The Differences Between Honda K-Series Engines

Honda's k-series engine doesn't need an introduction this engine can be found in cars as early as the year of 2000 in a Civic Si in an accord an element the odyssey and countless other vehicles and also vehicles found in Acuras lineup from the RSX the TSX the CSX and even the NSX well no I lied about the NSX part but this engine is honestly that good that it has been swapped into the NSX and it's made the car even better these engines have proved that you don't need to have a fancy expensive engine to have a great time and be awesome at the racetrack these things are reliable they're cheap they're easy to build and the aftermarket support for them is amazing now not all of the k-series engines are the same some of them are turbocharged where some of them are left naturally aspirated some of them have VTEC on the intake where some of them have it on both the intake and exhaust they can be found in 2-liter 2.3 liter and even 2.4 liter configurations they're extremely capable and you can even buy an entire engine for a couple hundred bucks in this video today I'm gonna be going over the main differences between the k 24a engine and the k 24 z so let's begin with breaking down the name the honda k series is an inline 4 four-stroke engine that was introduced in the 2001 honda civic its engine code was designated as the k 20 which means it's a 2-liter k series motor now the K 24 that we have here is also an inline 4 four-stroke Honda engine however it's displacement is 2.4 liters furthermore the K 24 a that you see here and the K 24 Z are very similar however there are some very distinct differences between the two the K 24 a engines where some of the earlier engines found in the 2000s where the K 24 Z engines were found in vehicles after 2007 so this view I'm hoping is going to help you guys out if you guys eventually want to build a K 24 now depending on what kind of set if you want to use so like depending on which head you want to use what's with which block that will greatly differ depending on what car you have so because I have a 2009 Honda Accord and it has an hour 40 engine block and engine in it I'm gonna be doing something different than let's say someone else that has let's say a 2002 Acura RSX or something like that so keep in mind this is going to differ from every car however the parts themselves are not going to change what you're essentially looking for is the top end from the Honda K 20s or K 24 is that flowed very well so back in the early 2000s the K 20 the type r the Civic Si those both had very well built cylinder heads those owner heads could allow the 2 liter engine to make more than 200 horsepower now out of my K 24 which is a larger displacement it can't even make that power because the cylinder head isn't as refined so let me show you what the difference is between these and hopefully this will help you decide what route you want to go especially if you want to go n/a versus boost so let's get right into it getting started right here we have two different engine blocks the one you guys see here on the left this is a K 24 a 2 this came out of an acura tsx the engine that you see right here also came out of an acura tsx however this came out of a newer one this is a 2009 block so this here is an hour 40 block and that can be found on the actual engine in many places so if we take a look on the back side of the cylinder head so this is an AR 41 there's many different variations between these engines the other accurate engine on the back side if we check in the same spot you can see that it doesn't say our 40 this is an RA a block and this is a second revision of it so consider this the model of K 24 that you are buying so for my build the reason why I am choosing to use this block right here is because this K 24 z3 is the same bottom end that I have in my Honda so I know that the motor mounts I know that the oil filter housing I know that everything in here is going to bolt up just like my block now what I want to do is I want to use this 2.4 liter displacement block with the upgraded head so this bottom end is very similar however there's a lot of small differences this block is different from this one now if you just quickly look at it you can see you've got the coolant spot over here same thing found on this engine but these do not bolt up in the same orientation on the back of the are 40 block you can see that down here there's only a couple a couple different holes where bolts go through okay so here's the our 40 if we switch to the other engine you can see there's more so this one here is different that there is for a different engine mount there the mounting and everything back here is similar however it's not the same disregarding the engine mount locations the main reason why you can't necessarily use this block inside a vehicle that came with this engine is because of the crank sensor so taking a look at the RA a block if you look at the front side of the engine with the timing cover remove you'll be able to see that there is a tone ring now this tone ring that you see right here is the crank position sensor so you can see there's 12 little teeth on here and this tells the engine or tells the ECU where the crankshaft is in relation to everything else so it will be able to tell you all that information now the sensor itself is also going to be on this side of the block now that differs from the other engine so if we take a look quickly at the lower part of the timing cover you can see that there's an opening right here for where that the crankshaft position sensor inserts on the r40 timing cover you can see that there isn't that port there so that right there differs greatly now what's cool or let's say interesting is that the crank position sensor isn't even found on the same side of the block on this engine so if you were to go ahead and remove the flywheel or your flex plate on this engine here you would find that the tone ring which is a 60 tooth and sensor are going to be found on this side let's now talk about the cylinder heads now the easiest way to determine if this is from an our 40 head or not the ports for the intake you can see they're all separate now if you move to the back side there's one large collector port all the air flow and everything is coming from each one of the combustion chambers and it all goes into one port the K 24a engine right here from the acura tsx you can see has four individual intake ports you can see it also has four individual exhaust ports so this is unique to the a design so the K 24 a this here flows better and is more efficient than the single port design the reason why Honda needs that four port design it's because of the internals that are found inside the cylinder head so if we remove the valve cover you'll be able to see that this engine here has VTEC found on the intake and exhaust side long story short VTEC just allows the cylinder head to open up the valves a little bit more and allow more air in that is essentially what it does now if that function can be found on the intake and exhaust side that is denoted by the three lobe cam or the single lobe camp found on the camshafts now this valvetrain assembly is what is found inside the are 40 cylinder head so you can see that this here has one two three lobes found on the intake camp so normally the engine runs on the lower of the two cams and then when VTEC is engaged this third rocker is actuated and you get the valve profile of this cam so that is what VTEC is in essence now not all K series engines have the same VTEC so this intake you can see here has the one two three cam lobes on the exhaust you can see that there's only one of them found now this design here isn't going to flow as well as this so what we essentially want is a cylinder head that has a good four port design intake and exhaust that also has VTEC one two three on the intake and exhaust if we go one step further and take a look at the sprockets for the intake and exhaust camshafts you can see that this here is a really bulky unit this here is a regular cog so this is just plain metal this allows the cam to face forward and backwards what that means is that you get extra power with this large sprocket so because this has cam phasing on the intake you're gonna get a little bit more power now if you have an engine that has cam phasing for the intake and exhaust side that is even better you get efficiency and you get power whenever you desire this owner head you can see has two different cams both intake and exhaust and they both have the larger sprockets so we have the cam phasing for both the intake and exhaust camshafts we can take these things off we can further inspect this cylinder head to find even more goodies so this cylinder head here has the VTEC found on both the intake one to three lobes for each side and also three for the exhaust one to three so this means that we can utilize both extra variable cam phasing variable valve lift which is essentially VTEC and because we have the larger ports for both the intake and exhaust side we can flow more air now if you're thinking to yourself Milan why aren't you just using the K xx for a two top-end which is the cylinder head and the bottom end which is the block together inside your core for this build well the reason is because I have a Zed engine in my car stock it's easier to use that bottom end then using a different a bottom end to do this process so if any of the k20a two or k24 a two cylinder heads that have the variable cam phasing and VTEC for the intake and exhaust those are the cylinder heads that you want to get this job done now if you're going from the K 2482 head nak 24 z bottom end there's going to be a couple modifications that you're gonna need to do to get all of this to work let me just show you one of them so this here is the K 24 a block now if you were to go ahead and install a cylinder head on here for this engine you would see that well all the ports line up as they should okay these all line up everything looks good so we can use the cylinder head for this engine obviously with this engine now keep in mind the cylinder head which is the K 2482 head will be going on here we want both the ports on the block and the cylinder head to match up so using the K 20 for a two cylinder head you would have to use this head gasket and if we line this up here it works perfectly except for one spot and that is found right here so if you move the cylinder head out of the way a little bit you'll be able to see that this port was actually straight like this not on an angle like this so what I did is I brought my engine block to my machine shop they were able to weld up a little bit of area or a little bit of aluminum here they deck the whole thing and I just need to go ahead and grind down a tiny bit more of it because I need to angle it so that it's facing this way so that the coolant port from the cylinder head can match the head gasket and the block so with that all matched up I'll be able to use the K 24 8 to head on this our 40 bottom end when I go ahead and build my K 24 I'm gonna be doing a naturally aspirated route I don't want to go with the complicated turbocharged setup because I've seen what that's like with my Mini Cooper so I don't want to deal with the turbo headaches for now at least I want to stay in a I want to see if I can make 300 wheel I have a bunch of upgraded parts I'm gonna be showing you guys essentially every step along the way and I'm really excited to get you guys along with me for all this stuff I'm gonna be going to my machine shop I'm gonna be showing you guys the parts that I have and I'm gonna be essentially doing the entire build in front of you guys so I'm not gonna be hiding anything what you guys see is what you get so I'm starting off with a K 24 or for tz3 bottom-end and I'm using a k20 for a two cylinder head but this is the third revision you guys have guaranteed heard of the term a Frankenstein k24 build that is a k20 top end with a k24 bottom end the problem with that though in my eyes at least is the k20 is an 86 by 86 piston and Stroke the k24 is an 87 99 so technically you're gonna have a half millimeter ridge on the top of the combustion chamber if you use a k20 head on a k24 bottom end I don't want to run into that I don't want to deal with that kind of issue because that also creates detonation issues so what I'm doing is k24 top k24 bottom mashing it together and we're gonna make more power than the measly 190 horse that this our 40 engine makes if you guys want to find the up-to-date parts list you guys can find that in the description box if you aren't following me on Instagram you guys can do so by following me it's at Mill masked super easy you guys are going to stay up to date with all the stuff that I'm doing if you guys aren't subscribed you want to see more of this stuff along the way click the sub button I'm going to be working on my K 24 in the meantime I'm gonna be doing some work on my Z and also on my Mini all that contents gonna be on there for you guys thank you guys so much for watching I'll see you in the net [Music]

Channel: milanmastracci

Views: 378,758

Rating: 4.8888245 out of 5

Keywords: milanmastracci, milmast, automotive, k series, k24, k20, frankenstein, r40, TSX, Accord, k20/k24, engine build, k24a2, k24z3, k24z7, civic si, civic, fwd, k series only, built, Manley, rods, pistons, VTEC, drag cartel, complete guide

Id: 4zGSWr9Uuyg

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 21 2020