Hello,
I have raad a few threads about the 1.8 K series and thought I could add some info. The Head Gasket Failure on the Rover K series 1.8 is by no means limited to the Freelader Instalation, I have a Lotus Elise (that uses a K Series) and know of lots of poeple who have had Elise HGF failures and revently did a lot of power and reliability mods to get 160bhp from my (non vvc) K Series, but also , before you talk of car abuse, so has the nice lady that works at the golf club had a HGF in her Rover 45.
The weakness of the K-Series is specifically
"As a 1.8 litre there are, or were, two minor problems, design features of the basic engine which did give rise to problems when the engine was tuned. The first is the positioning of the thermostat in the cooling system, which was not designed for engines frequently put under heavy load. It was first designed as an efficient engine for lightweight front wheel drive cars, typically the Rover Metro and the current Rover 25, with good fuel consumption and requiring low emissions from start-up when the car was likely to see a large number of very short inner city journeys. It was thus designed to give very rapid warm up by placing the thermostat at the coolant inlet to the engine, where the thermostat measures essentially cooled water from the radiator with a very small quantity of heated water from the balancing circuit until the stat opens. This is a very unusual coolant path design, but is effective in its required purpose.
The system does not function well in cooling circuits with a radiator a long way from the engine in the cooling path, or for engines constantly seeing high engine speeds .The problem arises when the engine is put under heavy load, causing high engine temperatures that are not immediately read by the thermostat because cold water in the radiator and hoses has to pass the thermostat first. This can cause enormous thermal gradients across the engine, causing both distortion of the head and block and also gasket failure. The vehicle which suffered most from this was the Land Rover Freelander. Apparently, the typical owner for this vehicle is the middle class housewife and mother who use it for large numbers of short shopping trips to the supermarket!! Being heavy and 4x4, the 1.8 litre K’s tend to be pushed very hard from cold. This results in the engine getting very hot before the water can circulate and open the thermostat. Result – blown gasket. Early last year, Rover introduced a new thermostat, the PRT thermostat that will open with pressure as well as temperature, the result is that it opens much more quickly and prevents this thermal shock across the engine. There still appear to be problems with the Freelander, amid concerns that Ford have already executed a cost down on this new thermostat. However, it is quite apparent that as soon as the thermostat is moved to the output on the engine that temperature related gasket failure no longer becomes an issue."taken from
http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/thecar/engine/kingk.htmlFor my elise I have put in a remote stat conversion from elise parts
http://www.eliseparts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=240I doubt this would fit a freelander due to very different cooling routes, but its the principle (as above) thats important, and I think landrover did this in later modeal and some warranty repairs.
Also in the Elise is a water to oil il cooler. This (obviously) cools the oil, but also makes sure oil\water are close to = temp so avoiding shock.
http://www.eliseparts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=236This coupled with an uprated head gasket should ward off HFG failurs and have done so in my mates 200bhp Elise (a very highly tuned K series). also you get nice blue hoses. and shiny alloy bits!
So if you have a 1.8kseries Freelander than look to Lotus/Caterham suppliers for various upgragde/reliability bits as the K Series is a frequently modified and raced engine. Also this sector will know more about (we hope) the K Series than others as we blow them up so often, that said most mods are for high reving engines in lightweight cars (the K series is a very light engine) so I dont think you should stick a lotus VHPD engine in your Freelander!
And finally when my Elise does go pop, It will get towed home by my Freelander TD4!
