Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Did any T-series engine cars ever have air con? Love my car and love the sunroof but a few recent long journeys could have been more a little cooler.

Presumably be impossible to source the parts if they did ever fit it?

Yes, it was a factory option on the R8 220 and 420 cars, although few buyers specified it, as it was over £1000 at the time. Some cars also had it dealer-fitted (which I assume would not be as integrated as the factory option).

Japanese spec Turbo Coupes (including the 'FDH' cars) had it as standard so if you find one rotting in a field, that would be your best source of parts. I considered doing it a few years ago when scrap R8s could be picked up for pocket money, but decided it wasn''t worth the work involved.

I retrofitted it to my 1998 VVC Coupe - but was helped as I had a donor car. Its easier in terms of finding the bits for the later cars, as more had it. We have some of the bits for later cars in the RCOC shop (new!)

I would not describe it as a hard job myself, just a bit time consuming. make sure you put new seals in the joints.

T-Series AC is a bit different. hardest thing will be finding the bits now. The R8 Receiver/dryer is almost impossible to find, but I have a solution that we will be selling though the RCOC shortly (I just need to write it up and get the bits in stock)

AirCon was an option across much of the R8 range. All tomcats had it as an option from day 1. Looking at couple of late 1993 UK catalogues, and the price lists on the Club's website, you can see that Honda D16 SOHC & DOHC engined cars, T Series engined cars, and all K Series engined cars had it as an option. It's the cheaper lower spec models such as the 214i, and the diesels (with their "L" Series engines?) that don't have it as an option. So in theory any petrol engined R8 could have it retrofitted, even a humble 3 door 214i - it's just a case of finding all the right bits in working order for the model in question.

CoupeFan wrote: ↑Sun Sep 21, 2025 4:03 pm AirCon was an option across much of the R8 range. All tomcats had it as an option from day 1. Looking at couple of late 1993 UK catalogues, and the price lists on the Club's website, you can see that Honda D16 SOHC & DOHC engined cars, T Series engined cars, and all K Series engined cars had it as an option. It's the cheaper lower spec models such as the 214i, and the diesels (with their "L" Series engines?) that don't have it as an option. So in theory any petrol engined R8 could have it retrofitted, even a humble 3 door 214i - it's just a case of finding all the right bits in working order for the model in question.

Diesels were the 1.8 peugeot XUD engine. L series didnt make it out until R3 & HHR (and 600) no R8, even the post 96 ones had an L

rjessett wrote: ↑Sun Sep 21, 2025 5:45 pm

CoupeFan wrote: ↑Sun Sep 21, 2025 4:03 pm AirCon was an option across much of the R8 range. All tomcats had it as an option from day 1. Looking at couple of late 1993 UK catalogues, and the price lists on the Club's website, you can see that Honda D16 SOHC & DOHC engined cars, T Series engined cars, and all K Series engined cars had it as an option. It's the cheaper lower spec models such as the 214i, and the diesels (with their "L" Series engines?) that don't have it as an option. So in theory any petrol engined R8 could have it retrofitted, even a humble 3 door 214i - it's just a case of finding all the right bits in working order for the model in question.

Diesels were the 1.8 peugeot XUD engine. L series didnt make it out until R3 & HHR (and 600) no R8, even the post 96 ones had an L

Many thanks for the correction.

Sorry I posted and then disappeared! This is all really interesting. I’m using my 420 a lot - at least once a month I’m doing 320 miles in a day. Its managing 42mpg typically, and on once gentle run from Cirencester back home I managed 48mpg which blew my mind!

Anyway, for these journeys A/C would be a huge bonus. Sounds as though I’ll be stuck waiting for a rare car to be scrapped to be in luck - and presumably the unknown condition components may not be cheap or viable. I once heard that a non-gassed air con radiator quickly becomes scrap.

The replacement option for the dryer sounds good - I have a very good air con man who likes a challenge but truthfully I worry budget may limit my chances of getting A/C in unless I do it myself. Dashboard and heater matrix out I assume?

The only thing you should not really use after being open to air is the dryer - rad should be fine, but you dont really want dirt to have got in (to anything) as it would not do the compressor any good!

Dont need to remove the dash to fix the evaoprator (at least, not on facelift cars, but I assume earlier R8's wont be much different