Having almost finished a from scratch build of a 110 that has taken nearly 5 years to complete I have a great respect for the guys who are pioneering these conversions. My truck is a 200tdi with new chassis, new puma body, new wiring etc. The only thing not new is the drive train. I have learned the hard way that there is so much involved in building one of these things even with known components. Now add a new drive train and I have nothing but respect for Doug and the others who are developing this motor to be able to work in the Defender. Doug, Robert, Safari, and all the others are truck builders out there are not component builders. What trickles down from their $100K trucks is great for the community and they will eventually come. Looking at other threads it looks as if a pretty easy conversion is around the corner for the 200tdi and earlier crowd. I think its hard to compare the Jeep and Land Cruiser aftermarket to the Defender aftermarket. With millions of Jeeps available and hundreds of thousands of Cruisers avalaible there is bound to be a robust aftermarket for these vehicles. Now how many Defenders are there really in the US? I'm not sure but guessing somewhere under well under 100000. There is not a lot of incentive to develop parts for the small percentage of those Defender owners who want to do this transplant. If I'm a guy who wants to build parts for these Cummins transplants I'm going to first focus on Jeeps, then on Cruisers, and when I run out of things to do there then maybe the Defenders. Also there is a large group who don't want the 2.8 and instead want an LS in their truck. so that pulls some of the already small market away.
While I like the Cummins and am still considering it for my next build after I sell my 200tdi, there are many ways to skin a cat. Cummins, tuned 300tdi and 200tdi, Roberts strait 6 conversion and Mercedes conversion, TD5, 2.2, 2.4, 3.2 TDCI. Currently I am leaing towards a TDCI for my next build because it is a proven platform that will require little fabrication on my part to make it work and it can be tuned effectively to make the power I want. But I will be building it from the gound up again so I am not constrained by seat box, bulkhead, and transmission tunnel issues. I am personally not frustrated but encouraged by the innovation of these guys. Once they have a product that they can reproduce consistently and start to get caught up with the clients who are willing to pay for their builds services then those products will come to us home builders. Until then they deserve our encouagement and praise for the inovations they are making in a very small, very expensive and very exclusive truck market. The reason we all have defenders is because they are exclusive. If we wanted to drive a Jeep we could have off the shelf products right now for our Cummins transplant. But since we like that exclusivity we need to either be patient, shell out the cash needed to have a build done or turn into the innovators ourselfs.
To Doug and the rest keep up the great work!