Holley carb/stainless exhaust

D

dvdocon

New Member
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has fitted either or both of these to a 3500. Does the carb give improved performance over the standard SU's, how does it affect fuel consumption? it must sound pretty good?

What type of stainless exhausts are available & do they improve performance & sound quality? I find the standard set up too quiet for my liking!
 
APPARENTLY...Weber 500 and manifold is preferable to Holley.
Dont know about stainless exhaust, although I think Ron has one? on his Rover.
 
dvdocon wrote,...
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has fitted either or both of these to a 3500. Does the carb give improved performance over the standard SU's, how does it affect fuel consumption? it must sound pretty good?

What type of stainless exhausts are available & do they improve performance & sound quality? I find the standard set up too quiet for my liking!
Click to expand...

By stainless exhaust are you referring to tubular manifolds (otherwise known as extractors if you live in Australia) or the actual pipe and mufflers etc? Stainless when new has a certain ring to it, which is especially noticable when used to make either the manifolds or the exhaust pipe. Once sufficient miles have been covered, say 20,000, the ring will have pretty well disappeared.

Ron.
 
Hi Bill & Sydney, thanks for your replies.

Bill, I was reading another forum earlier (piston heads I think) where a guy called penguinracer installed a weber 500 against his mechanics advice, realising too late that the Holley 390 was superior in performance terms, in combination With an Edelbrock dual plane performer manifold. This was fitted to an SD1. He advised this carb. was fine for a P6, which combined with Mallory ignition, decent camshaft & performance exhaust inc. tubular manifolds should give a goo 200 - 220 BHP. Which should be sufficient!
It's funny how opinions differ on this subject, I guess it's horses for courses. I like the look of the Holley with big chrome pancake filter though!

Sydney, I did not put it very well, I meant that I want a V8 to sound like a V8 without the sound being strangled too much by an overly restrictive exhaust. I wasn't aware of the ringing sound, but hopefully the V8 roar will drown that out. Obviously I want to go stainless for longeivity, the mild steel ones don't tend to last too well from memory.

Dave
 
dvdocon wrote,...
He advised this carb. was fine for a P6, which combined with Mallory ignition, decent camshaft & performance exhaust inc. tubular manifolds should give a goo 200 - 220 BHP.
Click to expand...

Hi Dave,

Are you looking to use the Rover with those changes listed running through an automatic transmission or are you looking to use a manual gearbox? Is the car meant for day to day use or specifically for track work?

Ron.
 
Sydney's name is Ron , Sydney is where he lives :D My v8 sounds pretty well with full stainless system and standard manifolds . The neighbors love it :oops: Think you end up with clearance and under bonnet heat issues if you go for stainless headers on a p6 . That's not to say it can't be done ( Mr Quattro and others )
 
Sydney Ron, I'm just dreaming at the moment, I have yet to buy a car, although I have owned two Rovers previously; a P6 3500S & an SD1 Vitesse. I want another 3500S, so manual transmission, never been that keen on auto's. It will be used for road driving only, rather than track stuff, but having owned a Vitesse I would like my 3500S to be at least on a par with the vitesse, i.e 0 - 60 in around 7 seconds.
 
Thanks for putting me right on Sydney Ron, Stina, do you know of any threads on here or elsewhere that deal with this subject, as I would be keen to read about others experiences in fitting / trying to fit the manifolds.

Dave
 
I'm just going on what i've picked up on here Dave . I know you can end up with fuel vaporisation issues on a p6 even with a standard set up , then you introduce the extra heat of a stainless header set up ! I do know people on here have got around the problems , and there are different standard cast manifolds . Try typing exhaust headers or manifolds into the search bit at the top of the page .
 
stina wrote,...
Sydney's name is Ron
Click to expand...

Thanks Stina,.. :D

dvdocon wrote,...
I'm just dreaming at the moment, I have yet to buy a car, although I have owned two Rovers previously; a P6 3500S & an SD1 Vitesse. I want another 3500S, so manual transmission, never been that keen on auto's. It will be used for road driving only, rather than track stuff, but having owned a Vitesse I would like my 3500S to be at least on a par with the vitesse, i.e 0 - 60 in around 7 seconds.
Click to expand...

Hello Dave,

In theory that should be more than possible, but you'll need to replace the Rover 4 speed box with a much stronger alternative before you start, or find an 'S' that already has had the box replaced.

You can buy off the shelf stainless tubular manifolds that will fit with some work within the P6 engine bay. Ideally they would need to be ceramic coated prior to installation else you'll have more problems as Stina mentioned above. The optimum size in terms of primary pipe diameter for a 3.5 litre with standard exhaust ports is 1.5" so you would need to have a set custom made to suit in this regard as the aforementioned are really too large for normal road use.

Ron.
 
Cheers Stina, I've done a search & found some good info. the only thing is, the search came up with 101 pages of matches!

Dave
 
Pour a beer and get reading :D You can do a detailed search but it's beyond my limited computer knowledge :LOL:
 
Hi Ron, thanks for the advice. Is the SD1 box up to the job, & if so, is it a straight swap with the existing box? I know that I am jumping ahead a bit here, considering that I have yet to acquire a car, & having seen some of the stories on here, it may well be that there are more pressing jobs to be done, not least eliminating the dreaded tinworm, prior to getting it to go faster! I guess that rust is a lot less of a problem with your climate over there Ron?

The beers are lined up Stina, lol.
 
dvdocon said:
I was reading another forum earlier (piston heads I think) where a guy called penguinracer installed a weber 500 against his mechanics advice, realising too late that the Holley 390 was superior in performance terms, in combination With an Edelbrock dual plane performer manifold.
Click to expand...

I was basing mt view on this link...
http://www.v8engines.com/carbs-1.htm

Good luck with it all.
Have a look at Sydney Ron's thread "My Rover" at his engine specs.
 
The one thing worth bearing in mind is that the SD1 box (or the Toyota Supra 5-speeder which is also often used) won't fit easily into a 3500S manual bodyshell because the tunnel is too narrow. Better to start off with an auto - plenty of knackered autos about, as I dare say Harvey will attest...
 
My car is running the Edelbrock 500 and JWR dual port manifold along with a bunch of other goodies.

101_0670a.jpg


When I bought the car, it ran like a bag of nails.

I have had to do major work to it to get it to turn right, and I must say that it does run very well now. The manifolds did melt everything under the bonnet though.

They are now ceramic coated.

I am not sure that the huge air filter does much for the power output, so might try a few things next year with cold air induction, just for the hell of it.

I have been informed that the Holley is difficult to set up, whether that is true or not, I don't know

Richard
 
Hi Richard, that looks a nice set up, have you fitted a modified cam as well? & what set up do you have for the rest of the exhaust system, i.e is it a single large bore pipe after the y piece, to the tailpipe, or do you have twin pipes?What is the performance like compared to the original? it must sound pretty awesome

I was surprised that the new manifolds gave off that much heat, where did you get the ceramic coating done & how much did it cost? I have previously fitted such a Rimmer Bros. stainless performance exhaust, inc. manifolds to my Vitesse with no such problems, I guess it must be a lot tighter in the P6 engine bay.

Hi Guy, That car sounds like it was made for me, I actually saw it on a website last week, & noticed that it wasn't an S, & so, mentally discarded it, presuming that it was an auto. I looked at it again last night on Ebay & saw that it had manual transmission & an SD1 box to boot. It was apparently under offer at #1900. If I currently had the money, I would have been seriously interested & maybe even offered more over the phone. It does sound like a good genuine car & I love Scarab Blue as a colour, just bad timing, someone is going to get a bargain! Thanks for alerting me though.

Dave
 
My P6 sounds not far from your suggested upgrades...

I've got a Holley 390 on an Edelbrock manifold, a Mallory dual-point distributor and a stainless exhaust on a 3500 V8, which is connected to a manual SD1 Vitesse 5-speed gearbox.

In my view, it's a very good combination. I've not much experience of SU carbs, but I have found that the Holley can stumble for a minute or two in the coldest weather (as in, snow on the ground), I suspect carb icing.
Otherwise, I've no complaints. The 5 speed 'box makes it more than able to keep up with modern traffic at sensible engine RPM, and I've found myself able to get close to 30MPG on a gentle 70mph motorway run.

That said, short journeys round town in winter I suspect it hovers around 10MPG. :shock:

CIMG9627.jpg


I've not had to do much maintenance work to it so far, the carb and ignition still seems in tune and hasn't needed altering since I bought the car two years ago. That reminds me, it's about due for a service.
 
Hi Tofufi, that looks like an early car, nice colour as well. Did you fit the mods. yourself ? It's good to know that there is not a lot of faffing once fitted as well. Is the MPG really as low as 10 at time ? that is a bit horrendous!

Dave
 
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