Honda K20 / K24 - What makes it GREAT? ICONIC ENGINES #11

what is up engine heads welcome to another episode of iconic engines today I'm talking about a really really popular engine that's really really popular for all the right reasons it's the spiritual successor to Honda's legendary b16 engine of course I'm talking about the Honda K 20 engine and in today's video we will cover the K 20 as well as the cake 24 now this engine is being swapped into pretty much everything sort of the LS of the four sunders or is the LS decay 20 of the v8 well it doesn't really matter the engine is really popular and it is an incredible engine and incredible starting point for doing pretty much anything it has amazing potential anywhere you look at it and today's video we will talk about its history its specs and it's doing it's gonna be a wand but I hope a really useful and a real informative as well as a somewhat entertaining video now as you might know iconic engine videos were made possible by AM up to this point unfortunately due to the current pandemic situation AM had to I hope temporarily back out from supporting iconic engine videos and while that does make me sad I refuse to deprive you of iconic engine videos unfortunately without am I won't be able to reach them as often as I did but again I refuse to deprive you of iconic engines videos so the year is 2000 and across the world people are slowly realizing that the millennium bug won't end the world over at Plaza the brand new millennium what sort of a brand new start for Honda's engine lineup in 2000 Honda released a truly amazing engine the Honda F 20 C engine that powered the s2000 now the F 20 C was an amazing engine for many reasons one of the reasons was that it had the highest ever horsepower per liter output of any naturally aspirated engine ever made the F 20 C held this record for an incredible 10 years all the way until 2010 when it was barely beaten by the engine in the Ferrari four five eight now the FTC was also real important because it announced and displayed many of the amazing technologies that we would soon see across Honda's engine lineup this was confirmed just a year later with a review of Honda's brand new Kate when he engine which shared many of the innovative technologies with the earth 20 C and while it was a clean SOI design mechanically totally different to the Beast 16 engine it was driven by the very same philosophy just like the Beast 16 the K 20 is a high redline high horsepower output rev-happy engine that's fun and also easy to drive it's compact in the light weight and while being all of that it also manages to retain good fuel economy the first cars to feature a came twenty engine where the Japanese market 2001 Civic type-r and Integra Type R European market got their kid when he's in the same year in their version of the Civic Type R just a year later in 2002 Australia and New Zealand also got the K 20 in their version of the Integra Type R the US market also received their first gate winnings in 2002 in the Acura RSX and Civic s the first K 24 is also appeared in 2002 in the Honda CRV and Japanese market Accord type s soon after this the K 20 is and the K 24 spread all across Honda's model lineup now the funny thing is that the kit when he was initially met by resentment from most of Honda's fan base which I guess got sort of complacent and maybe even emotionally attached to their be 16 and be 18 engines and while forums were set ablaze with often pointless and overly emotional debate of B 16 versus K 20 people would actually know how very quickly realized that the K 20 is a can we superior engine to the beast 16 and no wonder it's a 12 years younger and more modern design and while parts of the fanbase took almost a decade to catch up k swaps and the K 20 tuning started exploding in popularity as early as 2003 and 2004 as tuners and enthusiasts were realizing the amazing abilities of the K 20 engine and today 19 years after the introduction of the K 20 in the k24 engines the popularity of these engines doesn't seem to have diminished at all in fact they seem to be more popular than ever and can boast an incredible aftermarket I believe this is the ultimate testament to the brilliance of their design today enthusiasts and racers are creating ever more impressive builds and are pushing the power outputs of these engines to ever higher levels in all forms of motorsport but not all K xx and K 24 engines are made equal as you will see in the specs section of this video you could even call the K xx and K 24 modular engines and while there aren't any trees under or six under versions of the K engine the differences between the different versions of the K xx and K 24 are so significant that while from the outside they look like the same engine they're in fact very different and from a enthusiast and project car perspective some of these engines make a great starting point while others definitely don't now something else that I definitely have to mention is also the K 20 C engine in the latest generation of the Civic type-r and while it also has cake 20 in its engine code we will not be talking about this K engine because it is radically different from the K 20 we're talking about today the Cape when he C is turbocharged and directly fuel-injected and has a very different design of most of its elements and while many think this was the first directly fuel-injected Honda K 20 it actually wasn't the k20 to be directly fuel-injected was the k20 be in the Honda's dream absent now this was a Japanese market only car and featured the k20 B engine it was a ultra lean burning engine focused on maximum fuel efficiency it featured direct fuel injection and you could almost see it as a testbed for a direct fuel injection in a que engine now the kid when he see also wasn't the first K engine to be turbocharged that title belongs to the engine found in the 2007 Acura RDX this car featured the K 23 engine and this was the first kid to be turbocharged the engine had a mitsubishi turbocharger and featured what she could call prototypes of some of the amazing and advanced technological solutions that would later appear in the cave 20 C engine but K engines didn't just power Honda cars the kid when he z3 is an absolutely bonkers engine for an absolutely bonkers car the k2000 charge K 20 making 350 horsepower and it propels the Ariel Atom 3.5 are from zero to 60 in just 2.6 seconds [Music] [Music] so as I said not all K xx and K 24 engines are made equal in fact the only thing that's equal across all K 20 and K 24 engines is the bore and Stroke the K 20 is a square engine design with 86 millimeters of pore and 86 millimeters of stroke the K 24 is an undersquare design with 80 centimeters of bore in ninety nine millimeters of stroke now pretty much everything else differs between all the different versions of the K 20 + k 24 and to understand and see these differences we need to break down the K 20 + k 24 engine families and essentially they can be divided into performance and economy versions of the K 20 + k 24 so here we had the performance versions of the K 20 and the cars they come in and here we have the economy versions of the K 20 as well as the cars they come in and here's the performance k 20 force and the economy K 20 force now the performance versions are what you want as a starting point for your project car or engine built these are really good and you can easily build onto these versions for increased power outputs and performance on the other hand you do not really want to mess with the economy versions because simply getting the economy versions to equal the performance versions is already going to require a lot of effort and time and money and that simply doesn't make a lot of sense or logic so definitely start out with some of the performance versions if you are interested in improving modding or swapping a K to any engine into something else now the performance and economy versions differ from their very core even the crank shafts are different but with the performance and economy versions now both versions have a high-quality forged steel crankshaft however the performance version crank shafts are fully cultivated on the other hand the economy versions do not feature a fully counterweight the crankshaft and a fully counterweight the crankshaft is definitely something you want if you're interested in high rpms and high performance the differences continue in the rest of the rotating assembly and even the connecting rods and pistons are different between the performance and economy versions for example the connecting rods in the performance versions are in most cases beefier and have a higher tensile strength when compared to the economy versions and the Pistons are cast in both the performance and economy versions and feature a more than M coating on the piston skirts for a lower friction on almost all K 20 MK 24 engines however under performance versions the pistons almost always feature a more aggressive dome and this is why we have higher compression ratios across all the performance versions of the K xx and K 24 something else you'll find in the performance engine box but not in the economy engine box are under piston oils quarters these are pretty useful because they do help cool the piston during engine operation and now let's move on to the cylinder head perhaps the area where the kid 28 k 24 engines shine the most much of the brilliance of these engines can be attributed to their amazing cylinder head design but again even here in the cylinder head there are many differences between the performance and economy versions of these engines upon first glance the cylinder heads may look identical but they're really not and once you take a more detailed approach you are going to notice several important differences between economy and performance engines now the most notable of these differences come from Honda's Ivy Tech system as you probably know VTEC stands for variable valve timing and drift electronic control and what it essentially does it allows the engine to switch between different camshaft profiles it has a more mild camshaft profile for all rpms and the more aggressive camshaft profile for higher rpms this combines high power output and performance with good mileage and this is something that Honda engines have been famous for as you're probably guessing the Ivy Tech is an evolution of VTEC and it adds intelligence which is what the I stands for it actually adds vtc to VTEC VT C stands for variable timing control and in addition to the engine being able to switch between different camshaft elopes it allows the engine to also advance or camshaft timing based on different inputs this advancing or retarding of the camshaft is done via a specialized camshaft gear and what I just explained is the kind of Ivy Tech that you are going to find on the performance versions of the K 20 MK 24 engines however the economy versions features something very different it's called Ivy Tech but it works very differently now as you probably know ok 20 + K 24 engines are 4 cylinders dual overhead camshaft engines they have a total of 16 valves 8 on the intake and 8 valves on the exhaust that means we have four valves per combustion chamber two intake valves and two exhaust valves and what economy Ivy Tech does is that it opens only one intake valve per combustion chamber at low rpms the air valve is open only slightly to prevent fuel from pulling behind the valve fully opening only one intake valve at all rpms allows the engine to run on a very conservative amount of fuel and this of course helps fuel economy as well as emissions in fact all economy versions after K 20 + k 24 engines have pretty low emissions and a pretty impressive fuel economy the other thing that the only one fully opened intake valve does is that it creates a pretty unique swirl in the combustion chamber which helps fully burn all the air fuel mixture and this is why again these engines are really good with emissions and they're very lean running engines and while running green is great for economy and emissions it's really not that good for performance however even economy versions of the K 20 + k 24 have 16 valves for a reason and at higher rpms both intake valves do get open and while this does increase the amount of air and fuel coming into the engine and it does increase performance overall camshaft duration and camshaft tests remain unchanged which isn't something you can see on the performance Ivy Tech where both camshaft lifts and camshaft duration are increased with the more aggressive camshaft hopes the other big deal with the economy Ivy Tech is that there is no cam phasing there's no VCT that means there is no advancing or retarding of camshaft timing at all also Academy Ivy Tech is only present on the intake side of the engine there's nothing variable on the exhaust valves of these engines but the differences in Ivy Tech aren't the only differences you are going to find in the cylinder heads off the performance and economy versions of the K 20 + k 24 in fact the castings of the center heads themselves are different performance versions of the K 20 K 24 feature larger intake and exhaust ports and also economy versions have this weird little groove cut into the wall between the intake valves and while this does help them with their one intake valve opening system it really isn't that good for performance and air for another key feature of the cylinder head of this engine is that it breaks with tradition it does this by introducing a more narrow valve included angle compared to older Honda engines such as for example it's spiritual predecessor the B 16 engine which has a noticeably wider valve included angle compared to the K 20 now a more narrow valve included angle enables engineers to design an optimal intake port shape in fact the cake Twenties intake port shape is almost a straight line onto the valve heads it's free from the airflow hurting humps you are typically going to find in a wide of angle engine such as to be 16 for example and the straightest possible intake board shape onto the valve heads is extremely important for ears full and performance I mean just look at a Formula one engine and you're immediately going to realize what a straight intake port shape and a narrow valve included angle can do for air for power output and performance now the only sort of downside to the narrow valve included angle is that the cylinder head has to be physically higher to accommodate everything in the valve train and this is why k20 engines are a bit high they may be on the compact side but as you can see their valve covers are pretty tall now another reason why the cylinder heads off the k20 in catering for our tool is that the entire valve train can be separated from the cylinder head this wasn't the case for example in the Beast 16 where damage to a camshaft bearing could result in the entire cylinder head being scrapped this isn't the case with Cape xx and K 24 inches and people who raise these engines will tell you that often it's possible to repair camshaft damage on a cake 20 on the side of the road but there's another reason why the kid 20 and Cape 24 engines full so well it's the sheer size of their valves Cape 20 engines have 35 millimetres diameter intake valves and 30 millimeter exhaust valves this is supposed to be giant and these are some of the biggest valves you are going to find on any mass-produced 2 litre engines some k 24 inches managed to have even slightly larger intake and exhaust valves due to the slightly larger bore they have compared to the kid 20 and some k 24 is featured 36 millimeter intake valves and 31 new middle exhaust another improvement over the base 16 and lower rocker arms that can be found in the K 20 NK 24 engines these features rowers on the rocker arms which reduce friction and further help the rev happy high rpm nature of these engines the B 16 on the other hand feature pad style rocker arms we are definitely a somewhat inferior design compared to the rocker arms on the K xx and K 24 the final difference between the performance and economy versions of the K 20 are the intake manifolds most performance versions feature a lightweight performance oriented aluminum intake manifold this is a straight design and it's oriented towards high performance and high airflow and it sacrifices a little bit of the wall and in favor of generating maximum power potential in the high rpm range on the other hand the economy versions feature a variable intake manifold that is focusing on providing good torque and responsiveness at all rpms while still maintaining decent earful at high rpm so what makes the gate when is so great well I'm gonna compare it to an engine that's being swapped into everything just like the K 20 engine but other than that it doesn't really have anything common with the K 20 or so you might think I'm actually talking about the GM LS engine it's a pushrod v8 and it's totally different from the four cylinders dual overhead cam K 20 but it does have something really important in common with the K 20 the GM LS is the result of decades of research and development and experience that GM has with pushrod v8 engines it's the result of GM not jumping the bandwagon and doing overhead cam engines like many other manufacturers across the world it's the result of perfecting something you were doing well and taking it to a whole nother level and basically creating something that you could call perfect the K 20 is the same it's the result of decades of R&D and experience Honda has with high revving high performance four-cylinder engines its Honda doing what it does well and taking it to the maximum it's the combination the pinnacle of what Honda does really well this resulted in an engine that has amazing airflow and performance right out of the box but more importantly when it comes to tuning it resulted in a basic design that's capable for culminating three times four times five times greater power levels than stock and when I say basic design I mean the things that you really can't change and modify on the engine the basic shape off the intake port is one such thing you can port and polish it and slightly modified but you cannot change the basic shape the basic shape has to be really good for the engine to have amazing tuning potential and the k20 in k24 most certainly have amazing tuning potential enthusiasts tuners and racing teams across the world have more than proven this and this of course resulted that around the K 20 we have this giant aftermarket it's probably one of the best after markets for any engine out there whatever you need whatever kind of crazy idea you have chances are there are parts for that already in the aftermarket and on top of that just like the GM LS engine the K 20 and K 24 are plentiful readily available engines they have been produced in many different Honda models for a pretty long period of time so you can easily buy a K 20 engine just like the GM LS there's many of them out there you can pick up in tune and that's critical for tuning if an engine isn't readily available that means tuning isn't really going to be widespread and this is what makes the K 20 + k 24 really popular as well so basically the K 20 + k 24 engines stick all the right boxes they're an amazing design they're plentiful and readily available and they have an incredible aftermarket and this really answers why there's such a great platform for tuning whatever kind of the end goal you might have there's a really good chance that a K xx or K 24 are gonna be the right choice to achieving that goal so let's dive deeper into the cuny let's start with what I like to call stage zero stage zero is swapping a unmodified engine into a different chassis and this has been done with the K 20 let's say around 10 million times and people really like swapping the K 20 into older lightweight on the chassis and there's no wonder because the K 20 is out of the box pretty powerful and in an even lighter chassis than what it came in as stock it makes very really really fun and really fast car now there's a bit of a challenge to swapping the K 20 into and order how'd the chassis and this is because the K 20 abandoned the unconventional direction of rotation after B 16 engine which is present in many order on the chassis x' direction of rotation was changed on the K 22 a more conventional one in order to enable faster catalytic converter heat up times and this of course improved emissions on the K 20 the exhaust manifold is located towards the back of the vehicle while on the B 16 the exhaust manifold is directed towards the front of the vehicle and while this does present a bit of a challenge when doing the swap again as I said the swap has been done millions of times so there's more documentation and guides and tutorials online than you could ever ask for and the aftermarket is filled with dozens of different ready-made swap kits from many different companies so you can actually swap a K 20 into an order Honda chassis even if you don't have a lot of experience working on cars so what about swapping the K 20 into a rear-wheel drive chassis well in its start form the K 20 is a transversely mounted engine so flopping it into a chassis where the original engine is a longitudinal mounted isn't something to do if you have very bit of experience working on cars but again if you want to do it the aftermarket is ready to help because there are transmission adapter plates and adapter Bell housings and a bunch of other stuff in the aftermarket for doing K swaps on many popular rear-wheel drive chassis now before we start with stage one of tuning the K xx and K point four there's actually something you could call stage zero point five and that's because you can improve the performance of a cake 20 and cake 24 by using nothing but stock OEM parts so zero aftermarket bolt ons an example of this are the intake manifolds for example many k 20s comes stock with the PRC / pRb intake manifold and you can improve power up top by simply bolting on an intake manifold from a different K 20 such as that our BC intake manifold 10 you're gonna see like five horsepower up top with the RB C if you have extra money to spend you can chase down the intake manifold from the JDM civic type r FD - this one's called that our RC manifold and this manifold alone can actually bring you around 14 to 15 horsepower up top something else it works in favor of stage 0.5 is the existence of the k24 engine Valda k24 would it's increased the block deck height as well as significantly larger stroke allows you to essentially create K 20 / K 24 Frankenstein engines which are basically higher performance stroke K 20 engines made from nothing but om parts now in fact the K 24 isn't just useful for stage 0.5 but in all levels of tuning now it starts with the actual stage 1 aftermarket bolt ons now even though the K 20 is a pretty modern engine it actually responds really well to basic Bolton's and the aftermarket has quite a number of really good ones so with nothing but basic stuff like an aftermarket intake manifold an exhaust manifold and a free-flowing exhaust you can gain as much as dirty or speller now if you want to stay naturally aspirated the K 20 is capable of reaching 300 naturally aspirated stallions with relative ease and while it isn't going to be very cheap or very simple it's still a lot easier doing this with a K 20 then with most other naturally aspirated 2 liter engines and to get the 300 naturally aspirated horsepower here of course came to me to introduce some standalone engine management different camshafts and upgraded valve train so pretty serious porting and polishing increased compression and a bunch of other stuff but the end result is going to be a really fun view enjoyable naturally aspirated engine is going to happen scream well beyond 8,000 rpm [Music] but even if you're crazy about naturally aspirated horsepower and you want to go beyond 300 natural horses the K 20 can take you there in 400 or even 500 horsepower naturally aspirated K 20 / K 24 engines have been done it isn't gonna be cheap definitely it's not gonna be simple or easy and it's going to result in an engine that's absolutely horrible or maybe even impossible today we drive but it's gonna be one hell of a screamer but if you're interested in big horsepower numbers you could of course argue that forced induction is the way to go and the aftermarket is more than willing to oblige Bolton supercharger kits can take you easily up to 300 horsepower on a stock block if you want to do forged internals and more block reinforcements you can go supercharged as high as 400 and some have gone even beyond that when it comes to supercharged Kate when ease [Music] [Music] the answer to giant horsepower appetites is of course turbo charging and the ever-present question what's the safe power for a stark bar when it comes to turbo charging the k20 well the safe power level assuming the engine is healthy and assuming your tuning is spot-on is around 300 wheel horsepower however many people have pushed a stock block beyond that how safe is that and whether it's on borrowed time it's anybody's guess if you're willing to install from forged pistons you can go well beyond 300 wheel horsepower and if you're willing to further enforce the block with some block guards and different so leaves and upgraded fasteners the K 20 / K 24 block can take you to the stratosphere 1000 horsepower 1500 horsepower and even more has been done with this engine plenty of times [Music] [Applause] [Music] so that's pretty much it when it comes to the K 20 I hope you enjoyed that and found it useful it really is an amazing engine incredible design and the aftermarket is there and you can build this thing into whatever you want the only limit is the sky and the thickness of your wallet now before we end this video with the usual crude rewrap I want to tell you a short personal story ad that I like to remember when it comes to the K 20 now I have a friend who's a mechanic and a racer and a mentor he has a 700 horsepower plus a Lancia Delta Integrale but he has worked on a bunch of different engines and has built everything from miles dimes er's to out from your boxers to yoda 3s g's to german stuff you name it even worked on some Ferrari engines and he's a fan of Italian engine so listen to him long enough and he's gonna convince you to build something Italian he always raves about how Italians built the most beautiful engines how they're the greatest innovators and what not and actually I even worked part-time as a mechanic for him just to see what it's like working as a mechanic and while I was there at the shop we casually talked about something and I decided to run a tiny little experiment so when I asked him is is this so this is what I told him I'm gonna ask you something and you should answer without thinking about it just answer the first thing that comes to your mind and I asked them what's the greatest was the best engine you worked on you built and he just answered K 20 and I was shocked but funnily enough he was shocked as well by his answer I expected something Italian but he said K 20 and after we recovered from the shock I asked him okay why the K 20 and he said well you know when you open it up and when you look at that engine you realize that everything that they could have done right they did it right and they created this amazing platform for doing anything you want with it and for me that was really an eye-opening thing about the K 20 when somebody who's who talks about Italians his entire life answers K 20 without thinking about it I guess that should tell you enough about this engine so yeah that's it let's go for wrap you're my name is Kate 20 and I'm the for selling their king awesome fo and performance yo that's my fingers I'm being swapped into everything for a reason if you got me on your side every day's racing season I've got the biggest ever after market you can buy k2 any hairs in your supermarket you may hate me you may say a lot of crap but in racing between me and you there's gonna be a big old gap

Channel: driving 4 answers

Views: 231,044

Rating: 4.9265213 out of 5

Keywords: honda, honda k20, honda k24, k20 build, k20 tuning, k20 tuning guide, k20 swap, k swap, honda civic, civic ep3, civic, k20 for sale, vtec, ivtec, vtec vs ivtec, acursa rsx, k24 build, k20 turbo, k20 supercharged, k24 turbo, iconic engines, Integra Type R, best k20 engine, honda k20 engine for sale, k24 vs k20, best k24 engine, k20 everything you need to know, k20a2 vs k20z1, k20a2, k24 mods, k20 mods, b16 vs k20, k20 engine specs, k24 engine specs, b18, k24a2, k24 swap

Id: dMDyFgrDyK4

Length: 34min 19sec (2059 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020