engine mods...

[Lord Icon]

2.5 or 200/ 300(t)di?
Please expound on the subject at hand with all your experiences and opinions.

[superstator]

A little googling on the subject will yield a lot of information, but here's my impressions.

The 300tdi earned a reputation for catastrophic failures early on. This was a design flaw since corrected, but it soured a lot of people on the engine. That said, it's the most modern and refined diesel that is both a Land Rover part, and fairly easy to adapt to a Series truck.

The 200tdi is potentially a better choice than the 300tdi for a couple reasons: it's easier to mate to a Series transmission, on paper at least it gets slightly better mileage, and probably most important it's been done a lot more often. That means there's a lot more collective experience out there with the 200 swap. You also have the option of ditching the turbo and doing a "200di", trading some power for babying that creaky old Series drivetrain a little.

The appeal of the 2.5 is that it's simpler all around. Simpler to swap in, simpler to work on, theoretically less to break on the trail. This is just my opinion, but I think a lot of the preference people have for it comes from it being an MOD part for so long - that gives it this mystique of "If it's good enough for the Black Watch, it's good enough for me," coupled with the fact that you could get them as surplus in the UK for cheap for so long. We forget that a lot of British decision making has to do with them being cheap b*stards and so we assume that if the 2.5 (or whatever) is popular over there it's because it's actually superior. That said, if you can actually find a cheap one and it fits your needs, it's an excellent choice.

Personally I went with the 300tdi because I wanted the newest, most refined diesel I could get before they all start becoming unobtainium. I looked really hard at some non-LR engines like the 4BT or the Merc 300TD, but decided I wanted to keep my Land Rover a Land Rover, even if it's got a time-travelling drivetrain.