Talking to Charlie Broomfield about his 27-litre V12 Meteor-engined Rover SD1 (part 1) 

I never thought I'd be entertained by someone talking about gear ratios, but he's really figured out how to make it work with that massive engine and I'm impressed.

Me too

Agreed.

Definitely, if you see this Mr Holman; PPC RU-vid channel? The £999 challenge and people's home builds would be great.

@@cheharrison7107 Has Kev not got a you tube channel, or blog, website etc now?

@@bigfra79 hmm, not that I can find. If anybody's got any links, that'd be great. Edit: PPC has a YT channel, just hasn't been touched in 8 years 😞

Leyland Leopard bus IIRC

If it's the one I'm thinking of mate, she's not flying it any more........very sad.

@@daveh1081 oh no! I hadn't heard the terribly bad news. That is definitely her as the family name was Grace, how heartbreaking for Rich as his father died before. Thank you for letting me know.

@@davekennedy6315 That's the one mate. So very sad........and history repeating itself. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

@@daveh1081 I just contacted my little brother as Rich is his friend but he HAD already heard. Rich was in the car with his mother when the accident occurred and he's only just got out of hospital. Poor guy. RIP Carolyn Grace.

@@daveh1081 no thank you so much. My brother might not have heard and is always there for his friends.

People must be in a hurry to get buried

Sounds kinda boring to me

@@olatron sounds realistic though. A plodding, very low revving, ridiculous 27ltr capacity, massively heavy, plane/tank V12 engine that was designed 80+years ago is gonna be a really terrible choice for making an SD1 go over 200mph. The fact that so much engineering has gone into just squeezing such a huge engine means its not an SD1 anymore. The work its gonna take to completely change this engines designed in characteristics is crazy. For top speed you need higher revs and that is the complete opposite of what this V12 was built for. This engine makes an old diesel engine look like a high revving F1 engine.

You're right, a crate LS would be the easy answer, but I think Charlie's love lies with the old engineering of the wartime V12, not with the Rover SD1 - I think that was just a handy (and cheap) box that could be made to take a Meteor. If he just wanted to do 200mph in an SD1 then he could probably have tweaked the old Rover V8 unit up enough for that (with some long-legged gearing), but anyone could do that. To do it with something as bonkers as an old tank engine is far more of an achievement and shows a level of British eccentricity that really appeals to me...

@@thehotrodgazette the Rover V8 never puts out much power, its heads are horrendously restrictive. Just look at how TVR used to lie about power figures, it is tough to get much over 200bhp (even though TVR was insisting their 5.0ltr put out 350bhp the real figure wasn't much over 200bhp!) Maybe if you fitted Wildcat heads (they actually allow the RV8 to breathe) and forced induction? But this ancient V12 is only putting out respectable power due to its collosal size. Per litre its only (at best, the 650bhp version) 24bhp, that is laughably feeble and you might be doing less than a mile per gallon? All seems pointless. You couldn't pick a more useless engine for the job? They were probably great (at the time at least) for planes and tanks but that's about it. Loadsa torque and nothing else? It's gonna take insane amounts of money to completely retune this and could very well be impossible? There are plenty of better, smaller and way, way lighter V12S that would put out way, way more usable power and that 200mph would be achievable (Lister got big power out the Jag V12 NA and with the addition of twin superchargers) You would also have a car that you could take to shows without needing a petrol tanker following you, especially considering the present crisis.

@@davekennedy6315 The thing is Dave, I do actually agree with everything you say! But like the previous poster says, it's not about the car - it's all about the engine, the car around it is almost an afterthought or an accessory - the engine is the star of the show, and the obsession! Swap it out for an LS and it becomes just another custom car - pretty cool but nothing to write home about.