Emotion Over Logic - The AdvRovr Range Rover Sport Build Thread

[AdvRovr]

Also titled: Let's Not Be Practical
Or: Squeezing a family of 5 plus a dog into a Sport for off-road travel

Truthfully, all of us who own Land Rovers - or ANY British vehicle - have a small part of us that knows we're choosing the more expensive, more complex, more challenging, and less reliable way. But, we are willing to push that aside for the passion we have for these vehicles and the adventure that lies ahead. THAT is what this build is about.

I've owned a few P38's that were my wife's dailies many years ago, toyed with a few Disco I's, owned a Classic that I wheeled for a short time and still regret selling, and currently own a VERY built P38. I'm moving away from the rock crawling and more towards family adventures, and decided it was time for a new steed.

The LR3 has space, has aftermarket support, and meets my needs perfectly.

But I just...didn't....LOVE it.

Enter the Range Rover Sport. Compared to my list of needs, it's inferior to the LR3 in almost every way. But the heart wants what it wants, or something like that, so I bought one.

This thread will be about the winding path to building and traveling with the Sport, and the pitfalls that come along the way.

Follow along here and on Instagram @AdvRovr.

Heeere weeee goooooooo!



Entry 001: The Vehicle
2009 Range Rover Sport
Stornoway Grey over Ivory/Ebony interior
111k miles when purchased






The Build Plan:

So, the build list I've planned so far is:

• 18" 5-Spoke LR3 wheels
• 267/70/18 Cooper Discoverer AT3 tires (32.6" dia)
• Lucky8 2.5" lift kit with spacers
• Voyager roof rack
• Voyager rock sliders
• Voyager hidden winch kit
• TBD Winch
• LR snorkel
• LR pet barriers
• LR lamp guards
• Custom armor for front/rear bumper protection
• Custom rear tire swingout
• Ladder - TBD if I'll integrate into the swingout like Slee Land Cruiser bumpers, or if I'll go with the LR genuine ladder
• Overland Pros foxwing awning
• Roadshower 4
• Hella front aux lights
• Generic Amazon-sourced LED side/rear lights
• OTRATTW switches...need to figure out where to mount these - although some sort of Raspberry Pi integration into the factory touchscreen would be lots of fun
• Various bumper trimming and such to accommodate offroad clearance
• Rubber mats everywhere
• Other fun stuff as we go along

The idea is to start buying this stuff as soon as the P38 sells. At this point, it still remains to be seen just how quickly the Turtle of Rover Repair Progress decides to let me build this out, but the hope is that this build is mostly finished by the end of the year.

 

[AdvRovr]

I'm catching up a bit here to what I had started on my local club forum (shout out to NorCal Rovers!)

ENTRY 002: Tires and Surprises

First thing on the agenda is sorting a low battery. It seems to start OK, although it cranks over quite slowly, but I've gotten the cornucopia of every error message a few times after letting it sit for a while. I was gone for a 4 day trip and checked the battery when I got back and it read 10.24v after sitting 4 days. Somehow, it still started, which surprised me. (Update, was indeed a bad cell - shiny new battery in there now)

I also bought a full set of genuine LR waterproof seat covers off Craigslist to pop on before trips.

And, my tires arrived! Have a used matching spare that I'm picking up as well to save a few pennies.

Re: the tires, I should note that Cooper makes the Discoverer AT3 in both P and LT sizes. For anyone else looking into these, make sure you get the LT rated tires for these heavy beasts.

(Update - I'm beginning to think these might be a tad bit big. I may dial back to 275/65/18 which is a 32" instead of the 32.6".)

 

[AdvRovr]

ENTRY 003: The Waiting Game...

I've managed to hunt down the tow hitch attachment locally from Craigslist, which was a pain and way too complex and expensive for what it is. Also ordered the trailer wiring from Atlantic British and I'll have to get around to installing that at some point.

I also ordered the GAP tool from Lucky8, along with their Proud Rhino 2.5" lift/spacer kit. They were awesome and overnighted the GAP tool to me, but now I need that lift to arrive...
I hunted down 18" 5-spokes from Abran (CARRS 4x4) in SoCal and picked them up on the way back home from my Baja shakedown run, and he also replaced the battery in my spare remote (thanks!)
And, I've made some customizations to the Voyager roof rack, sliders, and winch mount, so hopefully those don't take too long too build.

The waiting is killing me.

 

[AdvRovr]

ENTRY 004: Baja Shakedown Run

What's the best way to find out if a new-to-you, 100k+ mile, British vehicle not known for reliability needs some work?

Take it on a 1200+mile trip to another country, of course! :jumping::sombrero:

We headed down to Ensenada and spent some time looking around, eating great food, tasting great wine, and relaxing. The Sport did great and didn't give us any trouble. We did, unfortunately, have a local back into us and scratch the bumper, quarter panel, and crack the taillight. Bummer, but not a huge deal.

 

[Cobra_R]

Pictures don't work for me but maybe it's an issue on my side?

 

[MLu]

Pictures don't work for me but maybe it's an issue on my side?

Same

 

[johnnydal]

Same

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[AdvRovr]

Hmm...l'll re-upload them a bit later today. Thanks.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk


EDIT: I've updated the pics directly using the attachment option. Hopefully that fixes it for everyone.

 

[zelatore]

Until I see it in person I'm calling photoshop.....

:sombrero:

 

[keeper1616]

[*]OTRATTW switches...need to figure out where to mount these - although some sort of Raspberry Pi integration into the factory touchscreen would be lots of fun

I'm suddenly interested, and my Google-**** is failing me for resources. What are you planning?

 

[AdvRovr]

I'm suddenly interested, and my Google-**** is failing me for resources. What are you planning?

I'm not a dev so this is all still very early thinking and may be more difficult than I can tackle, but, here's a rough outline:

• GVIF Converter supports multiple switchable video inputs to the touchscreen, with a button somewhere to allow switching
• Split cable for touch screen inputs to feed to secondary touch panel controller with USB out to the Pi so it understands the touch inputs
• Pi to control relay board via GPIO as described here: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.c...ed-lights-with-raspberry-pi-b-and-touchscreen
• BT on Pi to allow control from phone as well (possible future addon)
• A cool future goal would be to copy the homescreen UI of the car nav onto the Pi, and have the Pi be the primary platform. If the Off-road mode or Settings button was clicked, have it auto-switch to the OEM system input. This would require all input to run through the Pi, though, and not the GVIF, as you'd need a persistent overlay to get back to the Pi home screen and not the OEM home screen, so it would take someone with a lot of time and knowledge.
• Getting really crazy and beyond my knowledge, would be fun to find a way to have options on the Nav button to display either the factory nav, Google Maps, or GAIA offroad maps from an Android device. But I think that's probably a pipe dream.

If you (or anyone else) are good with coding these things and want to work together on a project, let me know and we could put together a plan.

 

[454]

It would be cool to have google maps and traffic on the nav screen.

 

[keeper1616]

[*]Split cable for touch screen inputs to feed to secondary touch panel controller with USB out to the Pi so it understands the touch inputs
If you (or anyone else) are good with coding these things and want to work together on a project, let me know and we could put together a plan.

GVIF was the piece I was missing - looks quite simple now that I know it exists...

I'm not having a lot of luck with finding how the touchscreen operates - there are a few different standards out there, if we could nail down which one is used by the factory touchscreen, this could be as simple as a wiring hardness, then everything else is just software. Replacing various OEM screens with custom screens is probably a pipe-dream since that would involve either trigging an output, or modifying the OEM code in the Nav system to switch and launch an external program. But, there's nothing keeping us from duplicating those screens on a pi and then just manually switching sources...

I'll starting thinking about this and researching the touchscreen.

 

[AdvRovr]

ENTRY 005: Giving Up

Well, just giving up on pushing the tire size envelope.

Spent some time with Zelatore test fitting my 32.6" and discovered that, while doable, I'm pretty sure I'll have more rubbing than I'd like. I have up and shipped them back today, and ordered the AT3s in 275/65/18. Hoping to have them installed before the weekend.

But, we did spend some time cutting the frame horns out and welding in some end caps. And by we, I mostly mean Zelatore. Also, we pulled the rear fender liners and hammered in the body seam that hides behind the plastic like a razor blade for the tire.

The Lucky8/Proud Rhino lift kit was.... disappointing. The spacers arrived badly beaten up, so we had to paint them over the bare metal spots. Lucky8 was willing to replace them, but that's a hassle and I was impatient. Definitely should've been packed much better. The real clencher was the limit strap: I was told a new bracket to hold it in place was developed and would come with the kit. Fivespddisco has mentioned it on here as well. But, it didn't, and there's no way to mount without wheel rubbing.

More importantly, the front upper control arm is a different design and simply doesn't have anywhere to mount the strap. I'm waiting for a return call with some ideas, but considering that they've done upgrades on their Sport I'm disappear they didn't mention this in the product page. See the different control arm design - the hood over the link mount prevents the bracket from going on there.

I installed the Proud Rhino lift rods, which generally went well and did their job. At that point I was rather annoyed with Lucky8 and was really getting nit-picky, but the stock height rods have a thick washer to fit solidly on the mounts. The Proud Rhino ones are much narrower and slide back and forth. Is it a problem? Who knows... But it seems a little chintzy.


I did luck out and score a genuine LR pet barrier for a good price on Craigslist with with all the mounting hardware. That was on my list to buy from the dealer, but keeping a few hundred in my pocket is a nice treat.

Test fitting the AdvPup

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[Erik@Lucky8]

We apologize for the inconvenience. The locking tabs were originally sold separately as some people did not want them. We have now upped the price of the kit and just include them now to prevent issues in the future. As for the straps on the front of the sport, you are absolutely correct that they do not fit. When you ordered this kit in August, we hadn't fit it to our own RRS at that point to find out the issue. We are working on developing a different strap for that and will have it sent out when we get it.