The family has a cast aluminium engine block and aluminium DOHC cylinder heads with 4 valves per cylinder and variable valve timing and a coil-on-plug ignition system.

It uses sequential fuel injection, is supercharged and intercooled, and features fracture-split forged steel connecting rods.

A version running on natural gas was introduced in the German market in 2002.

It has been produced since 2003 in only one version, with an output of 170 PS (125 kW; 168 hp) at 5300 rpm.

It shares the same features with the KE18ML version, like supercharger and multi-point fuel injection.