Tech: K-Series Vtec Killer! Budget performance cam upgrades for the economy K24 and K20 engines.

hey it's Dario again as you know we're building my k24 all-wheel drive Civic and we're putting together the engine and I wanted to do a separate video on just the VTEC Uhler setups how you do the valvetrain when you're taking a economy Ivy Tech engine and turning it into a performance type VTEC engine with the VTEC killer setup I found a lot of information on the internet and it was kind of scattered all over so I decided to do a video just on the VTEC killer showing what rockers work what don't what has to be ground what has to be changed kind of what's available and what you need to do so we're gonna go from here and I'll show you the different rockers we'll show you the different how the cam sets up and what your options are to do this I wanted to do this separate because this is more like tech just for guys who are looking to do the tech Euler set up but if you're wanting to learn something new stay tuned and we'll go through it all so obviously this is K 24 a 1 so this is the economy VTEC where it kicks in at about 2,600 rpm there's also the k20a 2 K 23 and K 24 a 2 that all use like the VTEC that you would normally have in like a B series this is more of the economy VTEC and how it works is this only has normally this has they call it a three lobe cam so it'll have one two three lobes on the performance VTEC and then it'll have three rocker arms the middle rocker arm floats on like a lost motion adjuster which is all it is is just a little spring to keep it up riding on the lobe and then the two outer runs run on a smaller lobe just on the lote they call it the low camp so that's when you're just like cruising around putting around usually up to about 3 or 4,000 rpm they kick it in this one it kicks in at like 2200 rpm plus the little one just just kind of opens the valve just a little bit to keep the fuel running then on the exhaust it has no no VTEC it just has one single lobe that opens all the time and then it just opens the two valves and this is the the type of rocker you use for the VTEC killer setup so at the key 20 for a 1 a 4 a 8 and there's probably a couple of the key 20 a 3 is another one comes with this economy VTEC setup so these are about 40 horsepower down over the performance VTEC so by putting the the k20a 2 cams or k24 a 2 cams in these engines and running them on only the VTEC lobe on only the middle lobe they'll usually pick up about 40 wheel horsepower n/a because it gives you that extra power band by carrying the RPM of the bigger cam lobe I just wanted to explain the 3 lobe in the to lobe a little bit deeper and how the VTEC works so whether it's a 3 low bar to lope it has this little pin that slides out when the the VTEC activates so it's controlled by oil pressure there's a shaft that runs down through here and it has little holes in it that it fills with oil pressure when the VTEC kicks in when the VTEC kicks in the oil comes down here slides this pin out it slides into this end of the the rocker and locks these two rockers together so then it goes from riding on this little lobe and the big lobe on the economy VTEC to just riding on the big lobe and this one just there's a gap on the performance VTEC there's two so there'd be one here and one here and this one wouldn't be connected to the valve and it does the same kind of thing this middle one floats on the lost motion adjuster like I talked about and then when the oil pressure kicks in it locks this rocker the other rocker on the other side and then just these ones don't touch the roller and they just ride on the bigger lope okay I'm gonna go over the different options for rockers that you can use for the VTEC killer setup these are all exhaust rockers off of different k-series engines different guys use them in different ways I don't I don't really know if these things will work on a regular some guys do VTEC killer on like a really regular k20a 2 engine I don't really see the point why because if you already have the real VTEC why would you really bother doing the VTEC killer setup this is just kind of to make a peasant case series into a rockstar one so these are the three for --is-- different types of rockers that I've read that people have used so this first one this is a k20a 3 so this was often like Oh too early Oh 3 engine out of like an RS X so this is the one style apparently where I marked it here on the red it rubs that's one thing we're gonna look at when we do the mock up this uses like a separate washer that doesn't clip on just because of the style of the rocker and yeah but apparently you can take these from the exhaust side of your your k20a 3 and put them on the intake side and they don't have to be ground but apparently they have to be ground on the exhaust side so we're gonna mock up 8 of them and see how that works out the next one visit these are kind of a newer deal this is at k 24 Z 3 it's Oh 8 and newer cords and oh nine and newer TS X's it's a really weird K series head it has the integral exhaust manifold and stuff like that and then it only has three local VTEC on the intake side but the cam is completely different so you can't use it in an older K series only you can only use up to a no 80s XK 24 cam so as you can see this has a wider a wider lobe here so it kind of matches the lobe on the high cam on the the VTEC style cams the only thing I read about is with these ones you can only use them with the small spring diameter that like a K xx a 3 or K 24 a 1 a 4 a 8 uses they use two different diameters the double Springs use a bigger diameter outer diameter and the the the other other ones use a smaller diameter so the problem with that is on here is this is wider than the older style ones and it interferes with the retainer that sits right here so the retainer will end up rubbing on here with the bigger diameter but it shouldn't rub with the smaller diameter spring on it on the actual K 24 XIII's they use like a stepped retainer on the spring which it has the outer diameter of a double spring but the retainer itself is stepped down and in the coil air the valve spring is a little bit shorter than then the earlier style double springs are the big Springs so next up is the standard K 24 II 1 a 4 a 8 I'm not sure for the other ones that these fit this one was out of an accord it has a t on it this one was out of Mikey 24 a 1 and it has a Y on it but they look identical like I don't see any real difference in them so they can either have a tea or a why and they're pretty much the same it might been one it was made in Japan and one was made somewhere else or or whatever like that so these ones we're gonna do a mock up because apparently they rub on the inside here so like the the lobe kind of swipes through the middle of here and touches the sides whereas on like the economy VTEC the lobe is really narrow so it doesn't touch it so that's not an issue but with that you usually have to grind grind in here and in here on on either all four or four of them on the exhaust side or all eight of them that's what we're gonna kind of find out and this one here is one that I just I went by pictures on the internet and I just ground it out kind of what they said I think it's a little excessive for for what you have to do people were saying that a weakens the rocker arm I I have no issue of taking off this material if you started having to go down the side here it would probably be a big deal because then you're starting to take away the the strut that goes across from the main part of the rocker to the inside of the rocker like on this side here too but this is just one of these ones and I just ground it down just to try it out I have four of those that I did so so what we're gonna do this is all based off of a k20a to cam which is a three lobe BTEC cam I've also seen they say that these little tabs on these thrust washers touch too so we'll have a look at that when we get it mocked up but first I'm gonna mock up the k24 z3 ones and then we'll try all the other ones and kind of see what they said and see what needs to be ground and what doesn't need to be ground so I ended up pulling the head off the engine it was just easier I have some brine Crower the part numbers of BC 1050 it's a drop in valve spring for the small diameter retainer heads the single spring small diameter Springs I tested her a couple factory Springs out of these heads and the the pressures are like super low so if you're planning on using the full advantage of having these big duration high lobe cams in them you're probably going to be spinning it higher so you definitely want some more spring pressure they're like a hundred and fifty bucks to set on eBay it's very cheap insurance and I've noticed from some of the research that I've done a lot of people dropped valves in K series from revving them too much with inadequate I'm thinking with them inadequate spring pressure some guys get away with it a lot of those key 24s and key 20s they're making huge power run on stock stock stuff but that doesn't mean it's proper so here it is with the I got the K 24 xiii rockers these are the wide lobe ones as you can see here so like i said like it doesn't use that lobe or that lobe that's the low side lobe i only uses the high side lobe which on a three lobe set up normally kicks in around four or five grand depending on where the VTEC is set up this works perfect I can't really get in there with a light maybe I'll grab a flashlight here it clears no grinding no nothing you can buy these new from Honda still because I think they're somewhat current they're not that cheap you can get them on eBay - there's a bunch of different ways of doing this but like the thing about it is you don't want to go too crazy because you're just trying to put you're trying to just get more power out of an engine that wasn't meant to rev so these heads this is the K 20 for a one head a pair they flow just as good as the k20a - to an extent so this is pretty much like doing at k20a - head like a Frank Frankenstein head swap but just using it in Vitek killer mode so it should still make the same peak horsepower as a as a k20a - head swap but it just will have more chop and stuff at idle because obviously the that when you're only running on the big lobe it's a bigger it makes it a bigger cam if you search on YouTube there's a bunch of guys with like idle clips with their VTEC killer setups and obviously you can see by the different sizes of the lobe this lobe is pretty small and that one's a lot bigger pretty much significantly bigger I think it's at 50 it's about 30 or 40 degrees more duration and a bunch more lifts like 450 lifts so a lot of guys don't do the aftermarket cams with the VTEC still a killer set up mostly because that they get pretty aggressive with the cam Lopes on the aftermarket cams which makes it really hard for it to idle and and get a good stable idle and get good off idle at drivability and stuff so even I seen some guys complaining the oh six 208 TSX cams are like one of the biggest cams that you can get factory Honda cam and those got some guys were complaining of putting those in at K 28 3 and having a really shitty idle because the cams were just too big for the engine at idles so so yeah so first up these are the K 24 Z 3 rockers they work perfect on all all eight like they're they're not touching now and they have way too much adjustment so like it's eight thousand twelve thousand the intake and twelve thousand they exhaust somewhere around there don't quote me on that so with these all the way up and probably like an eighth out there's more than enough retainer clearance let me just Ashley it's hard to see but the bought on these k24 xiii rockers the main complaint was the bottom of the rocker touching the retainer so with this setup it's the same as the keymod performance they sell these as a as a no grind rocker so that's where I kind of got the idea to get them from so this is definitely verified that it doesn't rub on the retainer and then I'm just gonna spin the cam over and make sure it doesn't rub on the sides of the intake of these lobes on the rocker so I'm gonna do that I verified everything I rolled over the cams and checked and there's no contact anywhere a couple places are a little bit closed with the excessive clearance right now but once the valves are set it'll be fine everything is a lot closer on the exhaust side that's where everybody says the rubbing does happen you can see I don't know if you can see down there it gets really close to that shim but there still is a gap but if you actually had tsx cams the primary lobe is bigger on a TSX cam so it would probably hit those clips and knock the little tabs off but not on this one so the case 24 xiii rockers will work completely unmodified with k20a two cams in this cylinder head so those ones first ones have been verified we got the K 20 a three early style rockers mocked up on the intake and in the exhaust side and they went in pretty easy it's a little bit more of a you have to mess around a little more to get all the shims because the shims just are kind of loose and floating so you have to line them up versus the other style rockers they're all clipped to the clip to the to the rocker arm itself so on the intake side it's perfect and the reason why there's a difference between the intake side and the exhaust side is the cams aren't centered like you can see it right here this cam is this way this cam is kind of well they're both kind of this way but this cam the intake cam is centered over the roller where this cam isn't I don't know if they did that because of space or just to change the geometry because depending on where the cam is depends on how much lift you get even off of the same lobe so on the intake side it clears no no issues like definitely no issues on the bottom and no issues rubbing these two lobes on the rocker itself so there's tons of clearance no issues so if you needed to get a set of four of these two if you had a quick k20a three you could get another set of four of these throw them on the intake side and the on the intake side that will not require any grinding on the exhaust side is a different story so on the exhaust on the exhaust side you can see in there the side lobe is actually touching to the point that the middle lobe is not touching the roller let's see if I can get in there if you go like this I'm spinning the roller because it's not touching this lobe it's touch this lobe is touching the edge of the rocker so like I showed before on my layout other of the rocker that's where you have two clearance from the side like just take a little bit off of here and it doesn't even look like it needs that much I'd have no issue these are pretty beefy rockers and themselves but also a little more rare because they were only out for a year or two and only in the K 28 3 engines from what I've seen I've pulled apart a lot of oh three I pulled apart oh three RS X's with the k20a three have pulled apart accords with k20a fours and none of them have this rocker the only one I've ever found them in is the early style K 28 3 alright so here's our final setup so I in this I have the first four rockers these four here are clearanced pre-clearance I only had four of them ready so I kind of did a double mock-up on this one so these for preclearance these two are the t's the t's from the K 24 a 4 out of the chord and then these are the why they say why on them from the K 24 a1 which was actually out of this head so these ones the clearanced one's clear fine you just got to make sure you clearance them enough and they will clear the lobe so grinding is definitely necessary on these ones on the unclear instit and wise they both rub in the exact same way so they're the exact same rocker they rub in the exact same places and I'll just show you here if I can so if you look down it's hard to see let's see if I can see it from behind you can kind of see there the edge of the lobe is contacting the edge of the rocker like the lobe is too wide to fit in between the the rocker it's supposed to fit in that hole like on these ones you can see I have them clearanced out so there's enough room there for them to clear without rubbing on the exhaust side it's even worse so like because of the geometry of the exhaust side you can see see if I can get a good light in there yeah it's it's rubbing hard like there's there's a quarter inch gap there between the roller and the roller and the camp all right so just to kind of wrap things up now that we've put this thing and taking it apart a million times these are the early k20a three no grinding necessary on the intake this is all based off of K twenty-eight two cams which are the most popular ones I'm gonna say for VTEC killer because they're pretty abundant so no grinding on the intake side on the exhaust side you have to grind them right there where I have the red mark it doesn't look like it needs much so pretty pretty straightforward there the K 2009 d'ang on the standard economy Ivy Tech and k-series engines so you don't have to grind them on the intake you don't have to grind them on the exhaust as long as you're using the stock size diameter valve spring and retainer none of these other rockers matter on that side it's only this one with the wider lobe that matters if you were gonna run some super tech dual valve springs you definitely want to be checking that because I bet you it's gonna be pretty close and then these were the K 24 a 184 88 obviously they rubbed like crazy you can actually see the mark that they left when I was trying to turn it over there it goes it focused but yeah so it was it was trying to pile its way through there and I honestly think if you didn't check clearance on these they would probably destroy your valve training on startup so the T or the Y so any year from 2003 up - I'm gonna say 2008 I don't know when they stopped making the aid engines I think it's 2008 they're all going to have this or the Y like the T or the Y style rocker and you're gonna have to grind them if you're using them on the intake or the exhaust whatever like like I showed here so you just gotta grind them out so it starts just under the side of the lope and goes wide pretty much right to that edge and you'll be golden so you either do it that way or you buy a set that's already clear in store you buy one of these other sets these ones are really hard to get obviously because these engines are only like ten years old and most of the cars are probably still rolling around you're not really gonna find these in the junkyard yet I just got lucky so if these pop up these would be my first choice these would be my second choice and then these would be my third choice but obviously you'd have to grind it so that kind of wraps things up for the VTEC color setup we're gonna be doing some other stuff to the engine that's gonna be a totally separate video I have a bunch of parts coming but I just wanted to do this in the in term before the parts came and yeah so this is kind of if you have any comments or questions comment below and I'll try to answer them and if you know any other information it would be great to have that in the comments so when people clicked on this video that could kind of get everything in a one-stop shop and not have to watch 20 or 30 different videos to get the information that I tried to gather here so thanks for watching if you haven't subscribed scoups subscribed hit the bell so you get the notifications and we'll see you next time

Channel: Thehouseofboost

Views: 27,901

Rating: 4.9160838 out of 5

Keywords: k24, k20, k20a3, vtec, cam, swap, boosted boiz, pfi speed, vhb engines, honda, civic, rocker, arm, boosted lifestyle, diy mike, diymike, street, garage, zosh, academy, awd, acura, rsx, k24a1, k24a4, k24a8, k24z3, dyno, grind, hush

Id: wK9JcpY-A1c

Length: 25min 41sec (1541 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 21 2019