Hi Guys,

After reading various posts on this forum for a few months, I eventually took the plunge and joined the Range Rover club with a 2003 HSE TD6 which I picked up from a dealer for 5,600 euros with a brand new test. There are no service books or owners manual, but the indicated 117,000 miles seem genuine. I wanted something cheap that I could modify to suit my needs.

I gleaned from reading here, that a weak point on the early L322 is the transmission. As I intend to use the TD6 to tow my horsebox, I decided to try and uprate my transmission to prevent failure. The transmission performs faultlessly as it is, but having read various posts about these, I have come to the conclusion that it is the excessive slippage of the torque converter lock up clutch that causes a lot of problems in the transmission itself, where the particles from the slipping clutch clog up the valve chest and the main body of the GM 5L40E.

So...to beef up my transmission I decided to firstly have my gearbox ecu modified to initiate torque converter lock up by Eduard http://translate.google.com/translate?clie...angpair=de|en&u=http%3A//www.ecotuning-automatic.de/





Next in line is a low stall billet torque converter. I failed to find anyone willing to supply an uprated torque converter for a TD6 in the US or Europe....So I ended up buying in Australia...

http://www.ateconverters.com.au/low-stall.html



A thing of beauty....lol.

So far, I have just fitted the modified ecu....what a great difference that makes to the driveabilty of the BMW M57 motor. I hope to fit the modified torque converter over the next few weeks.

Admin note: this post has had its images recovered from a money grabbing photo hosting site and reinstated  2008 Range Rover TDV8 435,000kms
2015 Range Rover L405 SDV8 Autobiography


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Welcome to the fold, you wont find a better horsebox mule mine has done it effortlessly fir 8 years

welcome and nice colour  All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

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2020 Range Rover Velar

Straight in the deep end! Welcome and please continue to post all of the work you'll be doing. I'm sure lots of us TD6 owners will be interested in your results. Bushy

2003 RR Vogue Monté Carlo Blue

Thank you for the comments guys. Once I have my few modifications completed and my tansmission beefed up, I want to tune the engine. I am familiar with the later M57 motor, and have seen them run nicely at 350 bhp in the twin turbo 535d. However, I would be happy at around 300bhp in the TD6, however most tuners will only give around 220~230bhp...I feel you need more to make these cars come alive

I have tried to contact Jeremey Fearns over the last 4 weeks, but I have not succeeded....is he gone out of business? I want some tuner who knows what he's at and not just a blind remap. I don't mind changing over to 535 nozzles etc... Anyone got ideas?

Cheers; Tony 2008 Range Rover TDV8 435,000kms
2015 Range Rover L405 SDV8 Autobiography


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TD6 with 300 hp  All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

2023 FFRR L460
2020 Range Rover Velar

TD6 =300Hp=


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sounds like you know your mechanical stuff, welcome..  ... - .- -.




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For starters welcome along. Like Stan says it sounds like you know your s**t! I'd be especially interested in seeing your progress with the beefed up box.

Been driving around the place today just to monitor the difference with the modified gearbox ecu and boy does it improve the car no end. You have full control of the vehicle and it is easier to keep it in its sweet spot and drive it like a manual. No longer does it rev its t*ts off needlessly and pump precious fuel out the exhaust pipe.

One glaring design fault immediately becomes obvious though. There is a huge ratio step between 3rd & 4th gears. This is not so obvious in the factory stock set up where the torque is continuously slipping to try and camouflage this to a certain degree, but it becomes glaringly obvious when you have torque converter lock up from 50km/hr. Where the engine is spinning busily at 3,000 rpms in 3rd and you shift up to 4th...it drops to 2,000 rpms....and very little happens power wise as the engine is asleep at these rpms. This was a huge design flaw....it's no wonder these cars eat torque converters for breakfast and took the GM 5l40e transmission with it. 2008 Range Rover TDV8 435,000kms
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Riverstick, would you recommend the Gearbox ecu remap? Will it help stave off TC failure?

Hi Paul 271,

Yes definitely....the 3.0 litre BMW M57 motor is already working very hard to propel a full body Range Rover....torque converter slippage only makes its job harder.

Besides, as your torque converter slips from 0-50mph, big heat temperatures are generated in the transmission oil....oil is not very effective when it overheats/boils.....and that is a good recipe for component wear and premature failure.

It wasn't until I experienced the modified ecu with the earlier torque lock up that I quickly realized why the standard set up fails so frequently.

One thing I notice while driving in manual mode, is when changing up on full power(over 30mph on full torque lock up), it is no harm to blip the throttle momentarily on the up shift...as you would do with a manual gearbox. This breaks the torque application from the engine through the driveline and gives a nicer shift.

I paid 270 euros to Eduard as I got a loaner ecu...money well spent in my humble opinion

Tony 2008 Range Rover TDV8 435,000kms
2015 Range Rover L405 SDV8 Autobiography


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It certainly sounds money well spent. The gearbox is the scariest part of owning my Range Rover so anything I can do to help preserve it sounds good!

Looking good!

What torque convertor options did you ask for or do they just do one off the shelf for the td6?

Have you thought about the sonax(?) valve body unit for the box when your doing the torque convertor as I guess your dropping the box to do it or you hoping to get enough room by splitting it in the car? FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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Hi King,


http://www.roadblaster.com.au/pages/RANGE%...L40-E.html

Here is the listing specific to the TD6. As you can see from the link, it is really the breaking up of the torque where the problems begin, and these guy seem to have addressed that problem. I rang several transmission specialists all over Ireland, the UK & Europe, but no one wanted to supply an uprated torque converter....so I ended up buying from these guys. I hope to have it fitted in the next few weeks and I will keep you posted on progress. I specified a low stall 1500rpm torque when ordering

I figured that an uprated torque converter with the modified ecu controller should give me a bulletproof driveline....time will tell.

Even though my own transmission seems fine as we speak, I will have it overhauled and uprated by a transmission specialist here in Co.Wexford http://www.wexfordtransmission.ie/. He will beef up my GM 5L40E for me.

I hope at that stage I can uprate my M57 motor to near 300bhp or more, as most tuners are reticent to go much more than 220bhp as the transmission was always a limiting factor. I would also like 650nm or more of torque. Then I can put manners on a few Toyotas around here  2008 Range Rover TDV8 435,000kms
2015 Range Rover L405 SDV8 Autobiography


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Last edited by Riverstick on 8th Apr 2014 5:32am. Edited 1 time in total