K –series engine

 Contents

 Design history
 The Begining
 From Experimental Prototype to Production K- series

 K-series - an engine to be proud of

 advantages and disadvantages

 The future
Design history

The K-Series was introduced in 1988 by Rover Group as a powerplant for the Rover 200 car. It
was revolutionary in that it was the first volume production implementation of the low pressure
sand casting technique. This works by injecting liquid aluminium into an upturned sand mould
from below. In this way any oxide film always remains on the surface of the casting and is not
stirred into the casting structure. This production technology overcame many of the inherent
problems of casting aluminium components and consequently permitted lower casting wall
thickness and higher strength to weight ratios. However, the process required the use of heat
treated LM25 material which gave the engines a reputation for being fragile. An engine overheat
would often result in the material becoming annealed and rendering the components scrap. The
aluminium engine blocks were fitted with spun cast iron cylinder liners that were initially
manufactured by GKN's Sheepbridge Stokes of Chesterfield, but replaced by spun cast iron
liners made by Goetze after some seminal research conducted by Charles Bernstein at
Longbridge, which proved influential even to Ducati for their race engines. Unfortunately a large
number of aftermarket engines, the so called "VHPD"s" were built with the old substandard
GKNs by Minister, Lotus and PTP well after the Goetze liner's introduction to the production
line in 2000.

The engine was introduced initially in 1.1 L single overhead cam and 1.4 L dual overhead cam
versions. The engines were unique[citation needed] in a production automotive engine by being held
together as a sandwich of components by long through-bolts which held the engine under
compression, though this construction is not unknown in early lightweight fighter engines from
the First World War. It had also been used in motorcycle engines and Triumph Car's "Sabrina"
race engine. As the Honda engines became obsolescent and were phased out, but well before the
BMW takeover, an enlargement of the K Series design to 1.6 and 1.8 litres was carried out. This
was done by using larger diameter cylinder liners and also increasing the stroke. The change
required a block redesign with the removal of the cylinder block's top deck and a change from
"wet" liners to "damp" liners.

 In the beginning...

Work began on a replacement for A series in the Advanced engines department of the
Austin Drawing Office in 1984. Opinion was canvassed widely amongst automotive
consultants and in particular the boffins at British Leyland Technology at Gaydon where
Spen King was in overall charge after the Jaguar-Rover-Triumph era. They had most
famously developed the economy prototype/concept vehicle called the ECV (read more
on Keith's Austin-Rover website, and see reference
1). Interestingly, this car sported bodywork featuring
bonded aluminium construction - revolutionary in its
day and many years before the appearance of the
Jaguar XK220 and Lotus Elise. Of more direct
interest to this article, the ECV also featured a high-
efficiency 3-cylinder engine (pictured left), which
was loosely derived from the E series. Despite what
is reported elsewhere, this engine bears no direct
lineage to the K series - but this interesting engine
did set the scene for later engine development - of
particular interest being the implementation of lean-
burn technology that British Leyland (BL)/ Austin-
Rover had pioneered.
The aforementioned advanced engine research
team at Gaydon had developed the ports and
combustion chambers for all BL engines of this
era (70s & 80s), including the Jaguar AJ6, as
well as the M, T & K series used in later Austin-
Rover vehicles. The engines research team had
been amongst the first to identify "barrel-swirl" or
"tumble" in 4 valve per cylinder engines
(reference 2), and this technology was first found
applied in the slant-four cylinder 16v engine
installed in the Triumph Dolomite Sprint of 1974 -
a car that was very successful in the British
Touring Car Racing of the late 70s (pictured right)
- the engine being extremely efficient with high specific outputs.

engine preceded the current trend for 16 valve four cylinder engines by quite some
years!
Interestingly, the ECV 3-cylinder, like the slant-four 16v installed in the Dolomite Sprint,
used just a single over-head cam shaft to operate all 4-valves per cylinder - an
ingenious cost-saving arrangement (as shown below), but one that was not to be found
on the later K series.

By 1985 the engine development team at Longbridge had designed, built and run the 3 (973 cc)
and 4 cylinder (1300cc) concept design level engines. The specific output (bhp/litre) and light
weight were astonishing straight out of the box. All the K series features were there in these
engines: twin cams; 4 valves per cylinder; layered construction; long "stretch" bolts; wet liners;
bedplate and low volume but high flow rate cross-flow cooling system etc. Even back then it was
felt that environmental pressures would force downsizing of engines, so high output fuel efficient
engines would be required in the future

 From Experimental Prototype

to Production K-series

By the end of 1985, the responsibility for subsequent

design levels was handed over to the Production
Engine Team, who up to this point had been
working on 4 valve per cylinder versions of S and 0
series as well as the A+ engine for Metro. They set
about designing a mass-production feasible version
of what was to become known as the K series. They
came up with an engine which is still a model in
design for ease of manufacture; the layered
construction was one feature that enabled the use of
Low Pressure Sand casting technique for which
Austin Rover own a number of patents. As part of
the productionisation of the engine, the crankshaft
stroke was increased, raising the capacity to 1.4
litres to capitalise upon an apparent tax break. In
addition, a smaller capacity 1.1 litre engine was also
developed, along with a more basic, and cheaper to
produce 8-valve cylinder head to give the new
engine range an entry level. (For more on these
developments, see references 5 and 6.) This was
also the time when the drawing boards all but disappeared from the Austin Design
Office (ADO) and CADCAM (Computer Aided Design/ Computer Aided Modelling) was
being adopted. CADCAM enabled the wide use of mathematical modelling techniques
which included Finite Element and Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis, which was
employed extensively on K series to optimise the Noise/Vibration/Harshness (NVH)
characteristics (reference 7) and thermo-mechanical performance (reference 8). In
many ways, Rover were way ahead of the competition in this regard (you only have to
look at contemporary engines to see exactly how far - an early 90s Ford Escort
anyone? - Ed).

K series went into production in 1988, funded largely by

the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The production
facilities were genuinely state of the art for the time. Both Ray Horrocks and Harold
Musgrove had to put their jobs on the line (with huge credit to them) to ensure the
investment that was to have such a positive impact upon the future of Rover.

 K-series - an engine to be proud of

The K-series was developed as a powerful and lightweight road-going engine capable
of operating continuously at an engine speed of 6500 rpm (and intermittently higher
than that - read more on the durability testing Rover employed in reference 9). The K-
series is undoubtedly a durable engine; the bottom end is practically unburstable on
engines that have not been tuned (and there is some latitude for tuning efforts within
limitations, particularly with regard to engine speed). It is also worth looking in the back
of Autocar and calculate some specific outputs of rival's comparable engines in the 1.4,
1.8 and 2.5 litre classes. The K-series manages 105 PS out of 1.4litres, 160 PS (VVC)
& 200 PS (turbo) out of 1.8 litres, and 190 PS out of 2.5 litres - and don’t forget the four-
cylinder engine weighs only 100kg (and the KV6 weighs in at an equally impressive
150kg)! Incredibly, after all this time, the K-series remains a class-leading engine. The
fact that K series powered cars in its latest 2-litre guise is still winning races in the
British Touring car championships 20 years after its inception speaks volumes. Over 3
million K-series engines have been built since the engine's introduction, and over
100,000 KV6s. The vast majority of these engines are apparently indestructible in
practice (head gasket issues notwithstanding - Ed).

There are of course a significant number of un-named design and development

engineers who put in valiant effort to make the engine the success it is - and just a few
of these are mentioned in the references opposite. Nor should we forget the
management who enabled it all to happen either. Following the troubled last decade of
Austin Rover, Rover Group and finally MG Rover, the teams responsible for this
remarkable engine have, sadly, been widely dispersed - to the extent that now the
whole Automotive industry is littered with people who cut their teeth on K series - and a
number of engines from former competitors now contain features pioneered on the
incredible K-series. The K series is indeed one special engine - and its legacy will surely
endure the sad demise of MG Rover Group in 2005.

 The Future

The demise of MG Rover has lead to a number of "what if MGR survived?" scenarios
that many enthusiasts have loved to speculate upon - myself included. Interestingly, the
future of the K series was actively being researched and developed at the time of the
group's collapse in April, 2005 - it appeared that despite the mounting financial
problems, the management were confident enough of a positive outcome for
negotiations with the Chinese Motor company, SAIC, to plough on forging the future of
the K series. The most immediate hurdle for the K-series was the new European
emissions regulations - widely referred to as EU4 (or EUIV) - that was due to be
enforced by October 1st, 2005...

K series engine has two main advantages-fuel efficiency

and low pollution.The light weight and friction control
technology of this engine makes it the most fuel
efficient engine in its segment.Maruti Suzuki demands a
fuel efficiency of 18 kmpl for the new maruti swift 2010.
 PARTS OF ENGINE