Marcus Chu's Leyland P76

Here's a picture of the Leyland owned by Marcus Chu,
on a typical Australian road *chuckle*.
Actually Marcus is testing the newly repaired limited slip diff in the car

Marcus Chu in Australia have a collection of six Leyland P76. 4 with the V8-engine and 2 sixcylinders. 2 of the cars are Targa Florios and 4 are "ordinary" P76.
Here's his own story about the overhaul of one of the V8's:

I have done a fair bit to the motor in my P76... the old sleeves were knocked out and the block bored out in 3 steps then new steel sleeves were pressed in and these were then bored twice to give a diameter of 3.685" (from 3.5") which brings it out to 4.9L... The block had 40 boring operations in total!!!
I am running holden 6 cyl (186ci+40) flat top pistons chrome top rings, Range Rover 3.9L tin head gaskets, stainless steel holden XU1 valves (bigger valves, but using the original valve seat reamed out so that the valves seal further up and further out on the seat) This compensates for the slightly longer valve too!

Rover double row timing chain, enlarged oilway from the oil pump deep into the block (1/2" I think) The whole show is balanced and I am running a higher pressure Valiant pressure plate, Leyland 6cyl flywheel (looks like a frisbee c.w. the V8 one but seems not to stall easily) which bolts straight on. Rover 4 barrel (Holley squarebore pattern) manifold from New Zealand. This I believe is the single biggest improvement you can make.
When you look across the motor with the carby off you can see valves!!! There is now another 4 barrel (also single plane) manifold available in Australia which does not require the spacer plates for the heads as the P76 has a wider 'V' than the Rover and also has the Thermostat housing casting integral as opposed to the cast-seperate one I have on the NZ manifold that requires two short pieces of hose.

I have adapted a local Valiant V8 Lucas electronic ignition to my car as I have found out that the Leyland and Valiant V8 distributors are identical in the top halve (i.e. transfer top half of Valiant distributor to Leyland housing and wire up...) Only the non-ELB and Lucas valiant V8 dizzys are suitable). I use a 600CFM Holley Vacuum secondary carbie and a nice set of extractors...

I have personally done a 14.78sec quarter mile pass... but this engine in a car that weighs a total of 1256kgs should do a flat 14 sec pass with an experienced driver... It was my first (and only) pass down a proper drag strip!!! and using some old baldy rear wheels. I have spent around $3500 on the motor I estimate...
But I have never lost a street race yet... Sure there are some small cars with big V8s and numerically high diff gearing that would beat me but my combination of this motor with a 4speed manual and 2.92 LSD still returns 24MPG on the highway (not much around town tho!)
The guy who helped me to rebuild the engine has estimated it to give about 300 to 310 hp or 220 to 230 kw. It runs reliably and has the flattest torque curve of any car I have driven. (Home graphed distributor advance.) It pulls hard all the way from 1500RPM to about 6000RPM.

Engine gaskets were sourced from the Leyland club and there are a few tricky top locate parts such as rear main bearing side seals and rear crankshaft neoprene seal... but there is a place in Brisbane caller M&R Automotive who can supply these... most engine shops can source the usual bits...

I chose to spend 3500 on the motor and just 1500 on body work... but thats what I prefer...
I know too many cars that look like magic but just don't go...


Marcus Chu