King K Engines

The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
1

I looks as though I may be in the rare situation of having seen numerous King K components as well as a handful of Simon’s K engines.

I have met with Simon a couple of times and seen a number of engines components and few completed engines. I understood that he was intending to build a few K engines to different specifications to demonstrate that the engine can be reliable and durable. I have not seen his completed large capacity engines however along with a few others I have seen some of the components he believes are appropriate to improve on the durability and reliability of the VHPD and some other tuned K engines. Some of these are prototype components others are now finalised.

He believes that he has demonstrated what can be achieved with a rebuild based upon a VHPD and has completed this using mostly standard components as well using his own specification of liners, flywheel, seals etc. His focus at present is on designing the components for large capacity K engines.

He has a broad selection of worn and failed engine components, including, pistons, liners, blocks, heads, flywheels, cranks, seals etc which he has used to investigate wear and design issues.

I have seen his baffled wet sump and the dry sump as well as the lightweight flywheel with integral ring gear along with the dual plate clutch and release mechanism. I have also seen the familiar Omega pistons and Arrow rods as well as the various liners, including a selection of Chromoduro liners machined to his specifications. He also has a number of custom designed windage baffles as well as various oil rails including ones manufactured to his specifications. These also include oil jets to cool the pistons. He also has a selection of long bolts of different specification.

He also has various head gaskets including the Rover MLS gasket as well as one manufactured to his specification. Simon has some valve train components manufactured to his own specification as well as numerous heads which he has modified. There are various intake manifolds, spacers, adapters, air boxes and trumpets which he has designed and built.

There are several blocks which have been blueprinted as well as sets of plates to simulate the assembled stresses these blocks would experience such that they can be accurately remachined.

I have also seen the drawings and the pictures of a crankshaft which he is having manufactured. I understand that a lot of time has been spent optimizing, refining and validating the design. The crankshaft looks like a complex work of art.

I do not have the answer to the question of where have all, Simon�s, King K, engines gone. I can only bear witness to the fact that I have seen many of the component parts of the larger capacity engines and from what I have seen it will only be a matter of months before he has some of these engines running. Hopefully some of these components will improve the reliability of the K engines and become available to the many of us on modest budgets that may choose to improve a VHPD or other K.

2

Good to see something positive posted and without the usual rhetoric.

I wish Simon luck with his endeavours.

Dav

4

What we do Simon is to talk candidly to those directly involved and

i) establish the exact cause with due deference and disclosure to the parties involved including presentation of any parts for inspection.
ii) note and agree what is required to prevent re-occurance/correct the problem
ii) ensure that failed parts or details of proceduresare presented to their originators who will then be made aware and can change practices and/or suppliers/service providers.

Criticism from a unilateral point of view needs to be mediated by examination of the parts involved followed by a response. Once this has taken place between the involved parties you can then measure the extent of any problem and the likeliehood of re-occurance.

Dave

6

Simon,

You dont have to start fights.

Nor is everything covered in king K.

Nor is waiting for the book a practical way to effect change.

If your desired intent is to effect change, then dialogue rather than confrontation is the way to acheive it.

Hiding the parts from the main interested parties and then beating your chest about it is not a sensible way to make headway.

On many occasion you have been invited to make the qestioned parts available and you have ignored all requests to do so. But then this is just covering the same old ground.

When I approach the builders of failed engines I do not want to antagonise them because this will engender the exact opposite mindset needed to effect change or help to get the problems put right at source. Shouting yar boo sucks on a public forum is an irresponsible and counter-productive way to go about it.

Presenting parts to uninvolved 3rd parties and giving your opinion about them gives no right to reply nor a balanced view which any observer is entitled to.

Dave

7

Seconds out, Round 27

Ding Ding!!

8

Seconds out, Round 27

You have definitely missed a few there!

I had just started to think that they were going to get around to organising a footy match at Xmas…but it looks like they were waiting for their second wind!