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go to turbobricks.com -- check out the mods section, follow the link under staged mods for the 700 series cars. In the beginning you'll get a brief writeup on the different motors.
basically first came the B230, with the small rods and smaller rod journals than the B23. Then came the K motors up to late '89 -- a revision of the "weak" B230 motors, then came the later motors with the beefed up rods, but retained the smaller rod journals.
If it's an '89 you are looking into, it's either the good stuff or the K motor (just fine IMHO) -- The VIN has a K below it on the door jamb, the timing belt cover will have a "K" on it and the side of the block will have a "K" underneath the motor serial number if it's, obviously, a K car. If you can't find the K markings and it's an '89 then you have the stouter motor.
Read up on the motors in the mods article and you'll know how much power you can safely extract from them... apparantly the motors with the smaller rods have an undeserved reputation for being weak; reports of 250 HP out of them safely.
FWIW, if I ever do a motor rebuild I'll source the larger rods and throw them in there just to upgrade to later factory specs, until then I have no doubts about the strength of my current K motor ('89 740 TI).. unless I start cranking up the crack (boost) for more substantial power gains.
BTW, my K motor has 196,000 original miles on it --- still makes excellent power.
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