R500 engine costs

[Out Run]

Blown my engine

Does anyone have experience of what a full rebuild should cost for a K-series? I currently have a quote from Minister, but nothing to compare it against (not that I have any reason to doubt it is a good quote...!?)

Plus the inevitable question: does anyone have experience of what dropping a new Duratec engine does to the performance characteristics........and the cost?

Plus any other bright ideas wlecomed....

Geez, it's been an expensive day.

[Murph7355]

Bad luck out run...I guess it didn't make the 22k Do you know what went?

Cost will depend what's gone on the engine...drop rubystone a PM as I'm pretty sure he had his done not so long ago (5k rings bells for some reason).

Duratec conversion would need a reskin (at least on one side) to do it nicely. And as you own an SLR, I reckon you'll ruin the value of it by dropping anything other than an R500 unit in there...I'm also not convinced it would be cheaper overall.

Might be worth getting Minister to tell you what their quote includes, then get alternative quotes (try DVAPower/oilyhands).

[taffyracer]

i'm looking at a duratec now, 5k is min of what it's going to cost all done but that'll be 190 standard

[zippy500]

Sorry to thread pinch here, but which versions of the K need a regular refresh. Currently looking at 1.8 Superlights/Roadsports and am not keen on having to fork out dosh like that on a regular basis. I understand the R300 and upwards are very high performance hence why its needed. But in theory I'd rather not have an engine that requires it as I'm not keen on rebuilds every few years.

Cheers

[casbar]

R500 engines are the only ones that need regular refreshes. Of course it really depends on how the engine has been treated. My R300 engine has done some 15k and at least 6 trackdays a year, and is still very strong.

Also check whether the car has done trackdays, if it has, then as a minimum it needs an Appolo tank fitted, but better is a dry sump.

[rubystone]

zippy500 said:

Sorry to thread pinch here, but which versions of the K need a regular refresh. Currently looking at 1.8 Superlights/Roadsports and am not keen on having to fork out dosh like that on a regular basis. I understand the R300 and upwards are very high performance hence why its needed. But in theory I'd rather not have an engine that requires it as I'm not keen on rebuilds every few years.

Cheers

The SL and R300s, I would argue, are not in massive states of tune and as sch shouldn't require a refresh for a long time. My Supersport (same engine as SL) covered well over 40,000 miles before requiring anything beyond routine maintenance (I understand that finally the head gsaket gave out).

Even SLRs don't require regular refreshes - plenty about with more than 17,000 miles on the clock running just fine too...an R500 sold recently with about 20k on the clock - that engine hadn't been touched (car hadn't done any track work though)

[bikemonster]

Out Run

Your profile says your car is R500 chassis No. 1.

I would have thought that that little fact would make it worthwhile keeping the car "correct" 'cause it should have some sort of special value. If not now then at some stage in the future.

I know that Sevens tend to get molested more than most other cars, so notions of standard spec are somewhat fuzzy, but even so, I would expect the first car of a line to carry some cachet which would be lost if you dropped in a different flavour of engine.

James

[CanAm]

zippy500 said:

Sorry to thread pinch here, but which versions of the K need a regular refresh. Currently looking at 1.8 Superlights/Roadsports and am not keen on having to fork out dosh like that on a regular basis. I understand the R300 and upwards are very high performance hence why its needed. But in theory I'd rather not have an engine that requires it as I'm not keen on rebuilds every few years.

Cheers

Zippy,
If you have a look on the Lotus 7 Club website, you'll see some Roadsports/Supersports have done over 100,000.

[Out Run]

Murph7355 said:

Bad luck out run...I guess it didn't make the 22k Do you know what went?

Cost will depend what's gone on the engine...drop rubystone a PM as I'm pretty sure he had his done not so long ago (5k rings bells for some reason).

Duratec conversion would need a reskin (at least on one side) to do it nicely. And as you own an SLR, I reckon you'll ruin the value of it by dropping anything other than an R500 unit in there...I'm also not convinced it would be cheaper overall.

Might be worth getting Minister to tell you what their quote includes, then get alternative quotes (try DVAPower/oilyhands).

Murph, I was hoping no one would remember my earlier thread - embarassed does not cover it. If you remember, I was going to get it refreshed after Le Mans. Engine blew 10 miles out of Calais on the way back. Close, but no cigar.

Quote I have received is £8,600 + VAT. It is very comprehensive list. Items saved are Flywheel, Dry sump system, rollerbarrels (needs updating), cam cover, ECU, various brackets, covers, pullies etc.

Quote for doing all the necessary on a Duratec 250 engine was 10k for the engine, plus £2.5k for other stuff and another £1.5k for fitting.........plus VAT.

As mentioned by others, combined with the cost, the K series looks like the right choice. Just painful.......

[rubystone]

Out Run said:

Quote I have received is £8,600 + VAT. It is very comprehensive list. Items saved are Flywheel, Dry sump system, rollerbarrels (needs updating), cam cover, ECU, various brackets, covers, pullies etc.

Quote for doing all the necessary on a Duratec 250 engine was 10k for the engine, plus £2.5k for other stuff and another £1.5k for fitting.........plus VAT.

As mentioned by others, combined with the cost, the K series looks like the right choice. Just painful.......

I looked at Duratecing my R500. I bought it in bits with the engine requiring a rebuild. Costs to do this were as you have found and in the end, the chance to own a pukka R500 was the deciding factor.

I did wonder whether I could get away with a refresh. Once Stewart at Minister undid a filter and washed out the chunks of metal, there was no chance of that.

I ended up with new head (supplied by me - the original had been badly skimmed before), pistons, liners, rods, valves, springs, followers etc, clutch, they managed to polish the crank. They also upgraded the lower pulley to the large one (which you'll need if your car was built around the same time as mine - mine is number 5).

IIRC the bill was about £7k plus VAT - I do recall that head work was £1,000 or so which should only be necessary for anyone with a new head, like mine...I can look out the bill for you this weekend.

I know that Peter T has had his R500 engine rebuilt by someone else and Mark Durrant may also have gone the alternative route - best PM Peter T through here or Blatchat for an idea of his costs.

What damage did you do to the engine?

[Out Run]

[quote=rubystone
What damage did you do to the engine?
[/quote]

Alot, judging by what was saved

[dsl2]

Speak to DVA (Dave Andrews)when he's back from his hols in a week or two. I have just installed an all steel 1.9K that he built for me, made 257.2bhp & 178ftlb last night on the dyno.

Edited by dsl2 on Friday 31st August 17:18

[martin whitcher]

Speak to DVA, or send him an email as hes on hols until mid sep (he should reply to an email) Peter T's was worked upon by Dave, so was mine.

mine in 250bhp 181 lb/ft
he now has lots with 250+bhp

[Murph7355]

Out Run said:

...embarassed does not cover it. ...

Don't be. I feel for you mukka!

And anyway, it still says heaps about the stated refresh requirements of R500s that your car went so far. Testing to destruction is the only way to know for sure

You must keep the K in the car I reckon. If you want a Duratec, get yours repaired properly then sell it as R500 #1 and buy a Duratec. But none of these have done many serious miles yet AFAIK...

As others have said, you must also call DVA. No one knows the K series like Dave. Top fella. But tell him to keep the spec the same to preserve originality (perhaps with a bit of porting to make the right amount of power).

[Hunttheshunt]

bikemonster said:

I would have thought that that little fact would make it worthwhile keeping the car "correct" 'cause it should have some sort of special value. If not now then at some stage in the future.

So would this also be the case with an upgrade to Evo spec, assuming this can still be done. I've seen it mentioned on the Minister website but not too sure what it entails. Any ideas?

[Murph7355]

Hunttheshunt said:

So would this also be the case with an upgrade to Evo spec, assuming this can still be done. I've seen it mentioned on the Minister website but not too sure what it entails. Any ideas?

Think it's different cams and some head work, but could be wrong.

Again, I reckon DVA would be able to give info.

[dino ferrana]

Evo spec is the 2 litre engine. Absolute beast with this in, so much torque, but doesn't sound quite as good. Very very fast and still the top of the tree for road cars on the Evo fastest lap.

R101 was the ultimate 1.8 spec from Minister, that was different cams and a couple of other bits I think.

[Miraz]

I have an R500 spec engine that has just been refreshed that will be up for sale in the next couple of weeks for an awful lot less than your estimates.

Drop me a mail if you are interested...

[1st_petrolhead]

Miraz, who refreshed the engine and what exactly was done?

What sort of price?

[The Pits]

I have an R101 in my 7. Anyone who thinks the refreshes aren't worth it needs to drive one first. It's an astonishing experience to feel a 1.8 produce that much go. The transformation over a lap from standard superlight R (or R400 for the youngsters out there!) is hard to imagine. The R101 has quite a lot of work done beyond the R500 spec. It has a distributor-less ignition system, different cams and pistons and bespoke head work.

For the record the very early R500 press cars had a higher spec engine than the later customer cars. They revved higher and harder. The R101 basically gives you what those cars had. I think the wick was turned down slightly on the R500s in order to make them a bit longer lasting.

I also need some work done at ministers but I got four years of scintillating trackdays out of it and I really enjoyed using such an exotic, proper race engine. The engine alone added a lot to my trackdays, not to mention the confused look on R500 owners faces in the paddock afterwards.

I won't say here but the cost of my rebuild is much lower than your 8k quote. I can only assume that your engine let go in a massive way. I've got quite a lot of work to do but as mentioned the quote is much lower. I was told a 'refresh' can be anywhere between 3 and 5 grand which I think is about right. Ministers are nothing but thorough and will change virtually everything for that.

As for all the other power claims I know for a fact it's very, very hard to get more than a genuine 250 bhp out of a K-series (without restorting to grenade spec). I also know that it's very easy to make a dyno read over 250 if it helps an engine builder get more customers, which it does.

For k series tuning I wouldn't go anywhere other than Ministers but each to their own.