1993 Land Rover Defender with a LS3

East Coast Rover is a company located in Rockland, Maine specializing in NAS (North American Specification) Land Rover Defender repair, restoration, and custom work. One option they offer is upgrading the Defender engine to something with a lot more power.

This 1993 Land Rover NAS Defender came in for a complete body-off restoration and upgrades. Every piece of the body was gone over to make for a new green paint job. Some body pieces such as the bulkhead and doors were replaced with new galvanized metal. Areas that might suffer rocks chips or heavy use such as floors were covered in Rhino Liner. No modifications were needed on the chassis.

The engine choice was a 6.2 L LS3 crate engine which produces 430 horsepower. The engine was wired using a Speartech harness. This allowed plug-and-play connection with the 6L80E six-speed automatic transmission. The transmission was setup with a manual shift mode that is controlled via a button the shifter. A billet adapter was used to connect the transmission to the factory LT230 transfer case.

Thanks to ECR’s talent and the choice to go with a LSx engine, one lucky customer is getting a beautiful Defender that is “more reliable, more powerful, more efficient, easier to service, cheaper in the long run and a whole lot of fun to drive.”

Source: East Coast Rover Co. FB page via ESD reader Mike