The Powertrain guys at SAIC are a proud bunch and rightly so. As most readers will be aware, the 'N' series is a reworking of the K Series engine, launched by Rover Group in the early 90s. The re-workings are actually more in-depth than most think. It has a new head casting, new head gasket design and other revisions in the bottom end, its not simply a re-badged K-Series, its actually more in-depth.
Earnest readers will know that SAIC also have a new small engine and some may know that they have a new large engine as well, a 2.0 and 2.4 4 cylinder, along with a 3.0 and 3.6 V6.
And of course there is the Diesel engine as well, in 1.9 form to start with but with smaller variants on the drawing board.
However, what I didn't know until today was that they are all clean sheet designs, that's to say, they've all been designed by SAIC Powertrain engineers, in Birmingham. Yes, you read that right, they are not designs or engines borrowed from elsewhere, they are all designed, from scratch by the team in Birmingham.
And quite rightly, they're proud of the fact! They are of course, built in China, leveraging the purchasing and sourcing power that the SAIC group have over there.
Only the small engine is currently in production, used in the Roewe 350 over in China, where its used in 1.5 VVT form, developing 90KW (110bhp) & 135NM (99 lb/f) for comparison the 1.6K was 116 bhp & 145 NM of torque.
The Diesel is destined to début in the Diesel derivative of the MG6 in early 2011, so we won't have to wait too long for that.
Along with the engines were the gearboxes, these again, are brand new designs featuring 6 speeds and available, interestingly, in 2 or 4 wheel drive versions.
Going forward, SAIC as a group is investing heavily into hybrids and electric vehicles, although we're likely to see these in China first before the UK.
The higher capacity V6s are primarily for other markets than the UK where larger engines are required, such as the US. Obviously they don't have anything to sell out there right now, but its a good sign of what's planned.
Over all I learnt more about the powertrain side of things today than I did about anything else. They've been beavering away developing these new family of engines since 2005 and personally, its superb to think that the engines that will power MG's expansion in the future will have been designed from the ground up in Birmingham.
Furthermore to the Design centre is part of a £5m investment in Longbridge, also under development is an engine test bed facility due to open in early 2011.
New Small Engine
New V6 Engine
New 6 Speed Gearbox (2wd version)
New 6 Speed Gearbox (4wd version)
