It is a 1.4 Saloon from 2000, and it is a Portuguese version in which, as a farewell to the 400 model, they upholstered some cars which originally had velour seats, with leather, on the dealers. So, these leather seats are different from the factory ones, with poor quality leather (not that smooth leather that was used by Rover on the 400), and, in my opinion, they are uglier.
This one in particular, was found sitting under a tree with the engine somewhere on the boot. Supposedly, it was seized, but JUST with a new gasket, it came back to life (barely
). Other than the engine, the car is so mechanically sound that it would be such a shame for it to go to scrap. So, a big friend of mine saved it, and gave it to me. Here it was when I first saw it:
The bonnet, roof and boot were painted. And I have done some little mods to it (as I will describe in the meanwhile). Now it looks like this:
For the engine... I wasn't very keen on repairing the 1.4. I was searching for a 1.6 or a VVC.
This came up:
It was also pretty much in a sorry state, but it has already been rebuilt.
Now, here comes the hard part... Fitting the engine in the 400. I am planning to keep the PG1 gearbox from the donor car, as there is plenty of space on the 400 for it (and there were 400/45s with a K series and PG1 gearbox).
About the ECU... I did some research on the old forum and, as far as I understood, I have to use the VVC one (as well as the alarm ECU). I read about the conversion loom, but I didn't understood if it was also applied to the MPi engines (such as the one I have on the 400), or just previous versions.
Wouldn't this be solved using the wiring loom from the donor car? If not, what would it need?
Thank you in advance.
