Tempted to jump back in the pool
 

Hi There,

Long time no real posting.....I have a FL 2000 D2 with a dead engine and ~240k on the clock it's a little ratty, but it had LPG. I put about 100k on the clock and it was great. The timing went out on the variable timing, valves hit pistons making it half a V8 and it's been collecting dust since.

I got a PF from here for a fair price and got about 2-3k out of it before the gearbox was pronounced dead and not worth repairing. Sold it for parts. Alas the FL and PF are actually quite different when it comes to swapping parts (engines/gearboxes/ecus)

I've had a few other cars since then and one of them was a cheap jeep grand cherokee off a friend. It's 4x4 so good for bad weather and it can be fun, but no S8. It's failed it's MOT and i'm looking at 600+ to get it going again. On flicking through ebay I came across this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1614021584...84.m1423.l2649

It's almost identical to my FL S8. Actually have same engine/gearbox/lpg system and a lot of other bits. I may have gone and drove it last night!

Drives well and is nice and tight. Engine pulls well, but they do. I got a thump once and i was pushing quite hard and varying speeds and demand. Don't see any gearbox evidence in the part history. Mileage looks genuine and while i wouldn't LPG a car with that mileage, someone has already so a tad higher than i'd like, but not by that much.

It's basically going to be a grand gamble.....I'm very tempted....Am I mad ???

Oh and it has a flashing immobiliser yet the key works and it doesn't stall....Also despite sat-nav I didn't see bose on the speakers, also a genuine multi function s8 wheel!!!


Lee

if there was any kind of thump through the box, then there is every chance it's about to fail, I wouldn't, sorry

it would be a big risk, the delay on selecting reverse is very worrying.

Sat Nav was standard on S8, always.

Likewise, Bose however, was always an option on the D2 (Standard on D3)

It was a very commonly selected option on the D2 S8, but a few did slip through sadly....!

I don't know if this is good advice, but I would go for a pre-facelift S8,
no variable timing to go wrong, 4-speed gearbox lasts longer, cable throttle more responsive.
As a bonus, no Secondary Air Intake pump to go wrong, no post-cat Lambdas.

PF S8 was 5-speed. ;) The other comments I agree with.

Damn, that's a shame, so it didn't get the more reliable old 4-speed.

Goran - I believe that the PF S8 had the 5 speed, older A8's had the 4 speed. Certainly the PF that I had used the 5 speed and that died on me in a few thousdand miles. My old FL S8 I got almost 240k out of before the chain timing went out and being an interferance engine threw valves into pistons. Loved that car which is probably why it's in my factory still gathering dust!

Lee

That's not an S8 multi-function steering wheel either, that's a standard SE multi-function with an S8 badge tacked on. The genuine wheel has tiptronic controls as normal on S8s

Should be like this one:

http://www.audipages.com/upgrades/steering3.jpg

I'd agree that the gearbox is probably not well - if it's a bit 'thumpy' as well then definitely not a good sign!

I know this is just daydream talk, I wish I had done this instead of spending so much money on the manual S8.
If I had the space and the money I still would want to do this.
D2 body - to me a perfect chassis, just needs more power, more reliable transmission :)
This would be perfect. Only sacrifice is to lose 4WD, but the gains in performance and weight reduction, wow I would love to see such a beast.

http://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet+Perf...L65E2/10002/-1

*shame its only a 4L65E in that package, they should really put in a 6L80E instead
**LS3 can be successfully mated with a 01E, but that's a much bigger project than just making some custom engine & trans mounts, shortening driveshaft and some wiring fiddling.