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The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
241

I would say that no engine in the world would last 200,000 miles if driven in a sporty way.
Yes, I know of a Chrysler Votyager that has gone 500,000 miles, but only motorway and at less than the speed limit. Are you planning doing that?

I don’t expect any sports engine to last more than 50,000 miles. Road and track.
If track only Judd specifies 3000 miles between rebuilds for the K2000.
Most likely you’ll get about that in a year’s racing.

So, depends on what are we talking about here.

But what wears out an engine is revs, even more at full throttle.
And all cars her will see plenty of those

So, I’ll be happy if my engine gets 50K after this blueprinting. But most likely I’ll be tinkering with it before that.

But if hypothetically I was to keep it under 6K rpm, and use light throttle, it could last well beyond 100K miles…

242

And Fatbloke, if you want to him to help you, contact him directly.
What you are describing is exactly what 4 of us are doing, I guess me th only frequenter of this site. But fair enough, people know me here.
With a difference, his business is not cars, so you can’t drive your car to him and he’ll do the rest.
His point is for you to know how to do it yourself. But in this case he’ll build 4 engines. No more.

We will have by the end of Sept, power charts and results of this blueprinting.
I’m trying to make it to the (already paid for) Cadwell trackday on the 23rd Sept. 22nd is going to be mapping the engine at Emerald (from which I have a previous run to compare with)

But why are you so sceptical? many people here have 190 BHP, what’s so difficult believing that a properly built one will be more reliable?

Come on guys, we will see soon the results of the build.
I for one, didn’t know Simon before this article and because of all the thinking he’s put into it, because of the way he reasons and based on our phone conversations, decided to trust him and now he’s working on my engine.
Want to be a guinea pig yourself too? call him.
He’s not going to frequent the net very often. Now he’s really busy.

You’ll know me better as The Gimp
you could have worked it out from the terrible spelling

Why so sceptical, simple, seen it to many times before, post after post after post, car after car thats gone bang.
now it’s fair to say that when things are going right people don’t tend to complain or even prise that much so maybe there are many bomb proof relible 220BHP k-series out there but i in 5 years, i,ve yet to hear of any

I know Simons bussiness is not cars, it was a guessimate, for the Mechanical Numpties out there, me and Tom Rootes are high on this list…i’d strugly to change the Oil.

It would give a direct comparison between Keeping the K, given you get Bomb Proof Reliabilty, shall we say 30k miles including some track days, Vs Maybe the other options from Honda and Ford

It was in no way a dig…he’s done a [censored] load of research, spent lots of time and money and it is to be appulauded…

Ok 4 of you are having these built but your starting point is probably a liitle closer to the final target than a standard Liz

Changing a liz to Honda power costs about �10K comes with all the goodies and is to be honest a proven relible engine, that in fairness, is probably less stressed in a 750KG liz than where it was designed to go…

I’m not after a fight and i’m not bashing anyone

I am interested in what it would cost to do the Job and how long, given cetain parameters it would take to do

I can, if i wish contact Maidstone have 200BHP reliable from a Liz in about a week at a cost of 10K

now someone wanna tell me, with figures, based on my first post of how much it would really cost to convert a standard Liz to 200BHP…

Engine out
strip
new bits, lots
balance
assemble
fit
map

at �35 quid per hour plus VAT

243

You’re absolutely right Uldis - the type of driving must have a big impact on engine life.

For me, my standard engine has so far managed 78k without the head having come off, despite a diet of sprint/hillclimbs and trackdays (about 4/year). Given a properly prepared engine as Simon describes, could I expect a 200bhp K to give similar trouble free motoring? From what is being said, the answer to that seems to be “yes” - and “depends on how much of a lunatic you are”

Hmm, on the lunatic scale, I’ve only broken/worn out two clutches and one gearbox! LOL Must try harder…

244

I would say that no engine in the world would last 200,000 miles if driven in a sporty way.
Yes, I know of a Chrysler Votyager that has gone 500,000 miles, but only motorway and at less than the speed limit. Are you planning doing that?

I don’t expect any sports engine to last more than 50,000 miles. Road and track.
If track only Judd specifies 3000 miles between rebuilds for the K2000.
Most likely you’ll get about that in a year’s racing.

So, depends on what are we talking about here.

But what wears out an engine is revs, even more at full throttle.
And all cars her will see plenty of those

So, I’ll be happy if my engine gets 50K after this blueprinting. But most likely I’ll be tinkering with it before that.

But if hypothetically I was to keep it under 6K rpm, and use light throttle, it could last well beyond 100K miles…

I’d expect more than 50K out of any sports engine when driven 100% on the road. On the track it’s a different story but if you bought, say, a Focus RS or Scooby or M3 and bounced off the rev limiter on every gearchange until it hit 50K miles you would still be utterly pissed off if the engine expired, and rightly so. The Audi 20V I had when I was younger had done 145,000 miles and going strong when I sold it and it got thrashed within an inch of it’s life all the time.

If you have a bog standard K-series you would improve the reliability by blueprinting and balancing as everything would be working in harmony. When you massively increase the rev limit though, which you need to do to get the power, the reliability takes another down turn. 50K miles on a bluprinted/balanced VHPD K-series with 190-200bhp is probably achievable with a few hiccups along the way when driven largely on the road.

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Fats - Changing to a proven reliable 250bhp audi engine costs a hell of a lot less than �10,000…

In fact a proven reliable 300+BHP audi is still a hell of a lot less than �10,000…

246

But I would never go heavier.
Heck, I’m already 15 stone! (of pure muscle of course )


Guys, it’s very simple:
-K series engines could have been built better
-VHPD’s were built worse
-most aftermarket tuners have not built successfully a package
-specific part for the engine may be well designed but often no reall attention is put to how well they’ll interact with the rest of the system. Picture the DVA head, very nice on its own, and then you go and put it in a std VHPD, that MAY be well out of balance, and with the raised rpm limit, the engine is going to be struggling against itself.
-there are some companies that do, in fact I’ve spoken to one italian one and I recently knew of another that are squeezing 240 BHP out of the VHPD, for not a lot of money. When I see this I get the impression that even if the UK is the home of motorsports, we are being milked by “tuners”.

I’m doing mine as cheaply as possible, well not really, but almost.
I mean things I could probably avoid are:

-clutch. But it’s half worn, and I don’t want to be taking down the gearbox again, so I might as well install a new one. And while I’m at it, I’m seeing if to go for a stronger alloy one (the racing AP one I had still slipped)
.
-alloy flywheel. I could leave the original PTP one, once fixed (eccentricity?) but the other one’s really nice and light…

-EBD manifold. Yes, I could keep the original one, but having looked closer to the welds and angles, I’ve grown dissappointed. I’m sure there are some horses lost there.

-Titan TB’s. I’m keeping these ones, since I don’t want to pay �500 for a better idle.

-Nitrons. I really need some damping control, especially rebound damping. Different approach than the typical harder springs, I may go just slightly harder only. But I NEED separate damping controls. And this makes it difficult, as they’re about �380 each. But I need them.
-Front clam respray. Because the primer is already wearing out. I’m down to the gelcoat

Ok, the last two have nothing to do with the engine, but you see my point, I’m trying to fit them all.

247

"there are some companies that do, in fact I’ve spoken to one italian one and I recently knew of another that are squeezing 240 BHP out of the VHPD, for not a lot of money. " so why not say who they are and how much is “not a lot”.

248

…300+BHP audi…

BTW, Mr Walsh was well miffed he missed out on your beast.

Ian

249

So was I, Ian…

So was I !!!

250

Uldis, I for one am very interested to find out how your engine build progresses - and to hear about your subsequent experience

This is coming at a good time for me, as I am currently in the process of planning an engine for my car, and have started the painful (for the wallet) process of acquiring the necessary parts… And with a bambino on the way is sure to slow this process still further! But a DVA ported head and a properly balanced bottom end are definitely on the list.

252

Simon

Sorry to hear that you won’t be World Wide Web enabled for much longer - perhaps even long enough to read this , but I for one am most grateful for your advice and detailed information.

It has certainly given me a totally renewed interest in the good old K… and has addressed many off the issues that i have heard about in a way that entirely stacks up as far as my understandings go. In fact some of what you have told me via this bbs and your article are completely new to me and excellent pointers.

Good Luck and I hope that we hear from you again on this bbs in the near future…

I also hope that everyone other than Uldis (who we know will keep us up-to-date) who has engines with you will post up how they are getting along and definately keep their end of the deal with you, to post up results and experiences at the end of the work.

many thanks

253

Thanks for all your input Simon, it has been a worthwhile read.

Good luck

254

Yes, thanks again Simon. I found your article very interesting. I think I’ve learned a lot, and you have renewed my faith in the fundamental merits of the K series.
I’m really looking forward to getting some feedback on these new rebuilds.

255

Thanks Simon. I too am keen to hear the outcomes.

One thing is for sure, you’ve gone down as a legend. Your last post has to be the longest ever on Exiges.com.

Come back soon.

Ian

256

Big thanks for the thread and the discussion generated Simon - I have found it totally absorbing . Am much better informed on the K now than before your initial post

Long live the K…

257

I also wanted to thank you very much for your inputs and I also hope to hear from you again on this board. You must know that the usual suspects on here are very friendly
good luck
Bruno

258

Hi,

my names Neil and I am new to posting to this site, I only very ocassionally look over here, but started reading this thread early this morning and with other things to do during the day have only just finished reading it

It’s the most interesting thread I have read on any forum for quite a long time.

I’m not an expert engine builder or have any aspirations to be one, I’m a car enthusiast plain and simple, I have no financial (or other) incentive to agree or disagree with any previous posters on this thread so if your opinions don’t agree with mine, fine, if you feel the need to disagree then feel free to make your points clear.

I became involved with Rover powered cars when I bought a Montego Turbo quite a few years ago, followed by a Rover Coupe and now an MG ZS180 (I did try an Elise but unfortunately didn’t fit to safely drive it), my wife drives a Rover 25 which is where the relevance to the thread emerges.

Fed up with people slating the K-Series, which I believed to be an excellent engine design, Clare and myself decided to invest in modifying her car to be good enough to be considered as one of the cars to deserve a place at front wheel drive drag racing competitions in the UK.

Last November after many months of planning we started the ball rolling and ordered pistons and rods to our spec to suit a Turbo K-Series engine, before making this step I had spoken to many people, gathering opinions, including Dave Andrews and Steve Smith, I was also sent a copy of the “King K” article which until today I was unaware of who the author was.

The article made me think a great deal about the proposed engine build, and in particular the whole area of balance, vibration and losses associated with the various rotating engine parts, probably for the first time I considered doing something about inbalance, vibration and unnecessary frictional forces detracting from an engine build instead of thinking of building a ‘stronger’ engine to cope with the forces.

Simons article made me think about things and I thank him for that, I also thank all the other people who have given their opinions and supplied parts, services, or advice, which have all helped to determine the spec of Clares K.

I’ll be honest in saying that I’ve not taken Simons ‘engine recipe’ as a parts or build list for this engine as I don’t honestly agree with all his conclusions, but have used it as reason to challenge and respond to each and every part of the spec.

I still have reservations with regards to our engine build and if it will stay in one piece or not or produce the power we would like, but without forums and discussion like in this thread I think it would be much more of a lonely and un-educated stab in the dark at engine building for myself.

Cheers

Neil

259

Thanks Neil. A quality contribution to an enthralling thread.

I guess you haven’t mentioned the areas you don’t agree with Simon as you don’t want to get dragged in to overly defending them. However, I’m sure I’m not the only one that would be interested. Indeed, I suspect Simon himself would be keen to know from somebody that has clearly done extensive research.

Good luck with the engine/racing, let us know how you get on.

Ian

260

Hello again,

Ian, I don’t want to get too involved in debating the pro’s and cons of various theories and opinions as to how good the K-Series is or not, how to best put one together, who’s right and who’s wrong, etc., especially as our engine isn’t built and tested yet.

I’m happy to list some of the main specifications of the engine though so people can come to their own conclusions.

Spec.

DVA Ported VVC head (standard valves).
Piper 285 Hydraulic cams, verniers, etc.
Scholar Evo 4 block.
Standard Crank - heavy metalled / modified by Vibration Free.
Standard Flywheel - modified for larger clutch, lightened and balanced.
Larger diameter ‘head’ bolts with head drilled to allow for them (Standard tightening torque).
Custom Forged Pistons (modified ring land gaps, compression height, dish)
Custom Forged Rods (modified centre to centre length)
Combustion chamber, ports, valves, valve springs, pistons coated with thermal / lubricating / oil dispersal coatings as appropriate.
Balancing of reciprocating parts by Vibration Free.
Remote Thermostat.
Lots of other ‘little bits’

I’ll keep you updated as to progress, just waiting for Steve to finish the crank and balancing before it’s assembly time

Cheers

Neil