Rover K-engine

[kkj]

Can you help me to find the Rover K-engine topic (I assume it must be somewhere!)
(The "search" funktion is not working at this moment)

[Incorrigible]

What do you want to know ?

[kkj]

I hardly know how it looks!! What is good and bad about it. An engine for my Ginetta?? Difficult to work on?? etc.

[Justin S]

http://kengine.dvapower.com/

[BigBen]

kkj said:

I hardly know how it looks!! What is good and bad about it. An engine for my Ginetta?? Difficult to work on?? etc.

Bad about it, reputation for eating head gaskets (no an entirely unfounded one). Good about it everything else!

[kkj]

Thanks!
I have informed myself at: http://kengine.dvapower.com/
My reaction is "Phew!" This seems to be a source for moneydrain and trouble.
Back to the old Zetec? (or Opel/Vauxhall)

Edited by kkj on Monday 4th October 10:59

[Pumaracing]

BigBen said:

Bad about it, reputation for eating head gaskets (no an entirely unfounded one). Good about it everything else!

You have to be joking. It's an absolute abortion of a thing about which the only good thing is it's light and what's bad about it is everything else.

It's small bore/long stroke, tiny valves with a consequent tiny power potential, only 1800cc so it has to rev higher than a 2 litre to produce its power which creates high forces on the pistons, rods, liners and hydraulic lifters which then need to be upgraded to make it reliable again and even with all that expense it still isn't producing much power.

You could take a bog standard 2 litre Zetec or frankly most other 2 litre engines, stick carbs or TBs on it and get a totally reliable and tractable 170 bhp at minimal cost. Add cams and head work and it's an easy 200 bhp plus. That much power would cost the best part of £10,000 on a K series with special head castings, liners, big valves on big inserts, conversion to solid lifters etc etc and it will still probably break every second Tuesday.

People tend to tune the engines they already own and if someone has a Lotus or MGF I wouldn't dream of suggesting that in a free society they can't piss away a small fortune modifying its engine but to actually choose to use a K series engine when there are other better choices available must surely be an act of complete insanity.

[Incorrigible]

From someone who like the A series

It is a question of diminishing returns, modifying a k for 180-190 hp can be done for about £1000, however (as PumaRacing says) getting serious power is really expensive you're better off starting with something else

[Mr2Mike]

Pumaracing said:

BigBen said:

Bad about it, reputation for eating head gaskets (no an entirely unfounded one). Good about it everything else!

You have to be joking. It's an absolute abortion of a thing about which the only good thing is it's light and what's bad about it is everything else.

It's small bore/long stroke, tiny valves with a consequent tiny power potential,

And if you're not aiming for maximum power but instead prioritise light weight and tractable engine that's cheap and plentiful to buy? It's a great engine to use in lightweight sports cars IMO, obviously Lotus and Caterham agreed. The 160VVC has a virtually flat torque curve and feels like a much larger engine to drive. It also makes this power this on a standard plenum inlet - no expensive individual throttle bodies to buy and keep balanced, and also means you can run with a MAP based engine load instead of Alpha-N.