Rover K-series Turbo engines

Anecdotally they were very under developed, make the power but at a cost to reliability by all accounts.

The T series engine (Iron block) is suppsoed to make a better lump, but heavier too.

I'd look at bastardising bits to make a 1.4 or 1.6 Turbo nutter K and get it all balanced up to rev to 10k+

Look up Evoloutions thread on the 16v mini forum for lots of info on k series turbos...

280bhp from scrappy parts enough to get you intrested?

That's more than enough to get me interested!!!

Here's the link to the (30-page!) thread:

www.16vminiclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3208

A 280bhp turbo Metro that looked fairly standard would be

The head gasket 'problem' isn't actually that much of a problem if you know how to solve it IIRC it's steel head dowels found in Freelander engines that provide the easy cure.

I've got a MG ZT with the 1.8 Turbo. This has 160bhp as opposed to the 75 Turbo which has 150bhp. Acording to insider info from MGRover the turbo engines were detuned not to detract customers from the KV6 versions.

www.zandf-tuning.co.uk/

Here's a 1.4 Turbo with almost 300BHP

www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?162775-Rover-100-Kensington-SE-%28no-less%29-1-4-K-series-Turbo-292-9-bhp-230lbft

It was due to the need of torque for the larger 75/ZT thet they went with turbo instead of the higher revving VVC.

The headgasket problems I have been told are as good as gone when you change for the MLS headgasket, better torque bolts (10.8 grade as opposed to 9.9 originally) and a better oil rail.

Just make sure the cylinder liners hasn't dropped lower than 2 thou above the block and that they all measure the same.

My car had to have a new head as the previous owner had driven the car with the HGF for a long time. Luckily he had to pay the bill and not me

There's not much info on tuning the K16Turbo, but I really like a few more horses in the ZT so will read the mini-link with interest,

Is the ECU of the non charged K-series and charged K-series interchangable?

I like the idea of a Rover 200 with 1.4 Turbo with around 160hp. Low tax, insurance and sleeper looks.

the blocks of the k series are all the same, so the internals of the 1.8 can be fitted to the 1.4 block( not that I'm hinting at anything untoward here ), but the ecus are notoriously difficult to get working in other cars, so you would need megasquirt or something like that to get it to run.

Ross, the ECU's aren't too bad, there's a few guides floating around the mini forums, and as long as you get the full loom and immobiliser with the ECU then it's easy enough to trim all the unwanted bits off and end up with a fairly need little bundle that'll run the engine on it's own.

As for their interchangeability, I'm not sure on the turbo motors, but with the NA lumps I'm under the impression that there's basically 3 set ups: distributor spi, distributor mpi and wasted spark mpi. As long as the new and old engine are the same set up, then you can plug in any matching engine and ECU (and matching immobiliser). So if you've got a 1.1 mpi metro with a dizzy, you can drop in any 1.6 mpi with a dizzy, plug it in, plug in your matching immobiliser and ECU and be on your way.

I just ordered a new tweeked ECU for my ZT from Zanf-tuning.co.uk

They are sending me a replacement ECU that's remapped. Should make it plug and play

Hopefully it'll make enough change to be felt as I won't be able to run it on a rolling road