I’ve read (rumours on the net) Lotus were looking at fitting in the Honda engine but due to Lotus requiring low volume engines, Honda would only sell the engine at a retail price to Lotus,
having said that, power to weight ratio the K series engine was very good in its day
just a shame Rover never sorted out the head gasket, even our MG TF we bought new and was well looked after, but at just over 39K miles it had HGF
I’ve heard when Ford took over Land Rover, Ford spent lots of energy developing a better head gasket for the Free Lander that used the K series,