K-Series collected

I have a wonderful little engine!

We can soon call this blog the how to fit a K-Series blog. I will add some very detailed information once I get going. Should be making a start in about two weeks...

Clearly mileage correct on the engine, block is shiny alloy and no salt corrision on anything! basically all the work has been done by the guy I got it off!

Lovely bloke, Welding Fabricator and ex-racer, karting enthusiast. Just the kinda of chap to buy something from. Why there not more bids on it I do not know! Its saved me LOADS of cash and hassle its virtually a bolt in conversion!

I reckon it should be an easy conversion by the look of it...No nasty chassis hacking, rack moving, cross member relocations....

Just need some HEAVY mods to the bulkhead and to make a gearbox tunnel...and exhaust.

I have also a release arm, starter motor from a Ford which fits. MGF clocks and dashboard? Fusebox, ECU, wiring.

To fit a starter on the engine you need to grind off some mounts from the block, thats been done and strengthened. The engine mounts he made will definately be useable. I will make some mini towers off the chassis rails behind the suspension turrets and mount the engine on Jaguar E-Type engine mount rubbers...

The bellhousing is 6-1/4" long same as Spitty with the Type9 adaptor plate, so the engine can surely go back 5-6inches from the 1300 location.

Its an amazingly tiny bottomend, maybe even smaller lower half of the engine that the 1300 spit block! The flywheel is TINY!! Like a motorbike! Much smaller than the spitfire one. The guy has machined this for crank sensor for the ECU and spark firing...nice one.

So plan of action is to pickup a mini-slave cylinder, sierra release bearing, get the clutch and box on it and working...

Get it on the crane, aim it at the hole, break out the anglegrinder, mutilate the bulkhead and adjust the chassis rails...sort the rear gearbox mount plate needed...Sort the engine mount towers and get some Jag rubbers...That should get it in place...

Once in place and bolted down whip it out - stick it under a sheet and create a new gearbox tunnel, something simple from alloy sheet, probably not rounded, but angular. Pickup some cams and that stuff...Work out an exhaust, water system, plumbing...

I will need an Apollo Tank cause the K doesn't like to mounted inline and suffers real bad surge and also the oil can get airy due to excessive oil ending up in the top of the engine, the cams make it foam or soemthing?.....This tank thing is like a dry sump but cheap. It makes the K-series have an 7.5litre oil capacity.

Its an extra tank that sits in the engine bay. Basically its a seperate sump in addition to the engines sump...The oil pump throws the oil into this tank then into the engine galleries...or something tank...It throws oil in the top of the tank and blows it out the bottom into the engine? This means the oil gets shot of any air created and when you get surge you have 3.5Litres of oil in the tank at all times to feed the engine when the sump pickup is struggling...Not quite sure I have got the plumbing/system correctly described, but basically all caterhams have an apollo tank, unless they have a dry sump...

I don't want to go mad with mods and stuff at this stage, but thats the only thing I will do to the oil system bar adding a cooler...To me it looks like the Spitfire oil cooler take off will fit...Infact the engine Spitfire oil cooler system the filter looks the same so?

Quite excited...I always wanted a real rocket ship, at this stage it looks like a relatively painless option.

I think buying this engine and kit has saved atleast £750 once I sell the dashboard, VVC mech, cams, induction system and such like...I'd hope to have to spend as little as £100 to get it fitted and clutch working!