Hi everyone
Me being me....I have one idea in the back of my head for ages now. Basically I want Petrol van, but proper power and not the limping 2.3 like transits come with. I am going to be using it not very often for towing my 14ft car transporting trailer and carry occasional engine/gearbox for other cars.
I have been considering 2 options:
Option A ( dont spit on me)
Vito or sprinter with a v8 4.3 engine with auto transmission ( specific enough as I happen to have that particular engine stashed in storage removed from CLK). Quite a bit of electronics involved, not sure how its going to fit in engine bay, but shouldn't be too hard as viano (vito people carrier) comes with v6 petrol engine and same gearbox that I have. On these v6 is same 90degree Vee as v8, just shorter.
Option B - transit mk6/7 with jaguar s-type engine and manual transmission
I am current owner of a s-type and looking into some of the stuff for it realized that smaller versions ( mine is v8 4.0 ) like v6 2.5 and 3.0 are ford engines, with all ford ecus, wiring etc,etc,etc. Do you think its an option to fit a s-type 3.0 v6 with manual transmission ( probably from same s-type) to a rwd transit . Oh s-type is RWD if someone is not sure. I have tried to see anyone doing or trying this conversion, but no luck. I dont think transit has enough space widthwise in the engine bay to fit the 4.0 or 4.2 s-type v8. Fitting the mercedes one in transit is nightmare as it has quite a bit of electronics, quite wide and its available with auto only. Gearbox, to be fair, is one of the best ever build automatics. Additionally merc engine uses 2 sparks per cylinder, so 16 sparkplugs in total
I have 2 mk6 transits for bits - one FWD and one RWD, so getting transit in good condition, but with gone engine sounds easier, v6 ford 3.0 is 238bhp that should be ok for the van + trailer. Still would rather have v8, but that will do as well. Mercedes vito/sprinter seems not bad option, but too much electronics are involved, gearbox needs a major service ( 200quid bits only + oil), 16 sparkplugs are a bit overkill. On another angle, I have engine, box, prop, full wiring loom.
Any thoughts would be helpful, maybe another point of view on these things.