Our plans to go to Australia have been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. In addition our plan now is to purchase a vehicle in Australia for that trip rather than shipping the Defender there. So additional mods here are for North American and possibly future African use.

I'm not one to advocate engine mods on an overland vehicle. Usually such mods just end up decreasing reliability and increasing headaches, while temporarily increasing the 'fun' factor. So it was with a great deal of fore-thought that I entered into this latest mod on the 110.

Anyone who has driven a loaded 300tdi D110 will be intimately acquainted with the term 'turbo lag'. The tiny little turbo that LR supplied for the 300 does an adequate job at mid to high rpm, but at low rpm there just isn't anything there. For a fully loaded expedition truck this can mean dropping into low range to get up steep hills or seriously abusing the clutch. Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. A well tuned 300 can certainly move the metal, but it suffers at low rpm.

So enter the M&D Engineering Garrett 22 VNT kit for the 300tdi Defender. It's been mentioned in a thread on Expedition Portal.

This past weekend Keith and I fitted it to the Bitchin' Defender. And what a difference! The turbo does NOT increase power, but it does bring on torque at lower rpm, making the 300 much more drivable. Accelerating away from a stop is now effortless, and requires no clutch slipping even on serious inclines. Fewer gear changes are required when climbing as the engine can now power out of the low rpm doldrums. Can't wipe the fat smile off my face!

So we'll see how the reliability holds up. Since there is no increased power output from the motor, there shouldn't be any introduced issues there. The only issues will most likely come from the fitment and finish of the M&D kit.

And this is a true bolt in kit. Has everything you will need to complete the job in about 4 hours. Everything from intake to exhaust. Very slick.

The kit comes with everything you need	Stock turbo	Intake and exhaust off
Replacement gasket and exhaust manifold	New turbo in place	Final fitment is neat and seems to work a charm

I was expecting a fuel economy increase, but was very impressed with what I got:
Stock turbo MPG = 22.92
New VNT turbo MPG = 26.16