A tale of K series woe
Discussion
MoelyCrio said:
btw, never seen a dyno that clamps to the hubs like that!
http://www.dynapack.com/Suppose it is a good deal cheaper to have this kind of setup compared to a classic rolling road?
Kolbenkopp said:
http://www.dynapack.com/
Suppose it is a good deal cheaper to have this kind of setup compared to a classic rolling road?
Yep, last dyno we used was the same. No damage or wear to the tyres, don't even have to strap the car down. Much safer, smoother and efficient to use. No "tyre loss" hp's escaping.Suppose it is a good deal cheaper to have this kind of setup compared to a classic rolling road?
Kolbenkopp said:
MoelyCrio said:
btw, never seen a dyno that clamps to the hubs like that!
http://www.dynapack.com/Suppose it is a good deal cheaper to have this kind of setup compared to a classic rolling road?
Hub-dyno's are the say forward, you can get 100% repeatable figures from them, use them for hours at a time, no tyre slip/wear/noise to deal with, car can't go anywhere, and they are (kind of) portable.
for me, being able to hold an engine back at *any* rpm for an indefinite time is the winner, makes calibration work so much easier.
Other notable one is Rototest.
one is water cooled (dynapack) the other is oil/air cooled (Rototest)
I'm astonished by the terrible quality of that first engine building firm.
I'm an old school toolmaker who happens to possess all the required skills to perform all the operations the vendor asked to be done to his engine. I'm in no doubt that the supplier was counting on the customer not really having a clue what was involved with the work as there's no way he wouldn't have known that the engine was a pup before sending it back to the customer.
It's not even a Friday (we're about to hit the pub) afternoon build, it's far worse. 0.11mm ovality and parallelism in the bores! That's quite frankly outrageous. A lot of similar work I manufacture would require both cylinder bore and piston to be match ground with a clearance tolerance between 2 and 4 microns, sub micron roundness and parallelism plus they'd both have to have under a 0.2 ra surface finish too. Also all inspection data would be collected and independently verified and documented to both protect us and our reputation and as documented proof to give to the customer. These are the kind of modern day tolerences needed to manufacture reliable and long lived engines.
And all of this is with regards to only one of the many failings.
Moral of the story here I think is to not just rely on some flashy web design when choosing a firm but if possible take someone with extensive engineering knowledge on a tour of the firm you plan on doing the work to establish whether they're cabable of producing the accuracy you require.
I'm an old school toolmaker who happens to possess all the required skills to perform all the operations the vendor asked to be done to his engine. I'm in no doubt that the supplier was counting on the customer not really having a clue what was involved with the work as there's no way he wouldn't have known that the engine was a pup before sending it back to the customer.
It's not even a Friday (we're about to hit the pub) afternoon build, it's far worse. 0.11mm ovality and parallelism in the bores! That's quite frankly outrageous. A lot of similar work I manufacture would require both cylinder bore and piston to be match ground with a clearance tolerance between 2 and 4 microns, sub micron roundness and parallelism plus they'd both have to have under a 0.2 ra surface finish too. Also all inspection data would be collected and independently verified and documented to both protect us and our reputation and as documented proof to give to the customer. These are the kind of modern day tolerences needed to manufacture reliable and long lived engines.
And all of this is with regards to only one of the many failings.
Moral of the story here I think is to not just rely on some flashy web design when choosing a firm but if possible take someone with extensive engineering knowledge on a tour of the firm you plan on doing the work to establish whether they're cabable of producing the accuracy you require.
J4CKO said:
Wow, five and a Half grand sunk into a k series, nice that someone realises that they were a decent engine, admittedly with an Achilles heel.
They can make decent power and it was really only the poor quality control of Rover that hurt them, as a package its a great design. There is another option out there for 1.9's now but it is quite a bit of hassle IME and I personally know a couple of people who have sunk quite a bit into K builds only for them not to meet expectations. After quite a bit of faffing with them I personally think ~200HP is the sweetspot. In all cases its buyer beware, it doesn't matter if its one guy in a shed or a business as in this case that carries out the work always, always check with others who have used them in the community...especially in motorsport where BS is very quickly revealed!I can't imagine what the second engine would have run or sounded like!
yonex said:
I can't imagine what the second engine would have run or sounded like!
I think it would have sounded dreadful, for about 30 seconds before it seized and died completely.What a sham, you don't even need any engineering background to see how bad the workmanship on that engine was, nothing short of disgraceful. I'm glad the guy got the engine he wanted in the end, even if it took two failed attempts at the hands of some cowboys first.
yonex said:
J4CKO said:
Wow, five and a Half grand sunk into a k series, nice that someone realises that they were a decent engine, admittedly with an Achilles heel.
They can make decent power and it was really only the poor quality control of Rover that hurt them, as a package its a great design. There is another option out there for 1.9's now but it is quite a bit of hassle IME and I personally know a couple of people who have sunk quite a bit into K builds only for them not to meet expectations. After quite a bit of faffing with them I personally think ~200HP is the sweetspot. In all cases its buyer beware, it doesn't matter if its one guy in a shed or a business as in this case that carries out the work always, always check with others who have used them in the community...especially in motorsport where BS is very quickly revealed!I can't imagine what the second engine would have run or sounded like!
Shocking work by scholar and a terrible way to treat a customer,the K series is a brilliant bit of kit for its weight/size but at 1.8/ 200bhp I would consider it to be on its limit as the engine is fragile above this, I built a couple at 200 bhp which is reasonably simple, banded liners, forged pistons and rods, 285 cams, ported head, emerald ecu etc, still not cheap and they take a lot of punishment with the right head gasket.
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