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Old 21st March 2017, 17:45   #4
minimutly
Posted a thing or two
 
mg zt

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Rover needed a lightweight engine for their new mini - the metro. Hence the k series. Not long after they decided to enlarge it to 1600 for the 200 and 400, and with a long stroke crank to 1800. Big mistake in my opinion, but there we are. The enlargement of the block, crank, head would have cost a small fortune, but imagine - what an engine that would have been! Instead we got con rods at extreme angles, pistons without enough metal between the top and gudgeon pin, and liners too thin for sustained abuse. Damn shame.
Given that they had a relatively powerful lightweight engine, which was probably a lot cheaper to build, why would they continue developing the cylinder head on the t seies? It has some poor design features - the included angle of the valves ( a throwback to the dolomite sprint if I recal?), large valve stem diameters (also dolly sprint and mini), a lot of water jacket, no vvc, oh and some oil leak issues sometimes.
They really should have kept it for the turbos though in my opinion.
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