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The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
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I ain’t about to fall out with you here, as you have far more experience of this than me but… I have to ask in these engines you know of first hand… how much time was spent getting the tolerances, balancing etc right… ??

hehe… I have no desire to fall out with anyone

Well… my engine was balanced by Vibration Free. I had all the correct bearings (all new), had the liners lapped in to exactly 4 thou, the piston rings checked and in the case of one ring, slightly fettled. I had the gudgeon pins converted to fully floating with the proper bushes etc etc. Now… the failure of my engine had nothing to do with anything ‘wrong’ as such… it was just bad luck.

Isn’t it more common to spend a fortune on parts and then stick em all together (BTW i ain’t suggesting its always this blunt but i would hazard that most… even reputable builders skimp on the finer detail stuff because it takes time is fidgity and costs more money)…i’m sure that’s the point Simon is making…

Right… but the point we’re making, is these engines don’t appear to exist. In theoryland/dreamland I agree with him. However, in reality, people have tried everything with these engines. People have been trying it way before Mr Erlands article. People still haven’t reached this Nirvana. Now… there might be a magic secret trick that Simon knows about that solves K series problems and third world debt in one go. It’d be nice to know who’s had a sorted engine though, becuase when the high power figures are mentioned, Mr Erland points the finger at Steve, who hasn’t been entirely ‘lucky’ (oooo, there’s an in joke there). Besides that, his ‘balanced/blueprinted’ engine has only done 4000 miles so far and me & steve built it, not Simon.

Plenty K’s have problems (esp HGF) but there are also many more out there that haven’t had any problems and my (admittedly limited) knowledge suggests that most of the unreliable ones are modded ??.. isn’t it > very > difficult to get the liners to stand proud by the correct amount and also put the head back on straight without a wee shoogle around while settling it back onto block ??

OK, well… I had 2 HG’s let go on a standard engine. My ex’s mum had 5 HG’s go in her Freelander… then got a new engine which had 3 HG’s go. So 8 HG’s in 30,000 miles. Nice. It’s not really the modding that causes HGF, just like you say, poor tolerances, bad assembly and bad luck.

As for the liners, it’s not hard at all, just takes some common sense and some care. I had my block decked by 5 thou, then took each liner and lapped it in like you do a valve until a) They had 4 thou protrusion and b) they were even all round and there was an even contact patch between liner and block (helps stop the liners sinking).

As for the head wobbling around as you put it down… again, if you have some common sense and machine/fettle the steel dowels to fit the block and the head properly with no slack, it can’t/won’t move as you put it down.

None of this is magic, none of it is new either. DVA has been building engines like this for years. It’s just how you build good engines. You take care over the details.

regarding power and torque… isn’t it true that 170-180 bhp K’s develop about 130 ftlbs so why is it so hard to believe that 220 bhp won’t be making around 160 ftlb esp if you haven’t increased the rev limit…

Who said I don’t believe it? SteveB’s engine made those figures and a) I helped build it and b) I was there when it was tested. The figures are real, BUT…

a) It cost a lot
b) It took a LONG time in terms of development
c) It’s the best thats been measured at Emerald
d) It might not be reliable… we just don’t know yet
e) Steve has some very trick induction which is how he get 160lb… without it it was nearer 150lb.

The point I’m trying to make and people keep missing, it’s it’s all very well Mr Erland saying that ‘in theory’ these engines should do 220hp and 160lb/ft easily and cheaply, but his proof seems to be Steves engine which was neither easy, nor cheap.

The phrase ‘The proof is in the pudding’ seems appropriate here… only that the pudding appears to be all talk.

I’d love to be proved wrong however. Show us the engines Simon!

Bri

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Bill… that plot is WAAAAAAAY off what the Duratec is pushing out now

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Brian

Cheers for the pretty full answer… not much i can say there… at least i now have a better idea of what you are saying.

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hehe… I’d like to point out at this point that I’m no engine builder… I’m a SQL programmer. However, I’ve built a fair share of K Series, both on my own and under the watchful eye of DVA. :slight_smile:

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Heres the latest from my car. Note these runs were done at Abbey Motorsport using a Dynapack so all figures are at the hub. The after run was done without a cat. The ECU hasn’t been touched (yet) - so there is more to come (engine is running very lean at one point). Waiting to get the raw numbers so I can make a chart that looks normal.

[image]http://forums.seloc.org/images/upload/Ian’s%20Stuff/3045.jpg[/image]

[image]http://forums.seloc.org/images/upload/Ian’s%20Stuff/3044.jpg[/image]

OK buggered if I can get it to upload can anyone sort it out?

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Ian’s graphs are here:

[image]http://www.briandrought.com/miscpics/3044.jpg[/image]

[image]http://www.briandrought.com/miscpics/3045.jpg[/image]

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Can someone explain these to me ?

It looks like 181BHP and 820FtLbs of torque at the wheels ???

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Where did that 2nd picture come from LOL

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I don’t understand them either… but it looks like Ian has 836lb/ft…

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Hey Bri, Now i am returning to GSK and earning some real money, i guess its time to rebuild my engine next, got any room in ya garage

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Firstly how the hell did you manage to post them up!!!

The first graph showing torque is tractive torque (whatever that means) - they divide that number by the gear ratio to get a normal reading. One panel shows the AFR.

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That will be at the wheels. You need to divide it by the overall drive ratio, should be the 5.7 shown on the printout. That makes it 147 ft lbs.

Bernard

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Thanks for info Ian/Bernard, that clears it up

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Just to be clear the blue line is the new manifold and the red line the old manifold (with cat). The graph Bill put up shows my car at Emerald last year (without a cat). So you can see the big improvement in torque spread.

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Ian… I just used the [ image ] tags like you did, but I think the space in your URL was confusing things.

Phil… hehe… I do… whats sat in your garage then ?

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The big one is just full of crap now, and even the new double that was put in (dont think you have seen that one) has the 924 Turbo and my Honda Firestorm in it, oh and loads of crap too

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Here is a quote from a similar thread on SELOC by Simon S…

quote:

Originally posted by BrianDrought
Simon… if you write a reply, I’ll post it up there.





Brian,

thanks for the offer, but I really CBA to get involved in another pointless BBS sh1t fight…

suffice to say, I have run a K for 5 years+ at over 200Bhp (highest I ran with was 242), and to call it reliable requires a change in the definition of the word reliable.

yes, a K can be get to ~240 bhp, but it’s almost impossible to drive like that off a race track, and it will not make 1000miles without incident.

I ended up running mine at mid 220’s with reduced revs in a vain attempt at reliability, and whist it was better, it’s still nothing like road car reliable (ie. you doing fugging well to get to 3,000 miles without incident and if you do the bearings will require changing).

All the stuff that’s already been mentioned with the K I had tried/used, I think I was the first to run one in an Elise with a dry sump (this made a massive difference), but it still did not make it reliable (in the proper sense of the word).

Now, if I just used the car as a sunny day road car, then I am sure the engines would have lasted longer, but then what’s the point of 200+ bhp if you can’t use it for fear of the BANG

Getting on to the Honda (the route I have gone down), basically there is bugger all performance difference between them, in fact, compared to the VHPD 190 spec engined out there, the 200Bhp std Honda K20A is way ahead as it has a far better torque curve and the 200Bhp is Not at it’s ultimate rev limit.

Worth pointing out to Mr Earland that the K20A is nothing like the F20C (S2000), and shares no (major) common component.

I am still working on the K20A in terms of optimizing it, but from what I have seen so far, the ‘it’s got no torque and it all revs’ tag is just total b0ll0cks, whilst this may have been true for the older Vtec’s, it’s just not relevant here, having seen the dyno plots from Ian’s car (a std JDM spec K20A), it matches the torque curve of the best my 1.8K ever got to, and his has already done 10x the mileage without incident.

The final point is about cost.

Having played the Guinn pig on the K for the last 5 years, I don’t even want to think about how much it has all cost, if you then add to that the cost of trying to keep the drive train in one piece (gearbox/clutch/drive shafts etc) then you are starting to look at mortgage size numbers.

With the basic Honda conversions being offered at under �10K, complete, installed, warranted, etc. that replace the entire drive train (including a very nice 6 speed CR box), the very idea that you can get the same performance out of a Rover K within the same budget is just laughable, just ask PTP/Minister/Scholar to quote for a 200+ Bhp K with installation (as in ALL the parts you need), 12 month warrantee, etc etc AND VAT, then see how far your �10K goes?

I believe EDL (John Judds co.) were offering early adopters to their 2.0L K for ~�13K (+vat) with a warrantee, (based on 3,000 mile re-builds) and I would suggest this is the best there is out there, however, it�s NOT a road car engine, will not pass EU2/3/4, and is hardly what you would be looking for in your daily drive.

Now, can we please get our heads out of the clouds and back down to the planet reality?

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Whole SELOC thread here… SELOC Forums

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There msut be stuff out there to make high rev’s reliable tho’… How do motorbike manage it? I know the mileage is always a lot lower on them but when you look say at the new ZX-10, a 1.0l engine that redlines at 16000rpm, pushes 185 bhp (ok so about .5ftlbs or torque ) and at those speeds must have some serious piston velocities! The bearings must be going flat knacker!!!

SO why doesn’t this need a rebuilt every 3000miles, but really just needs a basic service…???

Surely with the same technology a reliable high revving NA is possible?

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Bike engines have been designed to rev hard from the outset though. They are very advanced and very high performance. The K was designed for shopping cars.