2001 Landrover Discovery 2 LS Swapped 5.3 Liter 35" Build Overview *One Take* 10,000 Mile Update 

Mine has a 2” lift. I have 33”x13.5” Nitto mud grapplers and ??? I can’t remember brand steelies. It’s given it a “stanced” look. It required a pretty substantial amount of trimming to get proper clearance while the suspension was articulated. The toughest part are the rear fenders because all the double wall construction using two different kinds of material. The results are worth it though.

@@hazyhuckleberry7642 I recommend the addition of a 1" puck spacer for that setup. Makes a big difference in clearance.

Hi guys I did the swap my self I make the horness my selft...runs really good sounds beautiful...I would like to do a tuning some one know anything about it? Please let me know thank you

How are you gonna get the LS to talk to the rover computer? I’m trying to do this myself

👍 thanks for dropping by

Appreciate it

Thanks. Good luck with it. If you have any questions hit me up 👍

Hey man, how did you get the LS to work with the rover computer? Did you use a ACE box or custom wiring

Nice. The current problem is that the company ACE that was producing the kits stopped making them. You'll have to piece it together with a GM transmission and figure out the wiring.

Would that mean traction control, abs, and hill decent won’t work anymore on the disco?

It's pretty straight forward minus some exhaust fabrication and wiring. Budget 30 percent more than what you think it'll cost.

@@xm3ntal620 yeah I’m gonna do the same kit you got and their wiring harness add on too. And who knows maybe a little turbo on the LS too lol my timing chains just failed on the LR3 2 weeks ago so a new 4.4 is going in there Thursday

@@rickietyler7905 turbos would be awesome. I was thinking of slapping a lsa blower on mine but don't think the stock trans can take it.

@@xm3ntal620 yeah after searching their site I’m thinking it may not be a good idea to add too much more power hahaha

Thanks for watching 👍

Thank you. I just ordered some sliders during the lucky8 BF sale. As far as suspension goes I'm using OME HD Springs front and rear. 1" puck spacer F/R from lucky8. The shocks are your standard off the shelf Fox Racing shocks. I used a cut off wheel and trimmed mostly towards the rear of each wheel well. My strategy was to trim away the aluminum behind the stock plastic fender trim (minimalizing any cutting of the stock plastic fender arches to retain an OEM look). I also cut away some of the perpendicular flats on the lips of the wheel wells. I have the terrafirma HD steering and track bars. Dark Crow Designs Rear watts linkage delete track bar. I don't have any caster correction parts bc quite honestly it drives perfectly straight. No funny business with the steering not going back to center.... Why fix it if it ain't broke right?

Thanks. Are you running larger tires?

Thank you. I am very happy with it. I think with the disco being a dying breed it makes it a pretty cool vehicle to have in 2023. The only thing I'm not in love with is the shifting performance but at the end of the day it's a truck. I rarely go wide open throttle with it. I might remedy it one day with a stand alone controller.

Nice. I went with the Aluminum bottom end L33. Good luck with the process.

Sorry no parts list. If you look at one of the comments with a bunch of replies I list a lot of the parts I used.

@@xm3ntal620 awesome thanks. will look at them.

The biggest problem is the company that was producing the swap kit stopped making them I believe. There are other ways to do it like switching over completely to the entire GM driveline including the transmission. A few people have done it. Check out the landrover engine swap forum. In the future I want to do one with a GM transmission.

@xm3ntal620 wait, really? Is it the ACE kit?

@@jaystrub210 yes, that's what I used.

Yea that was my biggest gripe about the swap. I just got an enclosed air box from K&N that I'm going to experiment with. One end is open and I'm going to run that to the fender for cold air.

I used the wolf design low profile pan. No fitment issues at all with that. The headers are the ones on the list from summit.

4.43 GBR gears with Detroit trutracs front and rear. About 2700 rpm @ 70 mph on 35" tires. I got the gears for the stock engine if I had to do it over again I would probably drop down to a lower gear. With the extra power it is now over geared.

@@xm3ntal620 sounds good, thanks for the info, 👍🏻

@@xm3ntal620 Hello Ben, did you re-wire the harness yourself? If so, how difficult was it to do that? I’m assuming you have to keep all the vital stuff in order for it to not light up the dash with warning lights.

@@Bobby82568 Yes I did I have the Ace engineering kit and followed the step by step instructions. It can seem very intimidating in the beginning but it's not bad at all it took a few hours.

@@xm3ntal620 nice, thank you sir much appreciated

Thanks 👍. It's a voyager rack.

We don't have such requirements. We do have to pass emissions testing though. The swap requires a good amount of work between mechanical, wiring, and exhaust fabrication. I also had to learn how to tune the vehicle afterwards on hptuners which took many test and tune driving sessions to figure out.

@@xm3ntal620 was there any issues with matching Land Rover engine management system with LS?

​@@soundadventure the kit comes with a conversion box to marry the LR harness (it gets thinned out) and an off the shelf GM wiring harness.

@@xm3ntal620 Thanks so much for the info, it's got me thinking 🤔.

Nice. Are you using the ACE kit? Captainaaron on landroverforums is putting together the writeup for the compushift computer. The LS alternator was pretty straight forward. I'm using that 4 pin alternator and ICT 551526-LS01-3 bracket.

@@xm3ntal620 I did use the ACE kit. I believe my LS wiring harness has a 1 or 2 wire alternator connector. What did you do with the Rover alternator connector? Thanks for the info!

@@jershelb you need to buy the GM 4 pin connector that has a diode in it. IIRC, you run 1 wire to the Rover harness and the other one to 12v switch (the one with diode). RU-vid search gm alternator into swap for more into

@@xm3ntal620 thanks man! Are you still running okay without the Rover maf?

@@jershelb yep been about 4k miles now. It didn't shift the greatest to begin with so I'm not going to dwell over it.

Sure, what ideas and concerns do you have?

This swap utilizes a signal converter box so that all the factory gauges work. It requires you to remove the unnecessary wiring from the stock land Rover harness.

The engine swap (rebuilt the 5.3) cost me roughly 9k in parts alone. I did all the work myself including the tune.

@@xm3ntal620 I appreciate the quick response. That's excellent! You saved a ton doing it yourself. Congrats!

Thanks a lot I appreciate it. It's really hard to say bc there were many phases to the build. When I got the junk yard motor I completely stripped it down and rebuilt everything besides the bottom end rotating assembly. Then I prepped it with all the accessories. Pulled the stock motor out and cleaned the engine bay and por15 the visible rails in the bay. Installed the new engine. Wired it all. Welded up the exhaust. Did some minor fabrication for intake, battery tray, etc. I got screwed over with mail tuner so I ended up buying hptuners and a wideband and spent many weeks learning how to tune it. Check out the google pic gallery in the subject section 👍

Doable yes but not easier per say. The kit was developed so you could reuse as much as the OEM stuff as possible without sourcing new parts. You'd need new custon fittings. Rewire so that factory controls work for ac. Again, def doable if you want to switch over to all GM stuff.

@@xm3ntal620 Okay, thanks man!

It was a lot of work spread over a lot of time so it was tough to muster up the energy to document lol. I have a Google photos album of most of the stuff.

Summit racing cast manifolds

You have questions I have answers! I'm using a Holley 22-101water pump that places the one neck on the driver's side. I'm using one 16" spal fan right now without a shroud but come spring time I do plan on going with a shroud. I'm also using a ICT 551526-LS01-3 Alternator Bracket with a GM alternator (4 prong connector type) since I was not a big fan of the factory landrover bracket setup. This is much cleaner IMO. There is info on RU-vid on how to get it to charge in swaps. You need to apply 12v switched to the alternator. The new belt size is a Dayco 6PK2330. One additional thing I had to do was weld a limiter tab on the GM tensioner to keep the belt off the neck on the water pump housing. Rover belt tensions still in the same location. Everything else is the same off the top of my head...

Thanks for the response and info Binh. Think maybe I saw that alternator bracket on the 2carpros 5.3 build? Yes agree alternator sat very high up on the Lost Cause build. I’ll have to educate myself on the 12v switched setup. Wasn’t aware that there is a GM tensioner as well. Thought it was just a GM idler pulley used along with the Rover Tensioner. Good for me to know :-). Hope you don’t mind me asking more questions as I go along the build. I’ll try to spread them out so not to be too bothersome ! Great job again you made it look very clean.

Did the Spal fan kit happen to be this one ? Advance Adapters Spal Electric Fan Kits 716670 Electric Fan, Single, 16 in. Diameter, Puller, 2,070 cfm, Black, Plastic, Kit Part Number: ADD-716670

@@aaronlangston4393 the ace kit actually has you ditching the factory tensioner. Ask away as I made this video to help people complete their swaps. Captainaaron on landroverforums.com is also a great technical asset to the community.

@@aaronlangston4393 I used 16" Spal 30102049

Original 2001 transmission.

Thanks. With 4.43 gears and 35" tires it gets combined 14.5 mpg. Cruising rpm at 70 mph is 2750 rpm.

@@xm3ntal620Would it get better MPG with stock gearing and tire sizing? I had an 04 Disco back when they were new, and loved it aside from the endless engine issues. My friend just offered his 03 Disco that’s he’s also had since new to me for only $1,000. It has a blown engine, but everything else is in great condition. It only has 45k on it, so doing one of these swaps makes sense on paper.

@@sarahdell4042 Yes it would. I initially geared it for the stock engine bc it was underpowered but now that it has a lot more power I wish I had maybe 4.10s to reduce the rpm on the highway.

@@xm3ntal620 Are 4:10 the stock gearing size? Pretty confident I could swap it in a weekend with a friend helping do some of the heavy lifting. Would you say the swap was worth the effort?

@@sarahdell4042 factory diff gearing is 3.54. In my eyes it was worth the effort because it easily moves 35" tires, is more reliable, and does not leak oil out of all of its crevices. I would warn that if you don't have significant experience turning wrenches and wiring the swap may be difficult.

This setup uses a gm ECU mended into the factory LR harness.

Hi, I used the factory one.

Thanks. They are 16x8 Method MR 701 Offset 0. Tires are 315/75/16 Geolander MT

I do an entire engine swap on 35s and you only care about my washer bottle? 🤣. All jokes aside Google Washer Reservoir - 1995-2000 Toyota Tacoma - TRQ 8215-02074845

@@xm3ntal620 hahahah I’m doing my LS swap once I sell my drift car so I’ll have LOTS more questions! Hahah love the build man!

@@freerunning9z thanks man. If you have any questions just reply here.

@@xm3ntal620 thanks man! Do you have Instagram?

@@freerunning9z I do but I only really post family related stuff on there. Had an old page with guns, cars, etc but wiped it awhile ago when I went on a social media break. Up in the description I added a link to my build photo album.

Thanks. They are 16x8 Method MR 701 Offset 0. Tires are 315/75/16 Geolander MT

@@xm3ntal620 thanks!

@@CareyKnause love these wheels bc essentially they are the only aftermarket wheels that are hub centric. Most of the steelies are not and vibrate like a mofo at 65.

That's a tough one to answer as I decided not to keep track of it via a spreadsheet, lol. I did a lot of incremental improvements over the base ACE kit. I also did a lot of work to my 5.3 (top end rebuild, cam, oil pump, gears, chain, etc). Lost ranch has a good break down video of costs associated with the swap. If I had to guess it was upwards of 8k all in.

Around 8-10k

That would be amazing but not very cost effective - significantly more work too. That would require some sort of can bus to get your factory gauges to work along with a transferase adapter and custom prop shafts front and rear. Lots to think about...

@@xm3ntal620 Yes, but an amazing result

Sorry. I'm not a very good public speaker and I was trying to do it in one take. Was there anything I said that didn't make sense or that I didn't try to correct?

You can also check my Google photo album in the video description above documenting the build from start to finish 😀

I probably came off a little harsh. Sorry about that. You said “this is a cold start” which is a diesel thing. I have my eye on an a disco sitting in the woods along my work route. I think them things a nice looking vehicles so I’ve been in research mode. I’ll check out your vids!

By cold start I meant that it wasnt previously warmed up. I wanted to show how it started and idled when "cold".

​@@sixstring7855 there's a huge LS swap thread on landroverforums.com

That's false. Ive had zero breakages even with stock axles. It's just how heavy you are on the pedal that will determine breakages. I have Detroit trutracs front and rear. Ive been offroading with it many times. The transmission is fine too.

@@xm3ntal620 then you really are gentle with it. What is the point of such a large engine if you are not using the power it produces?

@@EvertVorster on the street I go WOT with it all the time. It's perfectly fine. Offroad when you go into 4 low there's absolutely no reason to give it more than 30 percent throttle. There's plenty of gear reduction.

@@EvertVorster and to answer your question it's much more reliable, parts are easier to source, and it sounds awesome.

@@EvertVorster the stock engine with 33s+ is dog slow. It actually has passing power now and going up hills is much easier.

*Shameless plug* 😁

I've owned 5-6 discoveries and never had an issue with the stock radiator. It usually sits between 187-195 with a lower temp thermostat. I have no issues currently either. You may want to replace your thermostat, check the viscous function of your mechanical fan, inspect your water pump, and/or properly bleed your cooling system of all air. If none of that works maybe do a leak down test to see if the head gaskets are healthy.

I do but no truck content really. It's mostly family stuff. Check the Google link in the description for pics of the build process 👍