K Series for or against

[flyerncle]

Lotus use them as well,do the mods to it before you fit it to the Roadster.
I would be a rich man if I had £50 for every head gasket I have done on them!

[mr henderson]

Originally Posted by flyerncle

Lotus use them as well,do the mods to it before you fit it to the Roadster.
I would be a rich man if I had £50 for every head gasket I have done on them!

I reckon you could charge more that £50 for changing a head gasket, and be very rich.


What are the mods needed?

[Jezzer99]

Personally, I think the K-series is a great engine *if* you can find one that's been well maintained. It's poor maintenance that general leads to the dreaded HGF. Also, Rover made modification of the life of the engine to improve the resistance to HGF.

Caterham used to do a bellhousing to mate it to a type-9, not sure whether they still do - occasionally they come up on eBay but at reasonable money (they were about £250 new). There's a company called Frontline who also do a bellhousing which is primarily targetted to people who want to do K-series conversions for MG Midgets - I guess there's no reason why you couldn't use that in Roadster. Again though, quite big cash.

[Balidey]

Thanks for the info guys.
Just been reading up online, looks like it may be the engine for me

[flyerncle]

I would not get out of bed for £50,and the last one I did was an MGF and definatley not £50.
Mods,skim and pressure test head,modified gasket,replace liner seals and measure the height on all cylinders to make sure they are all the same.
New bolts and there is a modified and strengthened lower plate for the bolts.

I have heard of one that has over 100,000 miles and never had a gasket,all he did was nip the bolts now and again with no problems.

Sorry Jezzer I personally think they are crap !

[mark]

They run good when they are working and have good power output for their weight ..................................BUT in the the past three years ive known about 4 of my friends own k series engined cars and only one of them got away with not having a blown head gasket

Many people say its down to lack of maintenance but all of them were well looked after and one of them was owned by a mechanics sister it was driven slow and very well looked after and it still went!

[aerosam]

Even with 1 head gasket change budgeted for a year, I reckon it's STILL cheaper then fitting a duratec.