it powered the Thornycroft Antar or Mighty Antar Tank Transporter – and as such was used to transport Meteor engined tanks – and also heavy transport on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme in Australia.

As the aluminium block made this engine one of the lightest stock V8s built, it was an obvious choice for use in racing. Mickey Thompson entered a car powered by this engine in the 1962 Indianapolis 500. From 1946 to 1962 there had not been a single stock block car entered in this famous race. In 1962 the Buick 215 was the only non Offenhauser powered entry in the field of 33 cars. Rookie driver Dan Gurney qualified eighth and raced well for 92 laps before retiring with transmission problems. The Rover version of this engine was extensively developed and used for rallying, especially in Triumph TR8 sports cars. The Australian Repco V8 F1 engine being based on Buick 215 block is technically a common misconception, as the Rover/Buick V8 had only 5 cylinder head studs around each cylinder unit and that cannot accommodate the 6 stud Repco RB620 heads. The Repco V8 was based on the Oldsmobile 215 block of the same era, which was very similar in appearance, size and material, but used 6 cylinderhead studs per cylinder. The subtle difference in block design/head clamping originated in Oldsmobile's intention to produce the higher power, turbo charged Jetfire version of the small/light V8, however, the public/press tended not to be aware of the internal difference. Hotstox use Rover V8 in their stock cars.

In the late 1970s, British Leyland became aware of the increasing importance of diesel engined cars to the British, European and (especially) North American markets in the wake of the 1979 energy crisis. It was decided that a new series of diesel engines powerful, refined and economical enough for use in BL cars was needed. However, with development funding tight, it was necessary to use existing BL petrol engines as a base. This included a diesel version of the V8, the development project for which was code named 'Iceberg'. BL collaborated with Perkins Engines of Peterborough to develop the engine. Both naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions were produced, both using a Stanadyne rotary mechanical fuel injection system. Power outputs of around 100 (naturally aspirated) and 150 (turbocharged) horsepower were achieved. The Iceberg engine was slated for fitment in the Range Rover, Rover SD1 and the Jaguar XJ but the project encountered problems with failure of the alloy cylinder heads and internal cooling. They were limited by the need to use the same basic block casting as the petrol engine to allow the Iceberg engine to be produced on the same production line to reduce costs. Whilst these problems could have been overcome, the project ran into financial and logistical problems caused by the reorganisation of BL and specifically the splitting of Land Rover and Rover into separate divisions. Land Rover took over production of the V8 engine in 1982, moving it from the main BL engine plant at Acock's Green into a new, much lower capacity production line in the Solihull works, where it was built alongside the other Land Rover engines. This meant that there was no spare capacity to build diesel versions of the engine. Coupled to this, it was clear that the market for large diesel engined cars in North America had not developed as expected. BL finally pulled out of the project in 1983. Perkins initially decided to pursue the project alone, and even produced advertising brochures for the engine as an industrial power unit, but BL withdrew all technical support and Project Iceberg was wrapped up in late 1983. BL's other collaboration with Perkins (producing a diesel version of the O Series engine) produced the highly successful 'Prima' unit. BL (and its Rover Group successor) bought in 2.5 litre 4 cylinder turbodiesel units from VM Motori to use in the SD1 and Range Rover.

Not to be confused with the later 4.6 litre engine which TVR badged as a '4.5' for the Chimaera, there also existed a version with an crank and bore giving capacity, which was used by TVR in the low volume special 450 SEAC, the race version thereof and the subsequent Tuscan Challenge racers. A tiny number of Griffith and Chimaera road cars were built with a version of this engine, known as the '450 BV' (Big Valve).