Headworks

[pete]

Pete's Rule - money spent should make car go faster, or be better.

If I imagine for the moment that there may be something wrong with my motor car that requires the head to come off/be replaced (and this is despite the fact that I still believe that it is not leaking water into the engine but simply has a loose jubilee clip that I haven't found yet - and yes I know the evidence against this is mounting ) is there anything I should consider doing if the head was off to make it be more powerful?

It's a '03 111S so has the VVC head.

Pete

[tenkfeet]

Put a Honda head in it .

[robin]

The S2 111S is pretty good to start with, but can be fettled to deliver more whilst retaining the standard valves.

DVA does a K06a kit for the VVC that is on an exchange basis (you send him your head, he sends you one from stock). Although he quotes this as around 170 I've seen one car make 177 on this spec.

Kiwirog has a standard VVC head port spec that uses the standard valves and leaves the VVC cams alone. I'm pretty sure this will make 170, maybe a little bit more if you're lucky. Roger works on your head, so you need to book a slot in the queue, send him the head and wait. Roger probably works out a bit cheaper (though remember he's not supplying you with a new exhaust cam, nor changing the inlet cam timing, unlike the k06a kit; your money is spent on port and chamber reworking).

In either case, you're going to want to either replace the standard exhaust manifold and downpipe with a Piper or Janspeed flexi manifold (4:1 with flexi before the cat) or get the die grinder out and attack the welding clag in your standard exhaust manifold - at about 160-ish the S2 exhaust manifold becomes the limiting factor.

Assuming you're using the standard airbox, you should remove everything but the main airbox (IIRC, the VVC engine comes with a secondary airbox as a noise baffle).

If it was me, I would get Roger to do it if I could afford the time and spend the difference in price on the piper flexi 4:1 exhaust manifold which is good for anything up to 190-ish. If you're in a rush, get a K06a and fettle the exhaust manifold.

Cheers,
Robin

[hiscot]

the mgtf cup cars where putting 190 bhp out on std ex manifolds ( rover running out of money )
i am not saying you wont see gains from a janspeed or such
however if cash is tight use the std and fit the aftermarket later

[pete]

The S2 111S is pretty good to start with, but can be fettled to deliver more whilst retaining the standard valves.

DVA does a K06a kit for the VVC that is on an exchange basis (you send him your head, he sends you one from stock). Although he quotes this as around 170 I've seen one car make 177 on this spec.

Kiwirog has a standard VVC head port spec that uses the standard valves and leaves the VVC cams alone. I'm pretty sure this will make 170, maybe a little bit more if you're lucky. Roger works on your head, so you need to book a slot in the queue, send him the head and wait. Roger probably works out a bit cheaper (though remember he's not supplying you with a new exhaust cam, nor changing the inlet cam timing, unlike the k06a kit; your money is spent on port and chamber reworking).

In either case, you're going to want to either replace the standard exhaust manifold and downpipe with a Piper or Janspeed flexi manifold (4:1 with flexi before the cat) or get the die grinder out and attack the welding clag in your standard exhaust manifold - at about 160-ish the S2 exhaust manifold becomes the limiting factor.

Assuming you're using the standard airbox, you should remove everything but the main airbox (IIRC, the VVC engine comes with a secondary airbox as a noise baffle).

If it was me, I would get Roger to do it if I could afford the time and spend the difference in price on the piper flexi 4:1 exhaust manifold which is good for anything up to 190-ish. If you're in a rush, get a K06a and fettle the exhaust manifold.

Cheers,
Robin

Thanks Robin. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that. My exhaust is blowing at the moment - I think it may be the flexi so money has to bespent there anyway...

Pete

[campbell]

But whatever you do Pete, take your time getting the original fault diagnosis right. Chucking changes or parts at a problem in hope is never a very economical solution

However I couldn't agree more that if sorting this leak brings the opportunity to make some improvements, you absolutely should go for it.

[robin]

the mgtf cup cars where putting 190 bhp out on std ex manifolds ( rover running out of money )
i am not saying you wont see gains from a janspeed or such
however if cash is tight use the std and fit the aftermarket later

Interesting - when we had the RLC mapped at Emerald, Dave Walker was convinced that the exhaust manifold (later EU3/S2 type) was the bottleneck which is why it made peak power very low in the rev range (running 285H cams it should have been higher up). Later, we had the manifold swapped to the Piper flexi 4:1 type; with no other changes it was remapped and produced a *lot* more power, so much so that it had to be remapped substantially to keep it within the LOT regulations for this year. It may be that the issue was with the standard valve sizes - perhaps with larger exhaust valves it would have worked better.

There are deffo cars out there making more than 170 on the standard manifold, but I'm sure that DVA fettles them a bit, and he must do that for a reason!

Cheers,
Robin

[hiscot]

the cup cars used a vhpd hence bigger valves
the s2 /6 stud manifold is a huge improvement over the poor 4 stud that is smaller and full of welding slag i think rover required the better 6 stud for the vvc ie 150 +bhp hence a redesign the 4 stud realy is that poor
robin i am due a remap soon can i see your piper gains as my mapper also agrees i should get good gains but better if its mapped with the piper on but we want lower gains down the rpm not peak because off std pistons

[robin]

the cup cars used a vhpd hence bigger valves
the s2 /6 stud manifold is a huge improvement over the poor 4 stud that is smaller and full of welding slag i think rover required the better 6 stud for the vvc ie 150 +bhp hence a redesign the 4 stud realy is that poor
robin i am due a remap soon can i see your piper gains as my mapper also agrees i should get good gains but better if its mapped with the piper on but we want lower gains down the rpm not peak because off std pistons

I don't have directly usable before-and-after data. From the data I have I can see that the torque before peak power has improved since remapping with the 4:1 flexi fitted. In general I think people find little or no change to torque when fitting the flexi manifold to an engine that was managing to breath OK before. It will be interesting to see what results you get compared to the original data you had.

Cheers,
Robin

[pete]

But whatever you do Pete, take your time getting the original fault diagnosis right. Chucking changes or parts at a problem in hope is never a very economical solution

However I couldn't agree more that if sorting this leak brings the opportunity to make some improvements, you absolutely should go for it.

Thanks for the reminder, I can, on occasion rush into thingsbut this time I am simply running out of options.

The symptoms are:

1. It is using water and has been for months,
2. It doesn't appear to be falling out of it onto the ground, and Alui couldn't see a leak when it was serviced last month.
3. It is running fine*.
4. the temp seems to fluctuate rather more than it did, although this is subjective as I have been watching more keenly than I used to.
5. There has been some mayo under the oil filler cap, but none inside the engine that I can see, nor anything but clean water in the resevoir.

*Except for one instance when it nearly overheated, turns out my fan has stopped working.

It's booked into Ali's for next week, until then i'm thinking about it slightly too much and wondering if i have to take the head off at least i can make it go faster!


Pete

[pete]

The S2 111S is pretty good to start with, but can be fettled to deliver more whilst retaining the standard valves.

DVA does a K06a kit for the VVC that is on an exchange basis (you send him your head, he sends you one from stock). Although he quotes this as around 170 I've seen one car make 177 on this spec.

Kiwirog has a standard VVC head port spec that uses the standard valves and leaves the VVC cams alone. I'm pretty sure this will make 170, maybe a little bit more if you're lucky. Roger works on your head, so you need to book a slot in the queue, send him the head and wait. Roger probably works out a bit cheaper (though remember he's not supplying you with a new exhaust cam, nor changing the inlet cam timing, unlike the k06a kit; your money is spent on port and chamber reworking).

In either case, you're going to want to either replace the standard exhaust manifold and downpipe with a Piper or Janspeed flexi manifold (4:1 with flexi before the cat) or get the die grinder out and attack the welding clag in your standard exhaust manifold - at about 160-ish the S2 exhaust manifold becomes the limiting factor.

Assuming you're using the standard airbox, you should remove everything but the main airbox (IIRC, the VVC engine comes with a secondary airbox as a noise baffle).

If it was me, I would get Roger to do it if I could afford the time and spend the difference in price on the piper flexi 4:1 exhaust manifold which is good for anything up to 190-ish. If you're in a rush, get a K06a and fettle the exhaust manifold.

Cheers,
Robin

Do you think either of these affect the driveability or reliability?

As to the airbox the car is pretty standard except for an ali radiator (Elise Parts), the Lotus Sport exhaust.

[robin]

[quote=pete]
Do you think either of these affect the driveability or reliability?
[/quote]

Not fixing the causes and knock on effects of HGF will result in repeated problems. Often these are then blamed on poor quality head work or repairs, etc., but really it was just that the original fault was never fixed and so it broke again quickly. Swapping heads with someone else (e.g. a DVA exchange head) could in theory cause problems for you that you didn't have before if that head is a worse casting or has been overheated/overskimmed/badly reworked. That's not so likely if getting the head from DVA because he hardness tests them all, and he's cut up enough of them by now to have a clue about what he's doing. The Kiwirog approach of getting your old head back leaves you where you started, except for the possibility of skimming exposing problems in the casting that were buried before.

Increasing engine output might cause you to drive the car harder to play with your new ponies; this will lead to more wear and tear on the pistons - if you're a track user, then at 50K or beyond at this point I would be thinking of replacing/rebuilding the bottom end - for a road user more like 75K unless you really lean on it. So, if you put a +20BHP head on a 75K engine then go and do 4 hours at Spa on full throttle, there is a good chance the engine will fail - it might not have failed if left standard, but then it wouldn't have been as much fun either

Make sure your liner heights are good when the head is off and take it from there.

BTW, have you checked your expansion tank cap? It's a common way to vent off a bit of coolant each time the engine gets hot ... replacing annually with a Rover part (if you can get it) is not a bad idea I think.

Cheers,
Robin

[Rich H]

Landrover do expansion caps for the 1.8 petrol freelander, bit easier to find but still cheap! (£3)

[RDH]

Landrover do expansion caps for the 1.8 petrol freelander, bit easier to find but still cheap! (£3)

£4 from your ex rover dealer?

[pete]

Landrover do expansion caps for the 1.8 petrol freelander, bit easier to find but still cheap! (£3)

£4 from your ex rover dealer?

Right 5.38 from my ex Rover dealer.

Alan must have mentioned this a dozen times and for some reason I ignored it, I changed it today and arrived at work with the same amount of water as I set out with.... We shall see.

Pete

(Should listen to and act on advice not just ask for it).