The S series is a

straight-4 A straight-four engine (also referred to as an inline-four engine) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout ( ...

SOHC An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine in which the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combus ...

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

developed by the

Austin Rover Group The Austin Rover Group (abbreviated ARG) was a British motor manufacturer. It was created in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland (BL). Previously, this entity had been known as BL Cars Ltd (formerly Leyland ...

(subsidiary of

British Leyland British Leyland was a British automotive engineering and manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate formed in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It wa ...

), and produced from 1984 until 1993. The engine was used in the

Austin Montego The Austin Montego is a British family car that was produced by British Leyland from 1984 until 1988, and then by Rover Group from 1988 until 1995. The Montego was the replacement for both the rear-wheel drive Morris Ital and the front-wheel dri ...

, Mark 1 Rover 200-series and the MG Maestro. The engine was used in the

Austin Maestro The Austin Maestro is a five-door hatchback small family car (and two-door van derivative) that was produced from November 1982 to 1986 by British Leyland, and from 1986 until December 1994 by Rover Group, as a replacement for the Austin Maxi a ...

from 1985 onwards.

Description

The engine comes from the same lineage as the BMC-developed E-series family introduced in the 1969

Austin Maxi The Austin Maxi is a medium-sized, 5-door hatchback family car that was produced by Austin Motor Company, Austin and later British Leyland between 1969 and 1981. Despite its practical design and remarkable space efficiency (it is shorter, narrow ...

, but with important modifications in order to facilitate compatibility with a conventional "end-on" transmission unit, in place of BMC/BL's traditional "gearbox-in-sump" configuration for its

front wheel drive Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of internal combustion engine, engine and transmission (mechanics), transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel-drive vehicles feature ...

vehicles. The gearbox flange was redesigned to accept either a

Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...

manual gearbox (for the Maestro/Montego), or the PG-1 transmission (for the Rover 200). The S-Series was produced in a single capacity of 1.6 litres (1,598cc) as the smaller and larger capacity requirements were already served by the 1.3-litre A-series/ Honda EV engines and the 2.0-litre O-series engines respectively. Fuelling was by means of a single carburettor in most applications, and electronic fuel injection for the higher-specification variants of the Rover 216 producing peak power of . BL had also developed the earlier R-series engine from the E-series family, but largely as a stopgap at the Maestro's launch since the S series was not yet ready for production. Because the E series had to be turned through 180 degrees in order to facilitate an end-on transmission, the resultant R-series unit had the inlet manifold on the front-facing side of the

cylinder head In a piston engine, the cylinder head sits above the cylinders, forming the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines the head is a simple plate of metal containing the spark plugs and possibly heat dissipation fins. In more modern ...

, something which proved fatal for the engine's reliability—since it opened the door for

carburettor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor or carburetter) is a device used by a gasoline internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the Vent ...

icing. The S series solved this problem, as the inlet manifold was now on the rear face of the engine. Another important change vis-à-vis the E/R series, one with potentially negative consequences for the engine's durability, was driving the camshaft by a toothed belt in place of the previous timing chain system. Austin Rover claimed a 75% weight saving over the chain drive setup. The engine is non interference, thereby catastrophic engine failure will not occur, if the belt does snap.

History

Production of the S-series engine continued until the end of Montego / Maestro series production in 1993, the remaining cars which were built by Rover until 1994 used only the Rover MDi/Perkins Prima

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

, which was based on the O-series. A 4-valve version of the S series was under development alongside the 1100 cc and 1400 cc K-series engines. However, the project was abandoned when a redesign of the K series allowed its capacity to be stretched to 1600 cc and 1800 cc. The engine was given the name L16 but should not be confused with the L Series diesel engines or Datsun/Nissan L16 engine.

References

{{Reflist S Rover engines Gasoline engines by model Straight-four engines