The Rover K-Series Engine E-Book

Iain Ayre

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Getting a Rover K-Series engine properly up and running can be a difficult task, but ultimately the result is always worthwhile. Illustrated with over 300 photographs, Rover K-Series Engine - Maintenance, Repair and Modification is a practical guide to keeping these unique engines in fine working order. The most well-known issue with the K-Series is the head gasket, and this book demonstrates how to identify common faults, before giving practical advice on how best to solve them. Step-by-step guidance on all aspects of long-term engine maintenance is provided, in addition to the improvements required to prevent further problems. A K-Series engine is then stripped down to examine its clever and interesting structure, and is rebuilt with improvements. Authors of over twenty automotive books and countless articles in assorted motoring magazines, Iain Ayre and Rob Hawkins have combined their knowledge to bring you this book on the Rover K-Series engine, which is fully illustrated with 356 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

ROVER

K-SERIES ENGINE

MAINTENANCE, REPAIR AND MODIFICATION

Iain Ayre and Rob Hawkins

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2018 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2018

© Rob Hawkins and Iain Ayre 2018

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of thistext may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 394 3

CONTENTS

1. Introduction: History of the K-Series

2. Who Likes the K?

3. The Head Gasket

4. Maintenance

5. Stripdown

6. The KV6

7. Modifications

8. Electronics

9. Comparisons

Index

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: HISTORY OF THE K-SERIES

The Rover K-Series Engine was launched in 1988 in the Rover 200, and also ended up in the 100, the 400 and the MGF and TF. It was built by Rover subsidiary Powertain Ltd, in 1.1-, 1.4-, 1.6- and 1.8-litre capacities.

The first phrase to come to a petrolhead’s mind when somebody says ‘K-series’ is the related phrase ‘blown head gasket’. The engine will, however, handsomely reward those who make the effort to sort it out.

Its architecture was unusual in that it was constructed as a sandwich, with cylinder head bolts running down through the entire engine to locate at the bottom. It was also unusual in being cast by low-pressure techniques, with molten aluminium pumped in from below, which reduced both overall weight and casting rejection rates.

Block and head were both cast in aluminium, with steel cylinder liners in the block, and five main bearings. It has either single or double overhead camshafts running in a camshaft cradle rather than separate bearings. The VVC, or variable valve control system, allows a flat torque curve and smooth power curve right up to the cut-off at 7,200rpm.

It has to be faced that the K-series engine has a bad reputation for blowing head gaskets, brewing up and destroying itself, but there are two points to be made here.

First, the design faults that caused this have been solved, and with the fixes applied, you can trust a K-series engine as much as any other, and can take advantage of its many benefits and good features.

Second, design faults sometimes don’t appear until real-world production prototype testing by the first customers has been applied for several years, after which the engine may have a terminal PR problem. For instance, some BMW engines dissolved when they were run on sulphur-rich Nicaraguan petrol, which was discovered the hard way. Now a lot of people think that BMW engines are made of expensive porridge. Some Jaguar V8s have a faulty timing chain tensioner and can self-destruct at 60,000 miles (100,000km), although prophylactic pre-explosion replacement of a cheap plastic part solves the problem.