The truth about the K Series?

[not normal dan]

I saw it in the flesh, I don't think it's on the net. I've has a quick search on MetroPower but found nothing.

I'll have a look through my phone pictures buddy.

Cheers mate sounds good

 

[...]

not sure what your saying there .

the judd engine was a very powerful and well engineered K series ? Judd are not a posh name , they are a very well respected engine builder who were capable of taking on the project , whay do you think a 2.0 race engine putting out that sort of power costs?

a 2.0 zetec putting out 230bhp which is not stretching the boundries cost me somewhere in the region of of 10 to 12k from a decent engine builder , a duratec pushing 260 will cost 15k upwards , so for judd to come up with a full race 2.0k series would have been 10's of thousands.

and as for them using an engine a session , so would lots of other teams have done similar , why do you think to massively reduce costs they are now only allowed 4 engines per year ......... damm you want to see what a swindon VX lump does on hours in a race car ...... not many when your putting out 300bhp from a N/A 2.0



just googled it k2000 from judd £12900 + vat which is 250bhp ....... sounds about the going rate to me , so where is the hugely expensive bit

 

[Gaz.]

Easy to work on, light, cheap engines. They're still popular for a reason.

Blighted by s**t craftmanship/quality control really, and poor cooling system designs/bad choices of vehicle to fit the engines into. I could go a lot further but I've said it all before on here.

 

[Englebert]

not sure what your saying there .

the judd engine was a very powerful and well engineered K series ? Judd are not a posh name , they are a very well respected engine builder who were capable of taking on the project , whay do you think a 2.0 race engine putting out that sort of power costs?

a 2.0 zetec putting out 230bhp which is not stretching the boundries cost me somewhere in the region of of 10 to 12k from a decent engine builder , a duratec pushing 260 will cost 15k upwards , so for judd to come up with a full race 2.0k series would have been 10's of thousands.

and as for them using an engine a session , so would lots of other teams have done similar , why do you think to massively reduce costs they are now only allowed 4 engines per year ......... damm you want to see what a swindon VX lump does on hours in a race car ...... not many when your putting out 300bhp from a N/A 2.0



just googled it k2000 from judd £12900 + vat which is 250bhp ....... sounds about the going rate to me , so where is the hugely expensive bit

£12,900 isn't cheap for 250bhp IMO. But in fairness that is not a 'proper' engine, they did a 270bhp version for the touring cars. The cost gets exponential, as i'm sure you already known.

What i'm saying is Judd did nothing special in comparison with other builders there, such as Scholar who deal with far more of them. There was no secret, and they lasted no longer than a Scholar, Minister, PTP or whoever.

There are a few people out there with opinions, some more respected than others. Some come out declaring respected builders have got it all wrong, but when you actually delve further, they haven't actually proven much.

We've financed a lot of the development ourselves, beyond, say the Scholar used in British GT and got to stage where if you keep it under 270bhp you can have a relatively reliable engine. Some engines would last ages, and then come back after a rebuild and go... it comes down to attention to detail.

Back down to earth, a maintained K-Series should last for ages. I had a mildly tuned stock 1.8 which got abused and never went wrong; there are 45+ cars in the Lotus series with 160bhp spec engines and you hardly ever see an engine problem! The 160 Elise was always the sweetest, the 190 VHPD was less tractable and troublesome.

I suppose what i'm trying to say is don't believe all the hype. They are characterful, light engines and deserve more respect than they get. Can't say i'm particularly drawn to a Metro, but i would say never ignore an Elise just because you're worried about the engine.

 

[...]

the 160 elise had its downsides and was pretty peaky too without sorting out the cam timing .... had a large hole in the midrange ..... i would say the 135 had a sweeter spot , however a vvc was a nicer engine to drive when set up with about 160bhp .......

13k for a new scratch built ready to drop in race engine wasn't bad , and i suspect they pushed the judd to nearer 300bhp at some point , your right there is always a trade off between ultimate power and reliability, all i was pointing out was judd wasn't just a posh name , they are just who was approached and agreed to take on and develop that engine for the btcc team ....


i unfortunately have always hated the K-series and i have run enough of them , as i prefer engines that produce torque as well as power ...... certainly the ford zetec and now duratec 2.0 produce far more torque and drive alot nicer than any K i have driven .......... its the same reason i don't like most jap engines as they use the upper rev bands to produce the power sacrificing torque , if your going to do that , do it properly and give me a 2 stroke .

 

[wayne9989]

Cheers mate sounds good

Here you go mate, still a work in progress but you get the idea. Not just thrown together either, a real quality build.

 

[wayne9989]

For anyone that is wondering, Dave (the owner) has retained a Rover PG1 gearbox by fabricating a custom bell housing and the whole lot is sitting on a modified rear MGTF subframe which also enables him to run 'real' suspension as apposed to the original hydrolastic setup.