Rover Case Study

Vivek Pattni
ME329, Automotive Engineering
Dr. David J Mason
Friday, June 6, 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Abstract.......................................................................................................................3
2. Background.................................................................................................................4
3. Engine Design.............................................................................................................5
3.1. Base Structure......................................................................................................5
3.2. Cylinder block and main bearing panel...............................................................6
3.3. Cylinder head and cam carrier.............................................................................6
3.4. Crankshaft, connecting rod and piston assembly.................................................7
3.5. Timing Drive........................................................................................................7
3.6. Oil pump assembly and lubrication circuit..........................................................8
3.7. Water pump and cooling system..........................................................................8
3.8. Manifolding and induction system.......................................................................8
3.9. Fuel and ignition systems.....................................................................................9
4. Performance development..........................................................................................10
4.1. Steady state flow and combustion chamber development...................................10
4.2. Multi-cylinder development and in-vehicle performance....................................10
5. Mechanical Development............................................................................................11
5.1. Functional integrity...............................................................................................11
5.2. Durability development........................................................................................11
5.3. Reliability and validation testing..........................................................................12
6. Conclusion...................................................................................................................13
7. References....................................................................................................................14

1 - ABSTRACT
In the beginning of 1984, the work started in the Austin office, then a part of the Rover
Group to design a replacement for the A series engine on a complete new platform. The
new engine was named K series and till date its development is viewed as a potential
landmark in the history of Rover. There are several journals and papers written by the
engineers who worked on the project and one such paper that discussed on the Design
and Development of the Rover K16 Engine was presented at Autotech 89, IMechE
conference by R D Stone, D Crabb, R Richardson and A Draper. The paper describes the
design and construction of the Rover K16 engine and also provides an insight into the
development programme that was undertaken in order to ensure that the functional
objectives set at its concept were achieved.
The following report is a case study on the above described paper and discusses the
decisions taken by the design team and engineers at various stages of the product
development cycle and the rationale behind those decisions. The main body of the report
is divided into three sections namely Engine Design, Performance Development and
Mechanical Development discussing in detail the decisions taken right from the concept
to the production of the engine. References are provided at the end for further
information on the engine that is out of the scope of the report and hence not covered.

2 - BACKGROUND
Rover had a very powerful and efficient A series engine powering all the cars from
1950s to 1970s. During the course, the engine served many cars such as Mini, Lotus,
Caterham, Austin, etc. with several modifications to suit the application. The refinement
of the A series had reached its zenith in the early 1980s and to keep up with the
increasing restrictions on emissions it was decided by the top-level management to design
and develop an engine on a complete new platform. The new engine was called K series
engine and the design of the engine started in 1984 according to the following objectives:
The engine had to be lightweight, within a specific cost target, capable of
achieving European emissions requirements with a single fuelling instrument and
without external aids, and at the same achieving competitive levels of
performance and economy at the time of launch.
Sufficient potential be designed into the engine to allow normal derivative
development and updating over a reasonable product life.
Compliance with US style emissions legislations was to be possible without base
engine modifications.
The most important objective for the development was that better levels of
reliability than ever before achieved within the European industry must be built
into the specifications. This objective was given the overriding priority at any
time when a conflict of requirements arose.
The initial research of the development was done in conjunction with British Leyland Ltd
with the ECV 3 project, a small class car prototype. Several ideas were considered at the
initial stage regarding engine layout, number of valves, combustion chamber, etc. As four
cylinders offered more flexibility in terms of up gradation, it was selected over three
cylinders layout. The decision on the combustion chamber design and the number of
valves was taken after performing combustion tests on single cylinder.
Based on the above objectives and initial research, the specifications for the 16 valves
version of the engine, K16 were developed and the base parameters were set as follows:
All aluminium
Four cylinder
Fuelled by Rover Throttle Body Injection
Top hung wet liners
Four valves per cylinder
Twin cams operating through direct acting mechanical tappets
95 RON unleaded gasoline to be used as fuel

3. ENGINE DESIGN
There are several unique design features in K16 that make it different the other engines of
its times. The significant feature in the engine is that it is quite long for a 4 cylinder
engine along the crank axis with bore spacing to bore diameter ratio as 1.17:1. This
decision was taken during the earliest design scheming to provide options for further
modifications without changing the base structure. The other rationale behind the
decision was that it provided a premium quality layout in terms of load carrying capacity,
NVH, efficiency and emissions as discussed in detail in the following sections.
3.1. Base Structure
During that time, it was usual to bolt the camshaft bearing ladders to the cylinder head,
the head to the block and the main bearing panel to the block However, with the K16 a
sandwich structure was adopted in which all the components were bolted together by
single set of fasteners instead of cylinder head bolts and main bearing studs. This way, the
entire vertical load is carried by ten long through bolts that pass from top to bottom of the
engine and that allowed the engineers to select an aluminium alloy structure.
This type of sandwich construction was unique at that time and was used only in racing
cars. This was made possible by producing the main bearing panel and closing plate by
high-pressure die casting and the head and block by special low pressure sand casting
process. Hence, a compressive load is maintained on all the major cast components at all
the times and the through bolts are always under tension. This is achieved by tightening
the bolt with more torque than required and in this engine, the bolt is twisted 360 degrees
more after it is fully tightened. Due to the extra torque, the tensile stress reaches on the
bolt beyond the yield point during the first cycle. Therefore, the clamp load on the engine
can be controlled by controlling the material properties of the bolt which were done by
preheat treating each coil of wire before bolt manufacturing process.
The above discussed set-up provides benefits in terms of clamp load due to the fact that
as the engine warms up the clamp load increases and this reduces the clearance with the
main bearing panel. This arrangement also increases the stiffness of the engine thus
reducing the NVH (Noise & Vibration Harshness) effects considerably.
The through bolts pass through individual tunnels that are cast into head, block and main
bearing ladder. These tunnels have small holes in their walls at both the ends to allow the
passage of blow-by gas from the crankcase to the cylinder head and oil to drain form the
head to the sump. Thus, it provides other motive for using long through bolts.
The decision to design the engine for 15 degrees forward installation angle was taken by
the design team keeping in mind that this angle aided the separation of the functions of
concentrating the drainage function on the front five tunnels while allowing gas transfer
to the rear five without any restriction.

3.2. Cylinder Block and Main Bearing Panel

The cylinder block of the K16 engine is again unusual for its time as instead of normal
dry liners, top hung wet liners were used for each cylinder that were sealed at the lower
by O rings. The liners are made of centrifugally cast iron and plateau honing is done to
a fully finished condition. This design offers benefits in terms of bore geometry stability
better than any other arrangement and as a result, improves the oil consumption sealing
of blow-by gases, reduction of friction and endurance.
Major features in the main bearing panel such as oil ways, oil feed grooves, etc. are all
cast features instead of machining them after casting the main structure. This saves time
and money on the machining operations. Also during the boring of the main journal line
in the cylinder block and the main bearing panel, the components are bolted from the
edges and clamped with a force of 340 kN. This way, the actual clamping load arising
from the combustion of the engine was simulated and gave a rough idea of the strength of
the structure.
3.3. Cylinder Head and Cam Carrier
The cylinder head is a low-pressure sand cast component of the base structure and it is
designed for 16 valves, Duel Overhead Cam (DOHC) layout with the tappet bores
integrated into the head casting. From the beginning of the programme, mechanical
tappets were considered for the 4 cylinder version of the K series engine owing to the
restrictions in the fund. Enough room was provided in the cylinder head for an up
gradation to hydraulic tappets at a later stage. However, at about mid-point of the
programme, the design team decided to stipulate hydraulic tappets from the launch of the
engine. This decision was taken keeping in mind that in the long run the mechanical
tappets would require regular maintenance and again hydraulic systems are more efficient
than pure mechanical systems.
The small holes in the cylinder head meant for the draining of oil are laid out in such a
manner that most of the bolt hole is a cast-in feature. The rationale behind the decision
was to perform the bolt hole machining operation in a single pass rather than separately
on each bolt. Apart from this, the important manufacturing feature of cylinder head is the
way in which the mould core is assembled. All the cores are loaded vertically inside the
mould which allows the elimination of the glued core sub-assembly and feeding of port
cores through water-jackets. This concept provided more advantages in the form of
automation of the mould-making process thus reducing lead time and maintaining
consistency in the moulds.
The cam carrier is sealed to the cylinder head by an anaerobic sealer applied by a robot
and using screen printing techniques. Also, the oil ways are cast into the lower surface of
the carrier and thus any leaks from the high-pressure oil ways do not affect the oil sealing
reliability of the engine itself as the leak path is entirely internal.

Fully surfaced three-dimensional CAD models of the port and chamber geometries were
defined from the beginning for the purpose of tool making. This allowed the maintenance
of accurate and consistent component geometry from cylinder-to-cylinder and from
prototype-to-production tools. This method of specifications provided better management
of multiple tools and their replacements during the manufacturing.
The other major decision taken in relation to the cylinder head and cam carrier was the
design of gasket between the cam carrier and the cover and the cylinder head gasket. The
gasket between the cam carrier and cover is a shim steel sheet coated on both sides with a
foamed elastomeric layer. This design was tested by employing on a number of joints
with the engine and showed very high reliability. The cylinder head gasket has mouldedon tracks of elastomeric material that accomplishes all the sealing of fluid. Therefore, a
low load was required to compress the sealing paths and so the slenderness ratio of the
bolt could be maintained high.
3.4. Crankshaft, Connecting Rod and Piston Assembly
During the initial research phase of the programme, the design of crank with hollow pins
and journals was considered and tested extensively. However, it could not be employed as
it was difficult to control the finishing of the hollow crank and the stress due to uneven
surface was impossible to control given the project constraints in terms of time. The NVH
performance of the engine is further enhanced by the counterweights whose thickness is
15.8 mm and from the tests conducted it was concluded that eight-counterweight design
provided better performance than the four-counterweight design.
The axial thrust loads are taken on by half-washers between the main bearings and the
cylinder block. Hence, the slenderness ratio of bearing is also relatively high to make the
area larger in order to accommodate the large loads and this was possible because of large
spacing between cylinder bores. Also the material specified for the bearing, i.e.
Aluminium-tin is capable of carrying appreciably higher loadings. The distance between
the rod journals was kept at 131.5 mm and the distance from the centre kept at 39.489
mm, thus achieving an l/r ratio of 3.33. These dimensions were finalized as the best tradeoff between the secondary force and packaging constraints.
The piston is designed conservatively, i.e. they are conventional, strutted with three ring
assembly to provide better mechanical reliability and it also provides stability when loads
are increased. The other innovative concept in terms of assembly of these components is
that coding of all these components is done using three different grades for selective
assembly according to the cylinder block. During the assembly, these codes are read by
an automatic vision system thus ensuring that the components are assembled correctly
and consistently without any error.
3.5. Timing Drive
The two most important criteria for a timing belt are reliability and performance. To
ensure high reliability, the belt was designed for a life of 100,000 miles from the
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beginning, which also reduced the maintenance requirements. Significant development

was completed for ensuring the performance of belt at low temperature or misfire
conditions to specify the lowest possible tension. The reason behind the specification of
low installed tension is that at low tension the level of noise is low in terms of tooth
engagement and strand resonance.
3.6. Oil pump assembly and lubrication circuit
The lubrication circuit starts from the sump from where oil is pumped through cast-in oil
ways in the main bearing panel to the oil filter. The oil pressure relief valve is built into
the pump and vents into the inlet to avoid aeration, thus it is entirely self-contained and is
delivered to Rover as fully tested sub-assembly. It is assumed that this decision was taken
after considering the cost of in-house production and sourcing from a supplier. The
design of the pump as multi-lobular type that is driven directly off the crank noise was
adopted as it represented the best compromise between cost, friction loss and noise due to
delivery pressure variation.
3.7. Water pump and cooling system
The cooling system consists of the pump, the passages across the block, a tapered duct,
collection duct and metering units. The water pump is driven by a timing belt and is a
compact unit mounted direct into a volute formed in the front face of the cylinder block.
The thermostat that is located on the inlet side of the pump is delivered to Rover as a
complete sub-assembly and it plugs directly into the block. Again, it is assumed that the
decision to source the part form supplier rather than manufacture in-house was taken
considering both the costs.
The entire path of the coolant across the cylinder head and block ensures that the critical
areas of the head are well cooled because of high velocity and metered flow is obtained.
Hence, uniform characteristics are attained from cylinder to cylinder and engine to engine
which is further demonstrated by computer simulations of the coolant flow pattern.
According to the results of the simulations and experiments, a very low coolant volume is
maintained which is again advantageous in terms of engine warm-up time and overall
weight. During the warm-up phase, it is ensured that no disturbance to the base flow
pattern is implied by the design of the bypass circuit that has an inlet manifold water
heating jacket always open and is taken from the longitudinal flow area of the head and
returned to the pump inlet.
3.8. Manifolding and induction system
A single point throttle body fuel injection was selected for the K16 engine and was
decided that it would be assembled onto the power unit prior to delivery to the vehicle
assembly area, thus providing obvious benefits in terms of production control. The inlet
manifold was designed to be water-heated in double Y shape that provided minimum
wetted area and good AFR (Air to Fuel Ratio) distribution. As a result, a fine balance was

achieved in the interests of emissions, fuel consumption and appropriate tract length for
exceptional torque and power characteristics.
In a gasoline engine, control of AFR is of utmost importance completely burn the mixture
inside the cylinder and thus reduce the level of emissions. In K16 engine, the control of
AFR distribution starts right from the air cleaner and the mixed air duct. Both the
components contain guide vanes that help to reduce the air swirl effects as air enters the
throttle body. The other tool employed to the control the air-fuel ratio distribution
throughout the considerable load and speed range is the employment of the timing of the
injection pulse.
An electric positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heater located in the inlet manifold
below the injector complements the heating of water and is controlled by the Rover
engine management unit (MEMS). The rationale for the decision was to improve the cold
start and cold drivability characteristics. To provide further assistance, a thermac-type
inlet air temperature control system provides further assistance and is highly effective due
to its compact design and detail attention to design exhaust manifold and hotbox.
Due to high velocity of the air in the inlet system, a high level of noise is created. To
control the noise, the designers identified the major causes such as orifice noise and
panting of moulded components. This was taken care of by designing porous intake
ducting and stiff components and then ensuring that the sealing of the intake system
upstream of the cleaner is without any minor leaks.
3.9. Fuel and ignition systems
Rovers own throttle body injection system was selected for the K16 engine owing to the
fact that it was regarded as offering the best balance in terms of cost, performance,
emissions and economy for a four cylinder engine. The design had flexibility for further
evolution to feedback control when necessary. A single ECU was developed by Rover inhouse known as MEMS (Modular Engine Management System) that was developed in
collaboration with Motorola using 16 bit electronics controls the fuel and ignition to
achieve desired output.

4. PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT
The performance development of K16 was carried out on a single cylinder by controlling
several parameters such as manifolds, ports, cams and combustion and then to multicylinder to maintain the consistency from cylinder-to-cylinder performance. The specific
power output obtained from the selected throttle body injection system is 68 Ps/l, which
was significantly higher than the European engines in the 1300 to 1600 cc range by 17
percent. The result was even more impressive with multi point fuel injection system
generating 72 Ps/l.
4.1. Steady state flow and combustion chamber development
Steady State flow analysis techniques were employed to measure the mach index and
barrel swirl ratio and also select the port shape in such a way that its performance is not
dependant on the parameters affected by mass production. This was done to ensure
consistent across the whole range of engines. During the combustion testing of the
engine, the chamber aspect ratio, flow patterns and cam design were refined to control the
combustion rate. The idea behind the activity was to increase the lean burn limit over the
speed range and was achieved to 21 23.1:1 AFR.
It was important to control the aspect ratio of the cylinder and thus the effectiveness of
the breaking down the bulk motion. If the chamber is tall then the aspect ratio will be
high which will degenerate the process from macro to micro activity before ignition. Due
to this effect, the entire combustion patter is destabilized and results in greater variation
between each cycle generating more amount of noise and reducing the engine life. The
problem was solved by controlling the included valve angle and chamber width related to
bore thus reducing the aspect ratio. To further evaluate the control techniques and analyse
the results, most of the available methods were put into use that included in-cylinder
pressure measurement, ionization probes, hot wire and laser Doppler anemometry and
flow visualization. These techniques helped in optimizing the combustion characteristics
and making it flexible for both lean burn and stoichiometric operation.
4.2. Multi-cylinder development and in-vehicle performance
Significant efforts were put in during the transition phase form combustion chamber
development on single cylinder to multi-cylinder usage. The port development process
was carried forward to the multi-cylinder development stage as induction manifold was
assembled to the base unit. This process helped the design team to understand the
variations with respect to performance, fuel consumption, hydrocarbon emissions,
detonation, etc. across the required speed range. Thus, from the analysis of the above
parameters, the final specifications that were chosen were independent of the production
environment. The transient behaviour of the engine, cooling layout effects, combustion
noise effects in vehicle and the exhaust were also developed and tested with multi10

cylinder to improve the part load performance. The result was an engine with a fast burn
rate, lean burn and low friction which resulted in 15 per cent improvement in part load
fuel consumption with respect to the A series engine.
Due to the extensive development of the engine with multi-cylinder, the operation beyond
the AFR of 20:1 became sustainable. This facilitated the design team in adjusting the fuel
consumption and emissions of the engine with more flexibility. Also, the trade-offs
among emissions, economy and performance are not difficult to achieve. The decision to
optimize the engine so that fast combustion occurs was substantial at that time
considering the fact that now most of the engines operate at stoichiometric ratio. Exhaust
gas circulation supports this phenomenon of stoichiometric combustion and to increase
the tolerance of EGR fast combustion is essential.
The in-vehicle performance was impressive for the mid-band size category car (Rover
214) and a closed loop three way catalyst was also developed to allow the engine to run
lean.
5. MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT
For the final stages of the development of the K16, the engineers were clear on how to
ensure the durability and reliability of the engine. These two aspects were examined
separately in terms of series of tests to further development programmes. The further
development programme included the application of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
(FMEA), thus each and every failure was reported and further work was done to
understand the failure and eliminate it. Hence, the possibility of unique failures occurring
was eliminated.
5.1. Functional Integrity
Further testing was done on various parameters of the engine to fulfil the functional
requirements that were set in the beginning of the programme. The engine was refined
further after the tests to minute details in terms of induction system, cam profiles,
compression ratio, etc. to improve the noise characteristics. This resulted in the decrease
in noise by 2 dB at speed over 4500 rpm surpassing the function requirements of noise. It
was an achievement considering that the requirements were defined by a 1985 best in
class survey.
5.2. Durability Development
It is important to first examine the durability of the designed product to evaluate actual
performance against the predicted. Keeping this in mind, the engineers performed several
tests at various levels to establish the durability of the engine and some of the engines
were tested beyond the test specifications. The purpose of the tests was three-fold:
To test the engine to all the drive cycles that is experienced in real environment
To identify the modifications that are required to address the failures in the tests
and evaluate the modifications with further experiments.
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To check the designed-in reserve that the engine has to provide scope for further
essential developments during the course of the life cycle.

The K engine was subjected to 800 hour standard dynamometer cycling tests, 200 hour
rated load /speed tests, 500 hour thermal shock and over speed cycles and 300 hour valve
train integrity tests. These tests helped the team in identifying the reason behind the
issues that were present during the developmental stage and resolve them, for example,
substitution of rubber for liquid sealant to increase the sealing integrity and replace
conventional crankshaft in place of hollow crankpins to increase the durability. The 800
hour cycling test based on a 5 hour cycle broken down into eight operating regimes
varying from idle to a 500 rpm over speed condition at full load, demonstrated the
suitability and flexibility of the engine across the speed range. Also, the compatibility of
the engine to further modifications was examined by in excess of 55000 hours of
dynamometer durability tests with some 2000000 Km completed in variety of vehicles
and the results were satisfactory.
5.3. Reliability and validation testing
The final stage of the product development cycle i.e. reliability and validation testing was
done at two levels namely pre-production and post-production. To ensure the reliability of
the engine, it was designed into the product from the beginning by applying best practice
design principles in the first instance with analytical support including both classical and
modern techniques wherever required. At this stage, the Duane model that used time to
first failure/incident as a criterion was adopted and modified to suit the needs. This model
was effective until the prototype phase where the expected failure rate was high, but after
this phase the failures gradually get resolved and the time between failures no longer
holds any significance. Hence, the incident counting method was selected by Rover at the
validation stage emphasizing the normalization of the test results.
However, reliability is mainly a function of process variability which can be evaluated
only on the engines built in the actual production facility. As a result, the product
engineering, manufacturing departments and all the suppliers worked together to develop
a plan to build the engines from which some engines were subjected to the durability
tests. The results achieved show that the customer satisfaction levels were achieved better
than the European automotive terms in the past with less than 1 incident for every
100,000 Km.
The post-production validation testing programme included the in-vehicle tests by the
internal customers of the company that consisted of a large group. The drivers included
male and female and were required to keep a detailed log of any incident that seemed
relevant. The purpose of this programme was to establish the reliability of the product in
real environment and also make the inevitable changes. It was difficult for the engineers
to make changes that resulted in modifications of the tools and processes at the final stage
as most of the tools and equipments are finalized by then. The fact that all the suppliers
were also involved in the validation programme made the process of modifications
possible without any delays with vital inputs from the suppliers.
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6. CONCLUSION
The first production version of K16 engine appeared in 1989 in Rover 200 and was
revolutionary in that for the first time a volume production implementation of low
pressure sand casting technique was achieved. This allowed the aluminium structure to be
made with lower casting wall thickness and higher strength to weight ratio. The other
remarkable feature of the engine is the sandwich structure achieved by ten long through
bolts instead of connecting each component separately. This arrangement increased the
stiffness of the engine thus reducing the NVH effects.
There were several problems encountered during the development of the engine which
were tackled by Rover engineers using a range of technologies and involving the
manufacturing and the suppliers with the programme. The result was an engine that
surpassed all the targets was used in several carlines of Rover and later developed into 6
cylinder and variable valve timing version. The final specifications of the k16 engine are
as mentioned below in the table:
Capacity (cc)
Fuelling
Ignition
Electronics
Dimensions (mm)
Compression Ratio(m^3/m^3)
Bore spacing (mm)
Dry Weight (Kg)
Bore/Stroke ratio (mm/mm)
l/r ratio (mm)
Main journal diameter (mm)
Bid end diameter (mm)
Rate speed (rpm)
Mean piston velocity (m/s)
Cam Shaft
Valve diameter (mm)
Valve Lift (mm)
Valve timing (IO/IC/EO/EC)
Rated torque (Nm)

1398
Rover Throttle Body Injection (Tbi)
Fully mapped, flywheel triggered
Rover Modular Engine Management System (MEMS)
75 bore x 79 stroke x 4 cylinders
9.5 : 1
88
85
0.95
3.33
48 x 5
43
6250
16.5 at rated speed
DOHC with direct acting mechanical tappets
27.7 (inlet), 25.1 (outlet)
8.2
15/45/55/5 (degrees)
124 @ 4500 rpm

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7. REFERENCES
A Draper, D Crabb, R D Stone, R Richardson, The design and development of the
Rover K16 engine, October 29, 1990, IMechE, Vol 204
Chapter 14, Rover MEMS MPi/SPi, (n.d.), retrieved on May 24, 2008 from
http://www.gaima.co.uk/peter/RoverMEMS.pdf
Keith Adams, K-series engine, The light fantastic (February 10, 2007), retrieved on
May 24, 2008 from http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?enginekseriesf.htm

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