so another project i guess um as we've already spoke about my
engine is currently in justin's car so two after hvxrs he's racing his in time attack
don't use mine he's he had an engine failure on a built engine with a an s252 turbo 400 horsepower
broke a cylinder wall fairly common on z20s i say fairly common it it happens more and more
than it used to i don't know why that is um but it's definitely a it's definitely a problem that
other people have encountered it is a weakness of the z20 engine you know engine builders
start doing wedging and there's arguments for and against wedging not going to get into any of those
it's i've never been a fan of big expensive engine builds because like anything you get no guarantees
even with you know spending thousands of pounds on an engine you've got no guarantees it's gonna last
but in in racing and competitive things reliability is key because if you look at
most people competing in time attack almost all of them suffer reliability
problems and it's almost always engine related and that's really expensive so
that is the main reason we've kind of decided to go for an engine swap not because the z20 can't
make power i'm not a z20 i'm not saying 2018 or anything like that um it's primarily a reliability
thing and we know we can get more reliability from a different engine than we can from a z20
justin could easily go ahead get another z20 engine built spend thousands of pounds on it
run it and have a failure he might not have a failure but he but you know it's like once it
happens once it's always in the back of your mind it's always a potential it's
always something that can happen and in my mind it's just not worth it it's not worth the hassle
so yeah k20 swap definitely a popular engine swap nowadays obviously it's getting more
and more popular as time goes by there's many reasons for that it is a good engine
not that z20 is not you know these are pretty similar in terms of era of engine um
but you know there's just more money invested in this kind of thing it's a better engine for
performance applications they're strong you can put 400 450 horsepower through a stock engine
with a turbo um you definitely couldn't do that with a z20 you can't do that with a lot of engines
so that is almost all the power justin's ever going to need for competing and then if you
want to go for more power you know you can build it and the stock block and crank are known to do
650 700 horsepower which again is almost kind of unheard of from you know the perspective of a z20
so that yeah that's the main reason we're going for this really
it's it's a fish you know engine swaps are common in almost all other worlds where the
the oe engine is known to be not that strong um and k20s are the obvious one to go for
because of you know how much power they can take and how strong they are i mean even in natural
aspirated form they're really high revving they produce really good power you know the vtec side
of things there's a lot of really good technology in this engine the gearboxes are good you can get
loads of aftermarket parts for these again this is a completely different world to z20s you can
get billet blocks billet cylinder heads cool cam covers loads of different aftermarket intakes
you you can get straight cut gear sets sequential gearboxes
you know almost any aftermarket part you can think of you can get them for the hondas and
again when when you're wanting to kind of push the reliability aspects of something
well you can get an upgraded oil pump for these um you can't do that for a z20 and when you when you
want to build something for you know kind of motor sport purposes you say reliability is so important
i mean again that's one of the reasons that warren is only running 400 horsepower in his car because
reliability is key and he knows any more than that they are you know a ticking time bomb really even
a built engine they all go you know they don't all go but they can go they have the potential
so yeah we're engine swapping it um this should be a relatively easy engine swap
it's actually a smaller engine it's an inch taller but other than that it's actually more compact
the gearbox is slightly smaller the um diff location is very similar
in terms of where we think the engine is going to sit roughly i've done quite a lot of measurements
we want to try and use as many oe engine mounts as we can again the advantage of
using oe stuff is that you can just get it you know it's easy to replace
so yeah we're going to try and use fairly oe mounts maybe some upgrades but
although we type fitment um it'll end up on obviously an aftermarket ecu probably a hal
tech um we will still be turbo in it obviously um and it's probably gonna we're probably gonna do an
s257 this time so slightly bigger turbo than what justin's got now but we can go for a
bigger exhaust housing because these engines will flow a lot more air than the z20 would
and then with the bigger exhaust housing s257 it'll make 500 horsepower but we don't need that
much power um you know we can kind of rain it back and then we've got all the turbo we need
for the future you know if we at some point we decide to kind of build the engine because this
thing we're putting in a stock engine to replace a built engine that's how strong these engines are
um so yeah the first thing we need to do really is like plonk it in the engine bay and uh see how it
fits hopefully it fits well but yeah the the big challenges are the ecu side of things drive shafts
um and yeah again say reliability is key so yeah we don't want to be doing anything that's going to
be considered a compromise so yeah yeah first job is to kind of plonk it in the engine bay
right so after a bit of uh
engine crane work it's it's never easy especially when the engine's as built up as it is like
i wanted to take as few parts off it as possible luckily i'm not too worried about the paintwork
in the engine bay in my car because i don't know if it ever goes back together it'll probably be
if it ever gets back together by somebody who and yeah likes yeah wants to keep the car it'll
probably get the engine bow painted anyway um yeah the plan is actually to get it running in my car
use my car as like a mule car um and then once it is running just transfer
it to justin's there's no point taking the engine out of justin's car and leaving us with
no cars because justin's car can be used as it is um not that we can use anything at the minute but
yeah the plan is to get it running in my car so we've got the engine kinda plunked in
um i know it'll need to come up more still because the sump is obviously
very low at that it's hanging well at the bottom of the subframe but i wanted to get it in just you
know just start having a look at you know the width of things where engine mounts might go
um so at this point really it's it starts to get luckily the k20 has got a nice flat sump so we can
actually start working off a trolley jack rather than having to have the engine crane in the way we
can literally just jack the engine in the middle and then swivel it around and move it around a bit
um then try and kind of prop the engine where we think it wants to go there will probably
be revisions for this the the key point is getting the engine as square as possible
the right height and obviously getting the drive shafts in the correct position because
we need the drive shafts to be as level and as flat as possible when the car is at ride height
so this is this is kind of it's not the hardest part but it's probably one of the easiest parts
to get wrong in that if we do get it wrong we'll just give ourselves massive headaches
in the future and again we'll give ourselves the unreliability that we're trying to solve
so yeah getting the engine in the correct position is really important
so i can already see this engine mount we we hopefully can use the original one which will bolt
you know maybe a combination of the two original engine mounts
um the obviously the engine is going to want to come a little bit further back yet we've
got basically no room for radiators we've got a little bit of room for radiators yeah the engine
is going to want to come further back um and it'll obviously want to be leaned over slightly
um so yeah it's now just a case of trying to get it lined up and then starting to look at
engine mounts um but yeah the the kind of uh thumbnail shot with the engine in
the engine bay is there now so yeah thanks for watching and we'll see you next time