400 and 45; the Rover 75 and the first generation Land Rover Freelander. Naturally, it was also used by MG in its range of hot versions of the Rovers, the ZR, ZS and ZT.
It was also used to power the sporty MGF, Caterham used it in the Seven, and Lotus continued to use it in the early Series 2 Elise 111S. The Series 1 Exige was equipped with a K-Series in its most potent state of tune, the 179hp VHPD( Very High Performance Derivative).
Steffen has seen very early versions of the engine go on without any issues, but that’ s very rare.‘ My experience is very much from the sports car and the Elises. But they’ re essentially the same road engine that came out and were used in MGs and Freelanders and all sorts. Weirdly enough, I think they were slightly better in the Elise’ s, I don’ t know if it’ s because they had a better cooling system.’
Winter 2025 The Engine Rebuilder 53