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Great holy smoking Discovery!

Some 4WD purists might hate us for saying this, but most 4WDs sold in Australia will only ever turn their wheels on bitumen.

Market trends in this direction have seen numerous ‘pretend’ off roaders hit the streets of Australian cities in recent years, many of which wouldn’t survive in serious off road conditions anyway.

It’s hardly surprising therefore, that a growing number of 4WD owners are getting into the street performance scene.

What! Landcruisers, Pajeros and Patrols competing with Commodores, WRXs and hot rods for street cred’? Surely we jest !?

No kidding, this is serious…
In the case of this 1996 model Land Rover Discovery we’re most certainly not joking.

The vehicle’s owner – who chooses to be known only as Rob - is a building contractor who went for a Discovery in the first place because of his lifestyle; comfortable, but with enough room for a few bags of cement and some tools if there’s a rush job on at a site somewhere.

Having previously owned a hotted up Jaguar and some other British specials, Rob quickly found the Disco’ a little too "ponderous" for his liking.

Enter David McGloughlin from Perth’s Jordan Rovertech, whom Rob met at a 4WD show. Many readers may need no introduction to JRT, nor their shenanigans with hotting up Discos’ and Landies’.

Rob’s vehicle has actually been developed over a three year period, with the original 3.9 litre engine ditched long ago. Three superchargers and even an intercooler have been tried, although the present set up with an all new M112 supercharger is likely to remain for a while.

With a 4.6 litre 4-bolt mains V8 Rover engine carrying one of the new generation M112 superchargers, Aquamist water injection, MoTeC M4 Pro’ electronic engine management and an absolute horde of other modifications, this British Bulldog pumps out nearly 500Hp at the engine and can smoke its rear tyres into oblivion (with the front axles disconnected for ‘power runs’, natch).

Internally, the British V8 motor retains its original crank, rods and pistons, which are more than capable of handling serious power figures.

But the heads have been extensively ported by Leon at A1 High Performance and filled with everything from oversize valves to Crane roller rockers.

The camshaft is a secret, which is hardly surprising considering that McGloughlin has spent considerable development hours in this area.

There are said to be a few exhaust secrets too, but Geoff Garland at Exhaust Dynamics did reveal that his custom system on this beast includes 42" long, 1 5/8" into 1 ¾" primaries that are actually individual pipes.

In other words, each mild steel header pipe can be removed all by itself. On each side, these four pipes then slip-join into collectors, before a twin 2 ½" mandrel bent system leads back to Exhaust Dynamics race mufflers.

And if you think that all sounds relatively straight forward, think again.

Deep thought and experimentation
A vehicle like this requires plenty of thought. That new generation M112 supercharger, for example, required three separately milled aluminium adapters before it would mount to the original – but modified - Rover inlet manifold.

Other interesting components include a 550cfm custom throttle and a fuel system that includes high flow pumps from Bosch and T-Rex, as well as a Porsche fuel pressure regulator.

The injectors are Bosch 803 items - settled on after Ford XR 8 and some other trick squirters proved ineffective..

Rising boost and power figures can soon see that old enemy called detonation make an appearance, even with Rover V8s and even with supercharging.

As Jordan Rovertech are now the Australian agents for Aquamist water injection from the UK, this system has been added to Rob’s Discovery.

Thanks to Aquamist, the supercharger discharge temperatures have dropped from 120 degrees down to 69 degrees - nearly a 50% reduction.

Outright engine control meanwhile, has been handed over to the renowned MoTeC electronics.

As this article was being finalised for publication, Robert’s Discovery was producing a maximum engine power figure of 340kW. That’s 462Hp in the old money, just in case you’re wondering.

Getting the grunt to the ground
Power figures like these would of course make mince meat from many of the vehicle’s original driveline components.

Not surprisingly therefore, the original 4-speed ZF (a la BMW) automatic gearbox has been extensively modified, with the stall rate increased to 2,150rpm. The oil galleries were also drilled out and heavy duty clutch packs installed.

The diffs were being modified at the time of writing, with heavy duty gears going in down the back, not to mention a ratio change. Likewise, heavy duty cross shafts from Maxi Drive were being installed in the transfer case.

Braking and suspension components were upgraded some time back, with 300mm Brembo discs and up-rated four-spot Brembo calipers applied to all four corners.

The shock absorbers are from Bilstein, likewise the heavy duty springs.

At the end of the day, horsepower production is what counts with this Discovery of course, and the game certainly isn’t over yet.

The next stage will see a 5.0 or 5.2 litre engine employed, using a stroker crank and a host of specialist American parts.

Which all sounds absolutely wonderful – so long as Rob can afford the tyres!