4.5 litre.
Fully balanced, tuftrided crankshaft, crossbolted block. Max. 7000RPM, but above 6500 is largely a waste of time! End-to-end balanced shot-peened Vitesse con-rods. Range Rover later style front cover with oil pump on the crankshaft nose - essential for a high-revving engine, as there is no force on the distributor drive from the oil pump. Oil pressure is also much more stable - continuous 40PSI regardless of conditions, except falling to about 20PSI on hot idle.

Piper (UK cam people) "285 Magnum" race/rally cam. Very tractable - useable power (206 lbs.ft. torque!) at 1000RPM. Piper vernier adjustable double roller chain cam gear. Hydraulic hi-rev lifters.

Formerly standard, but in steel rather than alloy. Later we went on to fit a set of "Yella Terra" roller rockers, ostensibly to make adjustment of the hydraulic follower preload easier, but really probably just for street-cred effect!

Fully ported and gasflowed by Roy Burrell, then of J.E.Engineering Ltd, Coventry UK. (Excellent place for engine mods!) Very large valves. (We'd really like to have done it ourselves, but Roy is so much quicker and better!)

Twin-throttle UK Vitesse (as fitted to the last 200 or so cars) but with modified throttles (our design) and centre-operated cable setup (J.E.'s design). Large (45mm) intake trumpets in plenum. Intake manifold opened and gasflowed to suit (by Franc, under Roy's critical - and sarcastic ;>) - gaze). ITG (UK filter specialists) foam intake filter.

Fuel rail, injectors, wiring harness, ECU from a 1991 UK Range Rover. This gives a 0.5 inch dia. fuel rail, much bigger than the standard Vitesse one, and less prone to fuel vaporisation problems. Fuel pressure increased to 50PSI (~3.5 bar) to cope with extra demand through standard RR injectors. ECU is modified in-house to include an ignition timing control circuit (designed by us), and runs in-house software control strategy. No airflow meter is used as the system relies on throttle position and engine speed for its main parameters. The system also uses Lambda sensor feedback (but not cats) to keep control of the fuelling and emissions. Emissions, while not quite up to the required standards for a new car, are far superior to those of the original vehicle, and so well within UK legal requirements, and the demands of our conscience!

Large-bore stainless exhaust system - 2.75" (70mm) with a 3" (76mm) tailpipe for extra street cred ;>)

Torque:

206 lbs.ft. (279 NM) at 1000RPM. (Somewhere near the maximum
for a standard Vitesse! )
314 lbs.ft. (426 NM) at 4500RPM. (Max. torque)

308 BHP (258 kW) at 5500RPM

Formerly Jaguar XJ12 front discs/calipers, which were then replaced with Alcon racing calipers and XJ40 290 x 28mm discs. These are the absolute maximum size which will fit under the standard Vitesse wheels, in keeping with the philosophy of keeping the car "understated".

Rover 800 rear discs, calipers and handbrake cables.
 

Lowered (1") Vitesse suspension, Gas Spax rear/ Koni front shocks (adjustable).
Rear anti-roll bar, nylon/standard rubber bushes in a combination we found best
for quiet, comfort and handling.   Transmission:

ZF 4HP24 4-speed electronic autobox, with our own control system giving autochange or sequential button shift depending on driver's mood. The 0-60 was in fact 5.7 sec. with a manual box before this was fitted, but we had not properly matched the torque converter to the engine. Had we done so we may have got that little bit back!

  Other Mods:

We carried out various other modifications to the car, notably the Speedometer Correction Unit, which served to consolidate all the various speed signal specifications to and from the other non-standard electronic devices on the car, and also allowed calibration of the speedometer fairly accurately, and that calibration could be varied with transmission ratio changes by simply replacing a chip. There were also minor variations to the dash instrumentation, because we found the original instruments inadequate.

Performance:

0-60 MPH:     6.5 sec
1/4 Mile:         13.8 sec, 105MPH terminal. (Manual gearbox - never got to try the auto...)
Top Speed:    167 MPH

(Theoretical, based on calculations accounting for drag factor, gearing and power curve. We have never found anywhere to do more than 145MPH, but it was still accelerating! This is more than twice the public road speed limit in the UK, so locations for testing are a bit few and far between, to say nothing of expensive!)