if Simon’s credibility is going to rest on him getting a large number of engines out there, then this will never happen. remember, that his initial objective was to share his opinions and knowldge of the K to demonstrate that it COULD be made pwerful and reliable. this has never been a commercial interest for him, but more a labour of love (or obsession), so he weill never get the numbers out there that other engine builders have. from my understanding of all this and from discussions with him, I bet he wishes someone else, ANYONE else would take the mantle from there and produce these engines following his “recipe”.I don’t think his issue has ever been that he’s the only one who can build a good engine, only that it hasn’t been done to the exacting standards that he feels are required. As no-one has shown an interest, he seems to have been left to prove his point on his own…Am I the only one who sees it this way???
furthermore, the whole point about the K being made powerful and reliable has already been proven with the EDL Judd K2000…isn’t that proof enough for the non-believers? All this talk about impossible piston speeds etc etc has already been disproven by the mere existence, let alone the success of this engine, hasn’t it???
again, maybe i should echo the remarks of others: since none of us that have commissioned Simon to produce these 2.0L engines has an issue with the time, maybe we should all just wait and see.
I’m absolutely with you there, but am concerned about something: when this all started >200 BHP was seen as very good. I remember Mike Lane’s 217 BHP was seen as awesome, and that was just a peak, wasn’t really a good power spread. Still, it was awesome.
With the advent of the SC Honda, Turbo Audi engines and now the SC Toyota, the BHP expectations have been raised enormously. A 220 BHP K, which can be achieved by just porting and slightly fettling a VHPD -but assembling it properly- is not that impressive anymore.
I get the impression a Honda engine conversion has also the attractive that for about �4K extra you can get monster numbers like 380 BHP!
Not that it would necessarily make it faster on every day driving or the track, but are certainly big numbers.
Now, I feel that development pushed Simon into now making a more powerful K, a 2.0L, and that gives Bernard a valid point: how much of the engine is left standard (I shouldn’t say that, because the VHPD is already a non standard K, let’s say shares the VHPD stock internals). Not much.
In that respect mine may be the only (and last) engine Simon built that can still be still considered a VHPD. And when rebuild time comes, will it make sense to just replace the std liners/rings/pistons with stock spec? (as now) or will it be about the same cost going for a 1.9? Is the same engine development killing the VHPD spec?
And in that respect we’ll end up with what Bernard mentions, a very powerful and good engine (comparable with Mellington and the likes) that only looks like the K externally, but it may not be a K anymore. Maybe a… KingK?