Killer90 wrote:

mega toad i have a td5 90 with a gkn overdrive i have heard good and bad comments like everything on them so far i have had no trouble and really does come in handy for motorway driving, i have also booked the 90 in for a remap along with a road race intercooler turbo boost box and new turbo to come the tune up is next weekend with alive will let you know how i get on were abouts in hertfordshire are you if you dont mind me asking, if not to far away perhaps ill take ya out for a spin once its done

Porny wrote:

The GKN unit is no longer made - so you will have to go down the route of a second hand option... and finding that doesn't leak and is fault free might be interesting.

I've not tried a rocky mountain version, but they do look a nice unit.

But I'd look at how much heavy towing you do... I've fitted higher ratio gears to quite a few Defenders - and even towed with quite a few of them without a problem.

In all honesty, I find the new spread of gears with the high ratio transfer box a lot nicer than using an overdrive - especially on a tuned Defenders.

Low range is uneffected with the high ratio gears, so if you are towing someting very heavy, it would be kinder to start off in low range, and then shift to high on the move - a very easy process once practiced - and without any clunks.

Warped manifolds come about due to high Exhaust Gas Temps - however, its not just remapped cars that suffer - standard td5's can as well. Some of the problem comes from people thrashing the LR from cold, and not letting it cool down. You could fit an uprated stud kit which does help reduce the problem.

Before any remap/tuning work you should really get your Defender plugged into some diagnostic equipment by someone that knows what they are doing - as things problems like failed MAF (mass air flow sensors) and blocked MAP (manifold absolute pressure) sensors can cause lots of problems - especially with regards to low speed pull away.

Remapping/Calibration changes - there are lots of companies, some good - some not so good. So do some research. Not all of the 'tuners' sponser the forum yet - so some can't self promote :roll - so offer advice only.


Ian

Thanks Ian, very informative

At the moment the LR doesnt tow much but I have just bought a widetrack trailer body to try and cobble onto my old narrow Sankey chassis but these are both back up in Leeds so I will need a good weekend trip to go up and fettle all the bits.

Looking to get a decent caravan for camping out at the ALRC nationals this year too. then ultimatly possibly a trailer to haul the 80" around if it needs it. that said it happily trundled 180m down from Leeds, to Herts, then 100m each way to the Nationals last year plus double enterred in the RTV without any mishap other than loosing the iol filler/breather cap someway round the trial

As for pulling off in low box I still feel nervous about that as I used to have (20 years ago) an old Range Rover with a Perkins 4236 and I managed to smash some teth off the transfer teeth when changing up from bottom to top or viceversa while green laning. Some of the fragments ended up being ingested into the fairy overdrive and killing that too despite double declutching! ergo I havnt really played with low range yet other than to change a wheel.

Actually I am taking the car into the dealer tonight so they can check out the heated windscreen though they claim that glass isn't coverred under warranty. Glass in general I can accept, but a heated front screen is part of the electrical system in my mind and should be covered if defective.

gav///m5 wrote:

I have a 2005 Defender 110 xs which I too bought with a full Landrover approved used 12 month warranty.
It was the longest 12 months of my life in standard tune and although I made use of the warranty on other areas there was nothing the dealer could do when I asked them to look if any of the 122 ponies had gone lame !
After the agonising 12 months was over I started to look at various tuning companies and settled with Ian from IRB developments as both him and his company get excellent feedback wherever you look or ask !
Ian is also very helpful when it comes to giving advice as to what would suit your needs.
I started with a decat, silencer removal, egr replacement and a high flow cotton filter all of which made a big difference to how responsive the Defender felt.
but I still wanted more -
So I replaced the intercooler to the largest you can fit to a td5 with air-con (actually no different in size to a non air-con model so dont be fobbed off)
This again was an IRB developments intercooler although fitted by me along with silicon turbo hoses and I then took the Defender to Ians unit for a full diagnostic check before he removed my standard map and uploaded a "stage 2" map....

Hi Gav

Thats great info too.

OK so now I know a bit more to look into about intercoolers. I may go the remap route but as you say I will let the warranty expire in the summer first.

Mind you while the rover only had 13k on the clock for an 06 plate I believe it had been used by an outdoor events company as a bling tractor for a large trailer and as such probably had numpties driving it. I had problems with the gear chenge, especially trying to get reverse and 2nd. So LR put a recon box in it 2k ago which is about run in. stand still into 1st can still be a though, so I may get them to look at that too, but as it is such a new box I am not inclined to change transfer gears yet.