Pierre Gillet Posted April 26, 2000 Share Posted April 26, 2000 Has anyone experience a conversion of a 1.6K engine with the package supplied by caterham? Is it really worth the £ 1000 plus the costs of hours. Does the car remain pleasant to drive in the traffic? What is the real increase of power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Seipel Posted April 26, 2000 Share Posted April 26, 2000 Pierre It is definitely worth the money. The kit comes with cams, ECU and immobiliser. The engine remains very tractable in traffic and really does produce 138Ps. Tim Seipel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted April 27, 2000 Share Posted April 27, 2000 Ditto. I have a 1.6K ss and it is very 'normal' around town, with no foibles whatsoever. Put your foot down and you'll notice the difference over the standard engine. I have done about 20,000 miles in it with no problems (touching wood as I type wink.gif) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Gillet Posted April 27, 2000 Author Share Posted April 27, 2000 Thank you for sharing with me your experience. Seems really worth it. By the way can anybody tell me the difference,if any between "bhp" (which I understand means "British horse powwer"), and "ps". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david nelson Posted April 27, 2000 Share Posted April 27, 2000 The Supersport converstion is worth it. Caterham did it for me 2 years ago. They used to include fitting in the price. It might be worth calling them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderate Clam Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 BHP = Brake Horse Power I can't remember the exact calculation, but 1 PS is slightly smaller than 1 BHP. I think it's 1 PS = 0.92 BHP, but someone else out there probably knows the exact figure. Edited by - moderate clam on 28 Apr 2000 10:38:07 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 How much is the SS kit? And would you be prepared to go with a non-Caterham solution which would produce more power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve J Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Pierre At the risk of sounding like a boring old bookworm who has nothing better to do than read conversion charts (which I am until I eventually have enough dosh to buy a Caterham!!), PS means Pferdstarke. It's the universal unit over 'ere in the Land of the Sausage (Germany). Translated, Pferd = horse, starke = strength. The conversion is 1PS = 0.98632bhp (don't you just hate people who know all the numbers after the decimal stop!) There are actually more numbers after the full stop, but there not in the Bosch Handbook. In France, they use ch (cheval vapeur) and 1ch = 1PS. Yours in the hope of moving from 'Novice' to 'Boring Git' as soon as possible, Steve J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderate Clam Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Well I'm glad you are a boring old git. wink.gif With your 'correct' calculation, my car has just gained several BHP. Yours A happy clam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Gillet Posted April 28, 2000 Author Share Posted April 28, 2000 Thank you all. In fact I understand that PS is basically what we use in France as " chevaux DIN "( for Deutch Industrie norms)and BHP is closer to " Chevaux SAE" ( for Society of American engineers?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Gillet Posted April 28, 2000 Author Share Posted April 28, 2000 V7, I read an advertisement of the Caterham factory for 1000 £ apparently not including fitting. It seems that this conversion which has been engineered by the Rover motorists delivers a significant increase of power for a relatively moderate price without diminishing reliability. So I would go for it. There is a very interesting article by Roger King about tuning the K engines in the last Low Flying issue, and Roger is apologetic about the SS conversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Seipel Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Sorry chaps to go on about the conversion factors etc. The conversion Ps to BHP is correct. ie More PS than BHP. But the DIN and SAE refers to the correction factors. When running engines on dynos you always must correct for atmospheric conditions. Something that the rolling road boys generally don't in my experience. More details on the differences can be supplied on the differences between DIN and SAE or even ECE, but that would be a very sad topic of conversation. Tim Seipel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve J Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Well said Tim! We all hear about huge power gains and rolling road figures, but I've never heard which correction factor was used, or to which atmospheric conditions the figures have been corrected to. So whatch out before you part with all your hard earned dosh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted May 2, 2000 Share Posted May 2, 2000 1000 quid plus fitting! Wow. That's a lot for not a lot. I should think anyone thinking of going this route ought to have a butcher's at the recent CCC article about tuning the K series. Although you'll end up spending way more than a grand if you go down the whole route, at least you can be sure you are spending money on upgrades that won't get superceded. If you go for the supersport upgrade, and decide to go the whole hog later, you might find yourself ditching the cams and/or ECU. Having spoken with several parties about tuning the K it seems priorities should be: 1. Exhaust. Make sure you haven't got the standard single-exit pipe. The competition pipe has been heralded by people in the know (including Dave Walker from CCC) as being of pretty good design. The standard pipe is severely restricting. 2. Cams. The supersport cams are OK, but there are better profiles around. You have the opportunity to buy profiles to suit you and your style of driving. 3. ECU. Apparently the standard MEMS ECU can cope with *some* cam changes. Personally I'd go for an Emerald M3DK. This is a direct plug-compatible replacement. It costs 500 quid plus a session on the rollers, but there's a huge body of satisfied customers out there.... 4. Induction. The standard plenum is silly. For a K, Jenvey produce direct to head throttle bodies which give a perfectly straight route to the valve head. You can even see the valves through them. 5. Head work. The sky's the limit here.... Mike Bee's was recently featured in CCC having had an RR session at Emerald. He got 240+bhp out of his 1700 K..... er, but it cost a bit more than a grand. smile.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Dixon Posted May 2, 2000 Share Posted May 2, 2000 Following on from all that has been written I am about to start spending money on upgrading my 1.6 K Series (non Supersport) I want to upgrade in stages at approx. £1,000 per stage. I had thought about throttle bodies but they work out nearer £2,000 when you add on all the extras and the replacement EMU that is reqd. Caterham's Supersport conversion whilst appealing is limited by the fact that if you want to carry out further upgrades eventually you have to replace the Rover MEMS. Does anyone out there have any recommendations - the sort of things I am thinking about for my first £1,000 are replacement cams and EMU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted May 3, 2000 Share Posted May 3, 2000 Cams can be expensive. A direct plug compatible Emerald unit for the K series is 500 quid. You'll need a session on the rolling road to map it too. I think Emerald talk about 200 quid a session, which I believe is a day. It possibly won't take that long if they have some base maps to start with. Their base maps depend on what spec your engine is at, and whether they've ever started with an engine with a similar spec before. A whole bunch of satisfied Se7eners will vouch for their expertise. Have you got the 4 into 1 exhaust? If not, you should consider that a priority. All other upgrades will be limited by a standard exhaust. Check out the Jenvey web site. I didn't think their direct to head throttle bodies were that expensive so as to make an ECU and TBs 2 grand. I still think the exhaust should be your first port of call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Gillet Posted May 5, 2000 Author Share Posted May 5, 2000 V7 SLR, Is this exhaust significantly louder? What must I do with the Lambda sensor? just diconnect? I have to enlarge the hole in the body side. To go through the "technical control" here in france, every two years, I will have to put back the normal exhaust, and I am concerned that the larger hole looks awful with just one pipe going through it. I understand that this exhaust will not increase significantly the power (2 or 3 BHP?) but has to be fitted because it will be a bottle neck if I tune up the engine later . Thank you for your thoughts. Pierre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted May 6, 2000 Share Posted May 6, 2000 It's only as loud as the silencer you use. I've got what is now standard on the SLR, which is a 6 inch silencer which has recently been measured at 98dB at 4500rpm. The exhaust came with a 4 into 1 collector which doubled as the catalyser.... obviously the cat got ditched as soon as SVA was complete and replaced with a 4-2-1 pipe. The VHPD engine is supposed to suffer from a flat spot at around 4000rpm with a 4 into 1 pipe (inc the cat 4 into 1) which the 4-2-1 irons out. The manifold still uses the lambda sensor, so just plug it in. DO NOT disconnect it. The ECU will be looking for a signal from it. We have an MOT test every year after the 1st 3 years which means I'll have to put the cat back on for this test. If you have to put your single exit pipe back on for a test, who cares if it looks bad? It's only for the test surely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Seipel Posted May 6, 2000 Share Posted May 6, 2000 By the way chaps, disconnecting the oxtgen sensor causes no harm on the MEMS system. It just runs open loop for the areas that are calibrated to run at stoichiometric Air/Fuel Ratio. Not that you need to disconnect the sensor. Most of the long 4-1 systems have a tapping for it on No.4 exhaust primary tract. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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