Janspeed Head

[p.mole1]

I have found a Janspeed K series head on Ebay 182383752459

It has Std Valves bronze guides, comes wth Piper 264 duration cams with solid followers, 10.8-1 compression ratio.

According to the seller it has cover 150 miles gravel rally competition miles. I didn't know Janspeed modified heads do you think this a good buy?

[simon_h]

Janspeed fettled the heads for PTP for the S1 Sport 135 Elise, VHPD engines and many other makes that had PTP K Series heads.

[Simon.Rogers]

Janspeed designed the VHPD head and engine in the first place is my understanding.  Jason Langan was one of the 2 guys who did the work and then Rover deleted all the metal bits and swapped them for plastic such as the dowels.

Jason still works out of the Janspeed premises in Salisbury.  Just the man for the K series service and rebuild.

[oilyhands]

No disrespect intended, but my understanding is that I the MS (VHPD) head is a simple hybrid of the VVC and regular K16 heads and was developed by PTP. The early heads were commisioned/ put together by Janspeed.

Oily

 

 

[21jigsaw]

The VHPD heads were manufactured by MG Rover in east works by utilizing the VVC bottom and standard top dies in the casting process before being machines in house. They were then passed onto PTP who handled all third party engine sales (Caterham, Lotus etc.) for MG Rover. PTP not having the necessary expertise / facilitys sub contracted development work to Janspeed.

[p.mole1]

Thanks,

The seller wants £650 but is open to offers, however you never quite know what you are getting from ebay it could be a fake or porous or soft,could be a risk. How would I be able to identify the piper cams as the genuine stated article?

[7 wonders of the world]

Piper usually mark the cam number on the end of he cams,

[p.mole1]

I bought it! seems in excellent condition. The combustion camber has been machined around the valves to reduce shrouding but the cambers are just rough cast. It has bronze guides on the inlets, flashing on the waterways has been removed and the ports modified but not polished.

The head has been drilled for the older tensioner, I think the cams are Piper 633 (264 deg duration?) but the ends of the cams are stamped 774? but the shafts have Piper casting marks, I will have to check the valve clearances as it has solid followers.Need to get hold of some vernier pulleys and I am going to try and pick up a cheap second hand Emerald ECU,roll on the Spring.

Off into the garage tomorrow to fit a mechanical oil pressure gauge, but I am going to use braided brake line instead of th horrible nylon stuff that came with the gauge.

[p.mole1]

I am still trying to identify the camshafts, have emailed Piper. On removing the cam ladder  I have found it has steel valve spring retainers and solid cam followers with shims not modified hydraulic tappets. I will have to retain the solid tappets as the head has had the oil ways pinned.  

Does anyone know who supplies the shims,Piper do not list them. Hopefully I will be using the cams that came with the head,if that's the case I will be fine as I only need to adjust one and it's tight so I can "rub it down to size"

[elie boone]

Maybe the shims of a Ford BD engine might fit. i don't know the dimensions but an BD engine builder will.

[oilyhands]

Dont wish to advertise, bad form and all that but I keep the shims in stock from 100 thou to 160 in 5 thou increments, they are through hardened.

Oily

[p.mole1]

Thanks Oily, thought somebody must have them.Hopefully I will be able to use the existing cams if they are suitable ( when I manage to identify them) in which case I only really need to take a few thou off one of the exhausts.

[oilyhands]

The stock shims are case hardened, if you need to remove material from the face, remove a little from each side so you don't go through the hardening,

Oily

[p.mole1]

It's all back together with an Autotechnics  air box and and DTH throttle bodies and a map supplied by oilyhands, it really goes well and is still pulling strongly to the rev limiter 7600!.

It pulls from 1500 rpm, ticks over perfectly. It sounds a bit rattly with the solid tappets and has no induction roar or exhaust noise in fact it sounds a bit tame. I have it booked in on a rolling road on 27th to get the fuelling and ignition sorted, best take a bin bag just in case!

[p.mole1]

Oh dear all that effort -127.5 hp at 7400 rpm and about 100 ftlb of torque at about  5800 rpm mind the torque curve is just about flat from 3400 to 7500 it doesn't drop below 90 ftlb  These match exactly the the the Standard SS outputs,either Caterham are vastly exaggerating the output or I'm a useless engine builder or the rolling road is reading low,optimistic! I wonder if I have to much advance on my cams I am using 80 thou inlet and 60 thou exhaust although I have just realised I did not take the valve clearances into account 

I was told my injectors are now running right at their maximum limit, what ever the figures say its a lot quicker and one hell of a lot more economical pity it now sounds like an old duffers 214 Rover

[Mark Durrant]

Which rolling road?

[p.mole1]

John Sleath he seems to specialize in powerful V8 stuff, not weedy 1.4 K series 

[p.mole1]

I was quite surprised at the end result I'm .5 hp down on standard, after fitting a ported Janspeed head with higher compression ratio, 4-2-1 exhaust, Piper verniers, Jenvey DTH throttle bodies, Autotechnics air box with 90mm trumpets and a M3D K6 ECU and I even made a cold air box to shield the air intake from the radiator. Takes a special skill to bolt that lot on and lose power! The car runs like a treat after being set up no flat spots pulls from tick over up to the limiter it could do with the limit being raised.

I should have done a compression test first however the head was almost new and the rest of the engine is fine,doesn't use a drop of oil although I might give it a leak down test just to check everything is ok.