K series easy to tune???

The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
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What sort of engine mods see the best performance gains on this engine. I�m looking at getting an Exige this year and will want to do some work on the engine. The engine I run at the moment is a VW 2L 20v (not in a lotus) and it makes 200bhp atw @ 8500rpm (240bhp atc)It’s had headwork, cams, throttle bodies, steel rods, forged pistons etc.Can I expect the same sort of power out of the K series?One last thing I don�t want a forced induction engine.

2

ermmm…no… 220atc if you throw serious money at it… problem is the K series responds best to the exhaust routing on a caterham, on the elise/exige the it gets routed thru a series of u-turns and bends that kill the power.

3

Thanks for the reply, what kind of work would be needed to get 220bhp then???

4

Head porting by DVAPower, larger inlet and exhaust valves, wilder cams (Piper 1227 grind) Programmable ECU, large bore exhaust, steel crank and rods if you want to rev over 8000 for any length of time.Dry sump will also give a few BHP, the standard Exige throttle bodies are ok if you dont mind a rough idle otherwise replace with Jenveys.

5

Thanks Phil, dose the crank need to be changed??? Is this a weak point in the engine. I run an std VW crank in mine and have seen them used up to 10000rpm (not that I would want to do that).Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

6

For that sort of continuous rpm then yes a steel crank is a must along with VP2 bearings, the highest i know of a K reving is 9500 rpm but this is on fully prep race engine which needs rebuilding every 2K miles, unfortunately going for max power will mean the engine rebuild intervals reduce drastically.The mods mentioned above are a popular route to take, you end up with somewhere around 220 BHP and can keep the VHPD rods and crank if you dont hold the revs too high, mine was set with a rev limit of 8300 and the power was still climbing [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif[/image]

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Take a look at www.prototyperacing.com if you want the best engine available for an Elise or Exige.

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Cheers Joe, that Honda K20A engine dose make the Exige one fast car. And I wouldn�t think there would be a lot of difference in the cost of fitting one or trying to get the same power out of the K series would there ???

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well, let’s face it. if you go the DVA/Phil Davies way, you pay maybe a third of the price… [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/tongue.gif[/image]....and I first want to see one of these oh so brill rice bowle engines at Emerald… [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/grin.gif[/image]cheers,Bruno

10

Same here…Joe seems to be going right way… the german version has too many people asking questions… and raceline are developing the Duratec engine to get converted into the elise/exige(should be fun, more torque ALOT lower down,hence quicker out of the corners)

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Heck you dont want to go my route, unless you really want to get someone else to port yours and then f*ck it up before DVA does it properly! [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/grin.gif[/image][This message has been edited by Phil Davies (edited 19 January 2003).]

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[image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/grin.gif[/image]