K Swapping My Honda Civic - Episode 4

In the previous Case Build

episode

we looked at the RBC intake manifold to match the massive 80 millimeter K Tuned throttle body, we put on a dynamic 1050 ex injectors and the K Tune black fuel rail kit, we put on an OEM clutch and lightweight flywheel placed and split in two with an 8th generation

civic

SI transmission. We mounted the engine to the chassis with sport mounts and then removed it to connect all the wiring with K Tunes' hidden wiring harness. I removed the old suspension. bushings under the car and replaced them with new k2 bushings. I also changed the coils for the K Tunes k2 circuit track boilers, bolted on the K tune header and set up the Honda ECU to start the car for the first time, so I'm putting the clutch master cylinder back into the car.

This is just an OEM clutch master cylinder and reservoir, but the line I have connected to my clutch slave is obviously for a B series, as I understand owners of K series clutch slaves usually go. Bad OEM ones so actually K tune makes their own display cylinder they are supposed to be more reliable than OEM and they look pretty good so let's add this and they also make a stainless steel clutch line as well Basically, we are replacing this entire system, from the master on up or the new clutch slave line that has a suitable length of four K swaps and a new clutch slave cylinder, so I'm going to put this all together that way, it will be ready to screw. and we won't have to worry about that, so even with that tightened, this bottom piece here continues to rotate so you can place it wherever you want in the engine bay, that's really cool and it's completely tight, that's awesome.

I love that with the new clutch slave cylinder installed, it's time to put in the K tune - Billa shifter and shift cables, since the ek

honda

civic

never received a k series engine from the factory, we have to use the kit K Tunes shifter that matches the transmission requires a bit of fabrication work to fit the EK chassis, so shifters for t sx v sx 406 a 11 civic SI, this car is none of those so which obviously isn't going to fit right, so we have the mounting kit which was apparently like this template that you put on top so you can see what your outline is and then you cut a hole where basically the strip is going to come out from the bottom and there's a great support system that goes under the car.

So it's still hidden in the factory location. I can even put my derailleur boot on top when we're done and you'll probably never know it's modified. Wow, that's cool because I like the fact that you keep it in stock, the Kaituna. The assembled kit fits perfectly on the exhaust. We needed to cut the top of the tunnel to fit the gear lever from below, just a further weight reduction, and big Irv came to the shop to give us a hand. Plus, big Irv comes to everyone. from time to time to help on the most complicated projects or projects that take only four days to complete like mine because the shifter is made from billet aluminum, it is stronger than a factory TSX genus, eliminating any flex or movement that Have the factory plastic shifter.

It's a shame that it screws in from the bottom because it hides how attractive this shifter assembly is. Next, it's time to work on the cooling system. Well, we are using a coil radiator. This is an Oh - oh radiator for RSX type S and it is a fairly common radiator that people use for k changes on an ek and because of our hot sport engine the X engine is a little further back which creates a little more room for this radiator and this should allow Ben to basically do 30+ minute sessions without having cooling issues, like everything else in this exchange, this radiator is not designed for an EK civic, it is an Acura radiator RSX, so Andy will need to make some mounting brackets to get the radiator to sit where we want it, so after we run the engine.

He replaced the radiator to check the fit. It seems that the fan on the engine side is too close to the intake manifold, so we will leave it without a fan on this side, just one fan which will nevertheless still be sufficient. We ran into a problem that is not as simple as just removing one of the fans, so here's the problem: the throttle body is so large that it requires these two adapter plates to fit into an RBC manifold and that pushes the throttle body throttle out more. makes it get in the way of this water neck outlet here and we flip the TPS over normally, it's the other way around, but that moves the plug out of the way a little bit to give us some room and it's pretty tight, you might be You can put a hose around that, but it would be pretty tight.

You can also move the radiator to the right, offset to the right, but my OCD would bother me if I moved it a bit, so we'll have to find a solution. With that, the 80 millimeter throttle is probably overkill for an unbuilt engine, it doesn't have high compression if it were higher compression, it may be a larger intake manifold, a larger throttle body might help a little, but yeah, I think the 80 millimeters are just coming in a little. the road and I also don't know if you can see down here, but the water neck outlet on the factory water pump points up and if you can see the water neck outlet on the radiator, it also points out, but as in a weird angle, so you need to have a weird style like hose ready so it fits and probably flows really well, but there would also be a lot of bends and we would have to find that it had a lot of bends. bends yeah there are already too many bends so k tune makes a swivel neck housing that would point that neck down directly at the radiator outlet so it would be nice if we could get that and then we could run the evaluator hose on straight line. directly to it and that's always good, so some things work well.

I need to order more parts from Kay tuned because of course they have very specific swap parts that I need. The first piece is a thermostat housing with a swivel collar for alignment. above the lower radiator hose with the RSX radiator while I'm at it, they make radiator hoses for a k24 swap on an ek with the Integra subframe and the full size RSX radiator. Lastly, I need to order a 72 millimeter throttle body to give me a little more room in the engine bay with the upper radiator hose. Now it's time to upgrade the fuel systems.

Here we are working on the back of him trying to solve his bad case of dripping that he has been struggling with all week, but it is finally starting. to get a handle on things, just got there with the background, move some stuff, he came in with the gags, the drips are worse than I initially suspected, they do more than just drip, oh yeah, this is a dispute, now we're over of the drips. when throwing up it does what we write 255 they make a lot of bigger pumps i have like four hundred or something in my escort but the bigger you get they usually complain more and say oh here in the backseat complaining no one wants that uh so Basically you don't want to overdo it With this there is no need to exaggerate, so it is actually a fairly quiet pump that should be quite good for street use.

You don't want to overdo your fuel system. If you want to pump this fuel too much, if you have too big a fuel pump then maybe you don't have a good enough fuel return line, you could basically be overpowering your return and generating too high fuel pressure at idle and pulsing. low. things, so depending on your face, the fuel pressures will be very high, the whole system has to work together. In Ben's case, he's not that picky about fuel here, so we're just doing a simple 255 fuel pump. He already has the K regulator tuned for proper fuel. bring back some bigger injectors no don't go crazy what was a thousand cc ten 50 i.e. 10 50 so no crazy injectors probably a little big for any power but this would be fine so should work, so this is how?

There are motors in here that suck and fill through the bottom that's in the top plug on the top of this, obviously to control it, they give it power that's there basically in the basket. You have this filter located at the bottom so that we don't collect a lot of large debris, so yes, that just stays in the basket and sends the fuel through these lines, but this flows more. The fuel pump and injectors aren't the only filling upgrades we're making. We're hooking up the ethanol sensor, so this basically allows Ben to run whatever gas he wants to fill with gas from the pump from zero ethanol up to 85% ethanol and the tune will basically compensate for that, automatically adjust and feed and such time add a little bit of ignition timing with more ethanol and we'll move on to doing the wideband, hook up the fine Ben and plug it into the kaypro ECU so then you have a full IFR log and set up open loop control or whatever on the exhaust we're welding into a full three inch system or just installing the exhaust and we start with sort of a three inch DIY weld on, you cut it yourself, it's basically kind of a 3 inch pre-bent pipe, but you have to cutting and welding things to make them fit, so I put the K tuned head on and did it basically from the head to the bottom, so I try to make sure it doesn't touch anything obviously, trying to keep it away. of anything that might melt under heat or shouldn't be seen in any kind of heat, we added some good heat shielding to the K Tunes shifter brackets and wrapped and pushed the shifter cables to the side to which don't rub or touch anything and have plenty of room so the exhaust doesn't melt so yeah as soon as I finished welding it I'm using a key tuned muffler and the biggest resonator I could fit in the tunnel because I like quiet exhaust However, I will have to use three inches in diameter to improve my chances of hitting the power goals.

K-series engines have been shown to like a high-flow exhaust and some people have seen dyno gains of up to 20 wheel horsepower. just having a three inch exhaust compared to a two and a half inch larger exhaust doesn't always mean better, but it just so happens to mean that in my case it's like thinking about everything and everything moves to try to make sure that Let's have the wide hangers there so the exhaust doesn't get bumped from side to side and especially when you go from such a large exhaust to such a large button, it really takes away all the clearance and space that you would normally have on a original exhaust.

It can actually cause a pulse knock as well and that tension could pick up that ping sound and mistake it for a knock and pull back the power, so you want full power, you want the 235 horsepower that they were going to make, you don't want the sensor suddenly turned on. I stumbled upon a mistake, it's not about how many horsepower you expect 260 should make, it could even make 270, that's what the internet has told me. Similar setups and what you would be running if you weren't running cameras. I know maybe five would be like 240 250, but the cameras. at 85 and the case moved forward, I should increase it to 260 235 240.

I guess I don't know. I've done several stock k's at least on my dyno and stuff, they're usually there like in the 215 range, but we. I have a little better head and cams so I'm guessing maybe another 1520 horse, so for the 70's it's 270, that would be very impressed. I'm not sure what we did right to get to 270, but now you better not, you better not take out the tune. just to hit that 240 14 degrees of timing yeah don't make that ten degree cam angle it lifts it up so if you saw the throttle issue we had before the throttle body is so big it was very close to the neck of the water. in the radiator, so we've thought about different solutions to fix it and there might be some things we could do to make the eighty millimeter throttle body work, but the best solution, in my opinion, would be to get a smaller throttle body than it might hurt the power, maybe a horsepower or two we'll find out on the dyno, but what we need is a 72 millimeter throttle body and that's what we get, fine tuned overnight, literally overnight , they sent it yesterday and got it.

This for us is obviously much smaller than the 80 millimeters, it seems like, I don't know, eight millimeters smaller, but maybenot be a restriction because I am NOT making that much power, but I know that with the NA engines, more can breathe. Typically the better you can make power on the turbo engine, it may not matter as much, but we'll see that 72 is probably still big enough for us, but now that we have this, it will move the TPS inward a little bit and give us a little more. more room for that water neck outlet so we're going to put this in there give yourself a little more room and then try the dyno and see what the results are and that's not the only thing that comes in they also sent us their network of rotating water that is what goes. where the thermostat housing attaches to the bottom of the engine, if I redo the factory one it works but it is bent up and the radiator also has the vent facing up so you would have to have this kind of weird pose to to do that. it works but with this you can turn it in any direction you need to point more directly towards the radiator so that's cool and believe it or not so hose kits for this exact situation the k24 on an Ekk Tu would be the Integra subframe and a complete.

Radiator size, who knew? This is the hose kit it should fit for. Otherwise we might cut it a little bit because every situation is a little different, but it should go in pretty easily and I'm very grateful that they made it through the night. This oh one more, they also sent us their billet TPS which has the plug disconnected remotely from the TPS which might give us a little more room again in the throttle body to give us more room for the water neck outlet , so you could make it clear a little better, so it's good that the plug can be hidden well, it will look pretty neat and I'm excited for this to work, we're so close now it's so close the swivel neck thermostat housing fits perfectly and We tried the 72 millimeter throttle body fit and it fits much better, however we think we can make the 80 millimeter throttle.

The body works with the K Tuned hose kit, so let's give it a try and see if it makes more power over the 72 millimeter throttle body on the dyno bike, by trimming the K Tunes radiator hose and repositioning the radiator supports a bit . Able to make the 80 millimeter throttle body work. You should fit well and not touch. We take you and keep yours. They sent us some radiator hoses which probably saved us. It is an event like two trios. Let's go with the A team. Otherwise, we're wrong. Dude, we have run it just for testing and tuning purposes.

We're going to see if the 80ml actually makes more power than the 72mm, so now we have both so we can test it out. There are definitely 72 that fit in there because the engines will still move so it could fall on the radiator part so it would be better to have long lines in the long run but we will see if the 80k gives me more power without high compression differently. I don't know, it's controversial. I think it might be that he doesn't think it's going to be like that, yeah I don't think it's the bottleneck in this case when you're still putting it in an RB C intake manifold if it's a high compression engine.

So it would probably be more beneficial. We're almost there, now that all the major components have been completed and we're almost ready to put the car on the dyno; we're just putting in the final elements, like the three and a half inch one. Tuned K input and interchangeable K axles from the standard Haskell sport axles for a wahpeton case EK already has the nice splined axle to slide right into our EK axles and we have the driver side which is all nice and plug-and-play. Can't. I think Mia's official case was bought. It looks like a real car again with all these fenders and bumper beams back on.

It's time to get this car ready to hit the dyno and see how much power we can make with the officially assembled car. Now Andy can. working on getting a bass tune with the Honda ECU so far everything looks very healthy Andy is receiving signals from all the engine sensors and the 80 millimeter throttle body is working like a champ now there is only one thing left to do to achieve this car to the dyno room a balance and alignment of all four wheels in the corners, basically we're going to do all the suspension alignment and all that that way it doesn't slide off the dyno, but yeah, we have to do this anyway, so we could well, do it now Balance the corners, line up, that's it, yeah, yeah, and it's good, it's good to tune it right to do 260 in Wisconsin, we'll start in the corner waiting for this car, we set the right height , visually we want it. so we'll put it on the scale and see, I guess, where the curves weigh.

Typically for this you want the driver in the car to basically simulate the car as if it were going to the track, it has more to do with the coil-over shocks have the same weight in each corner, so if you think about a four-seat legs, if one of those chair legs is a little shorter than the rest, the chairs will wobble back and forth. Have you ever been to a bar? There's something about a cheap bar stool. and it's like wobbling back and forth, so we're trying to get each of those legs perfectly nice and even and touching the ground.

The idea is to obtain a perfect and exact weight in each corner, something that is not possible in most cars, especially this one, which is front-facing. all wheel drive car to add weight in a corner you want to increase the ride height that will add weight actually this one is pretty easy so our lightest corners are front left and rear right our corners heavy are the front right and the rear left and II. I got the car's cornering balance within 15 pounds side to side which is very good, now we have to move on to alignment. I plan to change more suspension components in the very near future, so I'm not too worried about my tube specs. are until I have the remaining suspension components on the car and once I can get the car out on the track to feel it and check the tire temperatures, you really have to follow it, you have to tent like you have to take your temperatures on the track. and dial in your alignment with that otherwise honestly the numbers are totally real you don't need to know how much camber you have or anything you just need to know you need more or less depending on the tips of the tires that being said we're going to set the car with a generally well-proven track setup of 2.9 degrees negative camber and zero degrees tow for now, but again, that will all change in the very near future with a few more suspension improvements this will simply do.

Make sure the car is straight on the dyno and that my alignment is close to where I'm going to want it once I start dialing everything in, you have to take the tire temperatures because they will be different on each car, suspension bushings proper and things shouldn't require as much camber and roll center as you, as your roll center improves or if you fixed your roll center you're changing your roll stiffness, you know, I like it, you've seen racing cars on TV and they are not that they are not leaning in the corners, it is not because they are running with such stiff spring rates, it is because they have a really good roll center, you get your roll center to be further from the center of gravity, it is like a lever arm, it's like all The weight grips the torque wrench very high and tilts as if forcing the car to tilt.

The idea is to place the center of gravity exactly where the roll center is and you won't have that lean body. This car is essentially a completely new auto vehicle, so it will take a while to get everything adjusted, we are getting close. I think I've said that the last seven times, although we just finished the suspension in the corner waiting, we are checking and adjusting the entire suspension, the furler. necklaces basically a final inspection. I think we're going to change it or put some new oil in it and then hopefully put it on that dyno and take some time to... 259 Now I'm getting nervous after months of gathering parts and researching everything about K swaps, we'll finally put it on the dyno and see if it's all worth it, regardless of the horsepower number, my car weighs 2,300 pounds so anything over 200 wheel horsepower is a ton , if this car hits my goal of 260 wheel horsepower, that's the equivalent. power-to-weight ratio of 375 horsepower at the wheels of an Evo how long ago how long ago where you started is the enemy I guess until you're thirty-five always be prepared to be disappointed with the dyno hmm those are some wise words for the older ones that we're about to die, no, this car and you're about to see 260 horsepower at the wheels on that graph, no matter how much power it makes.

I mean, every dyno is different, no matter how much power it makes. This sounds amazing. intense and a four cylinder engine n/a to get over 200 horsepower that's crazy it's like factory v6 cars do that some factory turbos for similar cars do that and it's on a chassis two thousand three hundred pounds which is incredible, let's see what power it makes we have the fuel more or less marked, we are going to start with the gas pump, we have ml offensive facilities, we will set up the full flex, but we are going to start with the gas pump, let's Start by adjusting your zero cam angle, then I'll move to 10 degrees 20 30 40 50 all the way up and then do the same process for the high VTEC setting.

The K series is definitely a bit more of a mental struggle than an LS. or car where it is simply: ignition and fuel timing. I have a feel map for each cam angle plus high and low V Tech and then there are ignition timing maps for each cam angle plus high ammonia, so we're adjusting several things at the same time, they adjust the fuel with Quecha cam angle, in addition to making mental notes of where that power is, they try to maintain the cam timing map and whatever makes the best bone, there's a lot more to tuning a dyno car than just power pulls, it felt like an eternity while Andy was tuning the engine before he could do his first power test, but that's a good thing because tuning the midrange can be more important than the top end, but when we finally did his first Power Poll we were very surprised, oh that can be.

It's not cool Andy, what we just did, hey Andy, hey Bennett, stand there, hey big dog, could we do it? I couldn't even count how many surveys Andy did. We spent hours on the dyno getting everything perfect and with each survey the power kept going up and up, but the maximum power isn't even the most impressive. The power band that Andy can extract from this k24 is so strong and so flat that it works well, fine-tuning the fuel and therefore the final maximum horsepower number. Pump gas is at 59 59 we almost got a really good power band and it will probably go up to 270 with the use of e85 that's about ten more horns yeah it works great very good yeah there will be a monster like that What did this 259 do, okay?

To make 260 nice smooth, it's got a good power band, let's put 85 on it and get over that 260, let's get rid of the pop gas and start adding some ethanol, so I just got some returns, so we're just going to crank it up. , we will let it run, it will take out the fuel. We drained the car of all its regular 93 octane gasoline to replace it with some ethanol. Andy, what time is 85 times two sixty? One geek horsepower on e85 is an incredible 268 horsepower at the wheels, more than all of our guests and the power band is so flat that it carries that little power through a few thousand rpms that hard.

I hope you see the Prabhavati red, yeah okay, remember the smaller 72 millimeter throttle body, let's change the throttle bodies now to see if the 72 millimeter throttle body makes it easy to have less horsepower , you think it's loose power with a 72 or what I think will be a couple, I don't think it's very significant, maybe you'll enjoy it. nice more linear power Andi sets up a tune to compensate for the different throttle bodies, but one thing is already very clear: it has much better throttle response 261 horsepower at the wheels and 224 wheel pairs with the 72 throttle body millionaires that fits the car much better and has much better photo response, so that's the throttle body I'll use despite making seven less horsepower at each wheel, not 270 or 270, but don't give me that smile , what were you telling them I was going to do?

Yes, I was protecting. like in 235 240 somewhererange and I think the highest number we saw after letting things cool down and you know, water down, I wanted to try to hit 270, what we hit at 68 68 but realistically we changed the throttle body. for the smaller 72 millimeter throttle body, yes, better throttle response, yes, I think that might be worth the cost of a couple of horsepower, so the best on that throttle body was 261. I think which you know, if this was a drag car, then the 80 thousand I thought would make more sense, but because it's a highway, most of Orono looks like those, they just focus on the numbers, but it's really about of drivability, especially in the track car, where you have to have really good throttle control.

When trying to accelerate at the limit of grip, if there are problems with an on/off switch, it is very difficult to do so, so the smaller throttle body has a nice, smooth throttle control. You'll be able to get out of corners and not just instant wheel spin and torque steer, so yeah, and that's sure to be a lot better to drive, especially when I'm not used to it yet, yeah, 200 horsepower let alone the right, 60, yes, what was the problem with the b16? 16, once you know, once again add another hundred horses, yeah, a handful should be a lot of fun, yeah, yeah, thank you very much, probably these last three

episode

s were just over the course of four days.

I can't believe Andy moves so fast here at ASM. Mia, the Civic is now. a different Wheatly car, we've done all the essential things, but this build isn't over, this car will still need a major brake wheel and tire setup and probably some more safety equipment before we take it out on the track, but we'll let that for the next episode right now, we'll load up Mia to take her back to Virginia. I can't believe that just four days earlier we unloaded an empty shell here and now I'm taking home 261 wheel horsepower and 2,300. Libra Car Awesome, many thanks to Andi from ASM and K Tune for sponsoring this bill without you;

This could never have happened.