K series Engine in S2 Elise
Discussion
Has anyone had any head gasket problems with there S2
Elise, i had the misfortune of mine going twice in the S1, Expensive and Frustrateing,Basically before i take the plunge for the S2, has Lotus made any ammendments to stop this K Series Phenominam, eg, replacing the rubber sealed gasket?
Elise, i had the misfortune of mine going twice in the S1, Expensive and Frustrateing,Basically before i take the plunge for the S2, has Lotus made any ammendments to stop this K Series Phenominam, eg, replacing the rubber sealed gasket?
alunr said:
bertie said: Surely you mean have Rover done anything, Lotus recieve tham in a crate an bolt them in, nothing more.
Yeah but Lotus plumb in the cooling system and thats where the problem lies. MGF's and Elises have this problem the Front engined cars don't suffer as much
Plumbing the engine is doesn't involve touching the head gasket.
bertie said:
alunr said:
bertie said: Surely you mean have Rover done anything, Lotus recieve tham in a crate an bolt them in, nothing more.
Yeah but Lotus plumb in the cooling system and thats where the problem lies. MGF's and Elises have this problem the Front engined cars don't suffer as much
Plumbing the engine is doesn't involve touching the head gasket.
Yes, but the heat cycling caused by the cooling system does?
Bertie, it's not a case of the engine running hot, it's a case of cold water from the front of the car hitting the hot head when the thermostat opens. This cycle is constant on/off and as such causes thermal shock to the head and gasket.
This is the theory anyway, I have not examined closesly enough to prove it but it sounds like a likely cause of HGF to me! (and yes, I have suffered)
This is the theory anyway, I have not examined closesly enough to prove it but it sounds like a likely cause of HGF to me! (and yes, I have suffered)
But is the cooling install any different in terms of flows from the MG F, Rover 25/45 and Caterham?
I wouldn't have thought so. I know the K series can be touchy in terms of overheating and has had HG problems, but I thought they were endemic to the design and not of epedemic proportions.
I wouldn't have thought so. I know the K series can be touchy in terms of overheating and has had HG problems, but I thought they were endemic to the design and not of epedemic proportions.
Yes, the Elise and MGF have a massive run of cooling pipe up to the front of the car where the radiator is, and back again. This gets cold and makes the thermal shock worse. The Caterham and Rover 25 are front engined so don't have long cooling pipes to make them suffer from this effect. They probably also have better ventilation around the engine.
That's not to say that Caterhams don't suffer from HGF too!
That's not to say that Caterhams don't suffer from HGF too!
I find Berties initial reply pathetic, surely Lotus should take some sort of responsibilty for the HGF problem,and look into the K-series engine in depth saying its down to Rover is a cop out,eg, Unlimited or 5 year Warranty on the HGF, mines initially went at 16k miles and i do not do track days so the wear and tear argument is a non goer, my dad goes on about how he has done 160k miles in his Volkswagen without this problem ever occuring and also my second car is a Rover 45 which has also had an HGF problem,its good to hear that the S2 has not had as many of the same problems so i may just go for it,thanks for all the feedback concerning this issue, but why have the HGF problems only occured in the S2 135???
"but why have the HGF problems only occured in the S2 135???"
Having a guess I think maybe the K series come from the factory in one piece...but the 135 is an upgraded head from PTP (Rovers tuning boys I think) ..so the head is changed.
Think this was on the early cars too ...before they changed the design of the head gasket and went to metal dowels...which have improved things a lot...just looking at an old style gasket and a new one alongside, you can see where the weak spots were
Having a guess I think maybe the K series come from the factory in one piece...but the 135 is an upgraded head from PTP (Rovers tuning boys I think) ..so the head is changed.
Think this was on the early cars too ...before they changed the design of the head gasket and went to metal dowels...which have improved things a lot...just looking at an old style gasket and a new one alongside, you can see where the weak spots were
DanH said: It definitely heat cycles, after todays track day, I came in with the car at about 90 deg, and left it running to cool down. I left it like that for about 30 mins, and it kept heating up to 103 (fan turn on temp), down to about 95 and then back up again. Indefinitely!
Every car on the planet that uses an electrical cooling fan cycles it's engine temp like this if left idling, this is NOT the same thing as is being discussed here in any way . . .
There is vast amounts of speculation (and some umpublished data apparently) that shows cold returned coolant causing very large temp variations within the cylinder head itself in a cyclical manner, this is alleged to be caused by the front rad/rear engine install, or more likely the ratio of coolant bypass to main coolant system volume . . .
I'd like to see the data myself.
Certainly increasing the bypass/non bypass volume ratio to make the bypass relatively much larger (this is what fitting the remote stat solution does) will probably damp this cooling temp oscillation . . .
It does seem to work, although again no real data has been published one way or the other . . .
One of these days I'll finish my dataloger project and instrument the car up, and I'll publish the data.
Fd
Just a suggestion, and may get shot down for this, is it worth removing the thermostat that way the car will be cycling the water constantly stopping the water shock theory. The only problem with this is that the car will take longer to get upto temperature but AFIK its more oil temp/pressure thats important for engine than water (ie provided the engine isn't overheating its not that much of a problem).
alana said: I find Berties initial reply pathetic, surely Lotus should take some sort of responsibilty for the HGF problem,and look into the K-series engine in depth saying its down to Rover is a cop out,
Cheers mate, I love you too.
All I was saying was that Lotus don't manufacture the engine, Rover do, and if there is an issue it would be down to Rover design not Lotus. I wasn't saying Lotus shouldn't take responsibility, you got the car from them so of course they should.
But once again, thanks for the kind words. Got out of bed the wrong side have you?
Gassing Station | Elise/Exige/Europa/340R | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff