In the early 1980s TVR approached Andy Rouse with a view to using his race-developed variant of the V8 in their Rover-powered TVR 350i 'wedge'; Rouse had successfully campaigned a Rover SD1 with a modified V8 on the track. For a number of reasons (primarily cost) Rouse's version was not used, but the concept was passed to alternative engineering firms which resulted in a rare variant of the 3.9. This unit has cylinder bores (instead of Rover's own that was introduced some years later) and thus has a capacity of . Flat-topped pistons and high-lift camshaft gave a compression ratio of 10.5:1. TVR claimed 275 bhp as the output and whilst this is generally disregarded by aficionados, a healthy engine will produce in excess of 240 bhp. Once a reproducible specification had been determined, the bulk of engine production was undertaken by North Coventry Kawasaki (NCK), which company was subsequently purchased by TVR to become their in-house engine division known as TVR Power.