The official Rover V8 inlet manifold page

This page is my archive of known Rover V8 inlet manifolds. It Seems like just about every form of getting fuel into a rover V8 has been tried at one point or another - some with more success than others.

I never expected there would be so many different types, the list gets longer every month. If you have any pictures of manifold setups or interesting information about these manifolds, please get in touch.

Many of these are copied from other peoples/suppliers sites - Credit has been given where the source is known.

Last updated January 2019

Got any more photos? Please Get in contact!

These engines and manifolds were found on many cars including, Rover SD1, Range Rover, Westfield Seight, TVR, Marcos and many kit cars such as the Dax Rush.

Trumpet Bases

Comparison of standard Rover trumpets, ACT carbon fibre and nasty TVR trumpets. TVR and ACT have a 44m id I believe.

JE Engineering Spun trumpets

45mm trumpets, slightly splayed to get them all in.

DIY Trumpets

Act Carbon Fibre trumpet base

Very nice. Replaces the nasty factory TVR 'trumpets' which are no more than straight bits of mild steel out of the scrap bin.

'Trumpetless' bases

Phil Ringwood's hand blended trumpet base, which is similar to the TVR Taraka 500 upgrade:

MEZ Prototype Blended Trumpet base

This is what I consider to be an improved blended trumpet base. By using a piece of Nylon, the inlet tract is slightly longer, which matches flush to the inlet of the plenum and also allows for a more generous flare to be machined in.

MK1 Trumpet Base:

both the 40mm version for standard plenums and the 44mm version for TVR plenums.

The trumpet base has large recesses cast into the base, therefore for a smooth bore all the way down into the manifold, the base requires sleeving.

Update: Testing has shown that the blended base isn't as effective as the short carbon ACT trumpets (~10 bhp down).

MK2 Trumpet base

3/2/09: Yet another variation - I made this one for a turbocharged Rover V8 going into an MGB.

Plenums

Calaway

Alasdair sent in these photos of the Calaway Plenums as fitted to the P38 Range Rover. Inlet looks to be around 70MM with shortened std diameter trumpets.

'Federal' Plenum

Jonathan Douglas Kindly sent me these photos of this manifold which was thought to be a prototype, however thanks to Chris and Jolyon who got in contact to say it was fitted to US Spec (NADA) TR8', SD1's and Australian Rover SD1's

One fitted to a Frank’s Triumph stag in Oz

I Stumbled across these whilst searching around, never seen them before. They came from Rover SD1.com. I don't know whether its home made based on the prototype ones shown earlier or an original factory item. If you know anything about these - drop me a line

If you know anything about these - drop me a line

MGB V8 Plenum cover:

Brico Electronic Injection

Al Worsfold sent in this extremely rare early electronic injection for the Rover V8 - he writes:

Rover was toying with fuel injection as early as 1966 on the P6 2000 motor with running examples by Lucas and Brico but not surprisingly they turned their attention to the V8 when that came along.

They had pretty much settled on the Brico electronic injection by '68 so they had a handful of V8s converted to Brico 3500EI in '69/70. There were certainly 6 built although some sources suggest as many as 50? As far as I know this is the only surviving complete (almost) system.

Most of the bits are specially made for it and a lot of the small parts have hand etched serial numbers. There is a special trigger plate in the distributor for the injectors and the ECU sits inside the car, possibly under the front passenger seat

Brico had some experimental injection systems on the go for the Jag V12 and Dino V6 but the only time their system ever saw production was as an option on the '69 Aston DB6. I think 46 were built and most were converted back to carbs later in life. Rover binned their injection ideas in '71 when Brico got cold feet and Rover pulled out of the US market. It's a shame, it looks like they were planning a fuel injected 5 speed manual P6B instead of the 3500S we got.. My system was found in a workshop that used to belong to Morgan so I guess Rover gave Morgan a few old EI systems to play with when they were working on the plus 8.

ACT Products

Double and triple throttle plenums - not actually sure if you need three throttle bodies, but they look cool i suppose.

JED Triple plenum

Tim sent these in. They are on his 4.5 comp-safari racer

V8 Enhancements

Here is a totally original idea by Dave Blades don’t know if it works, but looks promising. Clive of V8 Enhancements fabricated it.

Lloyd Specialist developments

Daniel Lloyd says:

Prototype Rover V8 intake manifold (dual-plane design) on our TVR Chimaera and are finalising our plans to get it into production.We are running the TVR Chimaera on a Canems fully programmable engine management system.

We have only had it on there a week and have not yet got any rolling road data on it but the initial signs are very promising! It runs more smoothly than before and feels as though there is considerably more torque above 2000rpm. Above 3500rpm the engine noise changes from normal Rover V8 to a completely unfamiliar engine note, with a real induction roar.

Triumph Rover Spares

Here's an almost identical version on the original plenum. Made by Triumph Motor Spares (Australia)

OEM Rover GEMS plenum

Notice that the top is square rather than curved on the earlier hotwire systems. This one appears to be bored out, as I have looked at two OEM gems plenums and they are both 65mm

MEZ 72mm Gems Plenum

OEM Plenum, which is 65mm and them same plenum bored out to 72mm by me.

MEZ 72mm Hotwire Plenum

I can bore these out if you send your plenum top to me, see also my for sale section

Grafting on Larger Throttles

Here's a Jag throttle body welded to the std plenum

Martin Midmore Sent his DIY conversion for a 4.7 Rover - nice and tidy. Throttle body is from a Cadillac Northstar.

Westfield

Westfield plenum is rotated 90' so it doesn't stick out the bonnet.Its made from a standard plenum, by cutting and welding. Yet again, ACT have made an much improved one.

More photos of the westfield plenum are here

Peter sent these photo's of his ACT Plenum - uses 75mm Throttle body

Rover SD1 Twin Plenum

Uses twin 65mm throttle bodies. The trumpet base is bigger than the std base.

JE Engineering has provided the following photos showing an original SD1 homologation trumpet base. Jonathan Douglas comments 'we generally build them with 68 mm throttles, although the standard throttles in SD1 homologation units were 65 mm. With an appropriate engine underneath these will allow well over 360 bhp'.

The trumpets are 41mm. Worth knowing that he has stock of new twin plenum manifolds!

Another one from Dimitri

Siamesed Plenum

Nick Smalwood's Siamesed pleum. Consisting of two standard plenums cut and welded together!

MegaSquirt Guru Phil Ringwood, who's actually got one running on a 5L tvr

Fabricated Plenum

Curtis Jacobson sent in these photos of a custom made plenum with a throttle body attached on the end. Each trumpet is matched in length to the intake runner volume. Runs Megasquirt and Coil packs - full details can be found on his site.

Images © BritishV8

OEM Manifolds

Land Rover THOR manifold

This was fitted to post MY 2000 rovers with Bosch injection. Some people have come up with the idea of fitting a pair of throttle bodies to each plenum. This manifold is good for a 4x4 setup but less so on a car, due to its long thin runners. Uses one large throttle body of 68mm.

Jonathan Douglas Comments:

'the throttle body has a 68 mm throttle as standard and again, we often take this out, in this case to 71.5 mm. The Thor manifold, when used with either a standard cam or a mildly tuned cam, gives a strong torque peak at around 2,000 rpm, much higher than that achievable with the Lucas plenum design, but even with careful gas-flow work the power is limited. We find it difficult to achieve more than around 280 bhp with this manifold, where a similar amount of effort on a Lucas Plenum manifold will yield 320 bhp (but with less torque below 3,500 rpm'

Custom Manifolds

Wildcat 20 degree manifolds

Alan sent this in, He says:Wildcat 20 degree manifolds (20 degrees from vertical) and as near straight a run into the inlet ports as was possible. They can be ordered in any size within reason - 45mm ~ 55mm Mine are 48mm. Price is around £1300 plus the vat.

And another variation:

Bike Throttle bodies

Gavin Parker sent these in, 38mm CBR 600 throttle bodies. Made by Altiss Engineering, going into a Capri

Jenvey Throttle bodies

Ian sent these in - they are TVR manifolds (look like JED ones to me, see below) with 45mm Jenvey / Luminition TB's added, BMW535 injectors on a 3.9 running emerald.

Tony sent in these 50mm Jenvey throttle bodies on John Eales manifolds on his Cobra Replica.

Bike carbs

Fireblade carbs, going into a Jonathan Ellison's V8 Chevette:. Made by Bogg Brothers.

Regular contributor Dimitri found these keihin bike carbs on an EFI manifold:

Individual Throttle Bodies

Individual throttle bodies on a TVR Griff 500 - Per Terje from Norway made these to tame his H404 Cam - they are 44mm diameter. He managed 307RWHP - which is very impressive.

Dave Redpath sent these individual manifolds he made using a slice of the original manifold:

Gary Paz sent in these Hilborn Mechanical injection manifolds - they are for sale if you are interested in them ($1800 - located in the US):

Custom Sheet metal

Found these intakes over at Lanocha Racing Yes, they are Rover manifolds - not Chevy.

Sheet metal intake that was on Tim Garlick's Super Mod Cortina MK3, based on a Wild Cat Rover V8.

4 barrel Intakes

Wildcat

Marcus sent his Wildcat single plane manifold with a tasty MSD 1000cfm throttle body, it will have rails and injector bungs added

Wilpower

Greg Williams sent this Wilpower manifold. He says that Wilpower make several versions - such as this one which is configured for fuel injection.

Looks like the Wildcat one above? - that's because Wildcat sell the Wilpower manifolds!!

JED Hufaker clone

John Eales makes this hufaker clone with a built in thermostat housing

BL Motorsport Single Plane

Michael Perkins sent this BL Motorsport manifold in, he says:

"The BL Motorsport Intake is a very rare item. It was produced initially by Huffaker Engineer on the West Coast of the USA. BL Motorsports needed a performance intake to use to develop the TR7 V8 rally program. This particular intake has a British Leyland Swirl cast in. This is the first of many that has the logo actually cast in. Typically if it was a straight Huffaker intake it would just have a round boss and not the BL swirl. The intake has original provisions for the power booster 'gulp' valve, front and rear coolant take offs."

Offenhauser Dual Port

Michael Perkins says: "The JWR/Offenhauser Dual Port 360 manifold was to be an improvement over the dual plane Offenhauser that was made back in the 1960ies. It has divided runner, one for the primaries and one for the secondaries that until the fuel leaves the intake and enters the cylinder head they mix. It was a slight improvement but did tend to run rough and rich. BL Motorsports used this intake with a Repco twin DCOE Weber adaptor until they "Swan Neck" quad Weber intake was developed."

Converted SU Manifold

Howard sent in this Standard SD1 manifold converted for a 4-barrel - made by Mike Broad / Auto Power Services.

Cross Ram style

Michael Perkins says:

"some pictures of Group 44 Inc Triumph TR8s that have a cross ram Lucas, Bosch, Piersburg & Fuerstenau fuel injection"

Many thanks Michael for the interesting info, Eliot.

JED Cross over

John Eales cross over manifold - will fit under a TVR bonnet apparently.

Carb setups

For those that insist on using archaic carbs, here's a few: John Eales Developments (JED)

John Eales TVR Style manifolds (They are not handed, so carbs face in same direction)

John Eales "swan neck" sidedraft manifold

John EalesWeber Downdrafts

Peter sent these downdrafts on a Dax Rush, Manifolds are by John Eales - there are two different styles, one that makes the carbs face in the same direction and one where the carbs face one another - which makes the throttle linkage easier to make.

Rovercraft

Howard sent in these Rovercraft manifolds with Dellorto DRLA's on a 4.5 rover:

Other Downdraft

Ferdinando Marchesi sent in these downdraft setups. Update: they are by Piercemanifold in the usa

Michael from Germany reshaped these TVR manifolds to run Dellorto DRLAs face to face with a home made throttle linkage. Going into a Cobra 289 replica

Dimitri sent these, Water heated Seton manifold for quad downdrafts.

Mangoletsi Manifold:

4 x Weber 48 IDA's on a 3.5 in a Healey. Did't work very well apparently.

Marco sent these Weber 44 IDF's that he is restoring:

Weber IDF48

Viku Perala fitted Weber IDF48’s onto a modified SD1 SU intake - going into a speedboat!

Cross-over

Dimitri found these diy cross-overs:

Which then led me to these at British V8.org site, showing Les Gonda's MGB sporting some nice DIY cross-over manifolds.

Photos Copyright 2008, BritishV8 Magazine. All rights reserved. Used here by permission.

Boxer manifold

Here's a full write up I received from the creator of the Boxer manifold - Martin Goodwin:

"The Boxer Quad SU system was developed in 1993, primarily for the for the off-road market, after Dave marsh ( M.D. of QT Services, WILDCAT ETC.) saw a standard Rover SU manifold that had the top cut off, and in it's place, two carb-mounting turrets were welded on to accept an extra pair of carbs.

It was noted that the pick-up of the engine was massively improved over standard but it was not an easy conversion to do. Also, it relied on finding a sacrificial manifold in each case, to cut and shut.

Myself and my brothers' background was in engineering and my father, who knew Dave well, had much experience of building and setting up all types of engines. We agreed to make a proto-type steel-fabricated pair of crossover manifolds and Dave's racing sponsor at the time would give us the facility to rolling road test them.

Through much research we came up with the design of manifold that you see today, ( more or less,) and when tested on Dave's Comp' Safari racer, it was useless. The reason being, that the SU's, being constant-depression carbs, were unable to settle properly in the configuration. After retro-fitting a balance pipe system, the set-up finally came good and we realised the full potential. There were leaps in performance in both power and torque with no trade-offs of any sort really.

I continued to develop the system over the next four years, testing on Dave's Vehicle, with which he had much success in competitive events. The final manifolds were even better than before with a revised runner shape and internal balance passages. I must acknowledge the expertise of Dave Arnold, who did most of the rolling road work and was Dave Marsh's co-driver. He knows his onions and helped us to make the RV8 the success that it was.

Right from the start, the vacuum balance was key, and when Burlen Fuels Systems (licence holder for manufacture of SU's.) tried to copy our work, they didn't understand fully what they were doing and ran a test against all the other induction systems of the time, with appalling results. This was published in Fast Car Magazine and we were dragged down with them as everyone assumed our stuff was the same. I asked at the beginning, to be included in this shoot-out but Fast Car declined. I was never given a reason, I just think the big-boys were scared of what we could do and they spent a lot of money advertising in Fast Car. I think you can work it out.

If you can un-earth an earlier copy of Fast Car from April'94, you can see what can really be achieved. Back-to-back against the standard manifold and carbs, on the same mildly tuned 3.5 engine, on the same day and overseen by journalist David Hardcastle, we gained 42bhp at 5000 rpm and 34 bhp at 6000 rpm, at the rear wheels, not to mention power gains at all lower engine speeds as well. We could even beat the fuel economy over standard.

With a gradual drop in sales and the increasing use of fuel-injection, plus a quality product that didn't wear out, I couldn't make money and wound Boxer Engineering up in '98, I think.

Don't underestimate the humble SU though. Massive torque, more than any other carb, due to fast air-speed over the jet at all times. Even when you have twice as many with the corresponding power increases, the engine remains tractable low down. Concentric float-chamber, they'll keep going,even upside down."

Some tips though: Radius the front edge of the slides but not too far up or the key comes out of the key-way slot and they stick fully up.

Fit parallel trumpets instead of the Rover inlet castings to prevent a standing wave in the mouth of the carb.

Use a nice heavy oil in the damper pots. This is your temporary enrichment on acceleration and it transforms your pick-up to a Weber-type 'kick in the pants' .

The later HIF44 models had damping both up and down on the slides making them much more stable in the pulses of a quad-carb system.

Take the trouble to measure the CO at the exhaust-manifolds individually or you can't get the best out of them. All you need is a threaded hole or boss that you can plug when not in use, one per carb. Make a short pipe that will screw into this point to measure the gases, or even better, make several. As mentioned before, you get a higher reading at the headers than the tailpipe. Set 5&7 rich to help them out. Many thanks for that fantastic write up Martin.

EFI Boxer Manifold

Clive sent these photo's of his Boxer manifold converted for fuel injection. Throttle bodies are Rover 25 (45mm), Vauxhall Omega Injectors running Edis8 and Megasquirt going into a Luego Viento.

Twin SU's / Strombergs

Original, and probably the best if your 'e into off-roading with carbs.

MGB "Trouser" Manifold

Lewis sent in the MGB V8 "trouser" manifold - Not what I would call a performance piece - One of Leylands finest..?

Forced Induction Manifolds

This is a new section for any type of forced induction setup for the Rover V8. Please get in contact if you have any interesting photos that I can publish.

Opcon twin screw compressor

Dennis Priddle designed Opcon twin screw supercharger with custom manifold (right).

Eaton M90

This is Jim Blackwood's Eaton M90 running 16psi boost into a 8.5:1 3.5 V8. Manifold is a modified offy dual plane. Note the experimental intercooler that acts as a heat-pipe. Jim says: [Its a closed system] charged with pure ethanol, 50% as a liquid and 50% in vapor phase by volume.The angle of incline works with acceleration to keep the liquid in the bottom end. Because there are no other gasses inside, the ethanol achieves an equilibrium which is upset by any heat collected by the lower end and phase changes to a gas which immediately transfers the heat to the upper end, there condensing and running back down the bottom edge of the tubes. . Runs Megasquirt and Edis-8 for fuel & Spark. Note the billet inlet that Jim made also.

Marco sent this photos of a Supercharged Range Rover for the paris Dakar. Looks like an old setup, as it uses two "V" pulleys and carbs.

Eaton 112

Paul sent in these photos of a Jaguar Eaton 112 on a 4.8 Rover V8 running Megasquirt 3 in a Dax Rush (Bonkers..)

MagnaCharger

These Maganacharger kits for the Rover V8 engine were made by Mike Broad of Auto Power Services in Daventry in the 1980's. The blowers where imported from Magnuson in the United States of America. Intake is an Offenhauser 360 and instead of using a carb adapter plate it has a blower adapter plate which mounts the Magnacharger 110.

On top of the Magnacharger sits a carb plate for one Holley. Gerry Magnuson sold patterns and stock to B&M who did nothing with them who then they sold them to Bill Bushling in Califonia who still makes the little blowers mainly for Harleys. According to Bill these Magnachargers are capable and still efficient above 18000 rpm. Thanks to JP Verweij for the information and photos.

JE Engineering manifold for P38 made my MFC patterns

John Armarego sent this Rotrex C38 supercharger:

Turbo TR8

Mike's turbocharged 5.0 V8 in a TR8. The plenum includes a copper chargecooler core in each side.

Rotrex

SC Power rotrex unit designed specifically for TVR's - this is their intercooled version for the 5L engines.