As an automotive tech, I gotta jump in on this. If your timing chain is on the back of the block, it means the engineerings give a **** about what they're designing, and are at least trying to improve.

As for the K-motor, am I reading this correctly? A stock turbo K's limits are about the same as a built turbo BP? Ignoring ye old turbo stud issues...

 

This falls right into the age old "mechanic vs engineer" battle. Yeah timing chains at the rear probably makes great sense from a design standpoint, but are a nightmare and disaster from an end user serviceability standpoint. And as a mechanic... You know which side of that fence I'll stand on.
Depends on a lot of things, but a stock K with a smaller, rapdly spooling turbo setup should probably be kept at or around 400whp/400tq to remain reliable and non-block venty.
I've seen K's with much larger, slower spooling turbos make 600whp reliability.

 

Probably best to use less aggressive timing than the map I posted. I found cracks on my stock sleeves on 3 out of the 4 cylinders. I only had like 10 hours of run time. My tune had a very mild boost ramp and made 395whp on a dynojet. My engine was bored for a 87.5mm piston. I bought a ramey racing sleeved short block, so hopefully my engine issue are done now.

 

Bare block, freshly painted. Bored out .5mm to 87.5, cleaned, decked, line honed.



Perfectly balanced crank installed on ACL main bearings. Plastigageing to confirm the machine shop's measurements.



Everything checked out, doused in assembly lube, applied sealant where needed, bedplate on, mains torqued



Wiseco 87.5mm pistons assembled on Eagle rods with King rod bearings and ARP bolts. #2 was too tight on the wrist pin. Since I had to make a trip back to the machine shop anyway to pickup the head, I took it back to them for a quick polish and it slid home smoothly after that.



Kpower windage tray interfered slightly with the ARP rod bolt on #1. Pretty sure this is a long known fitment issue, nothing chopping a small hole in the baffle doesn't fix.


Closeout photo of new pickup, windage tray, and modified oil pump installed, torqued, and ready to be sealed up


Ummm... yup. No comment your honor.



Hottanks are miracle machines. Last time I saw this head it was yellower than 70's wallpaper, stained with years of weathering and 30k mile oil changes. Now... its factory fresh. Skimmed, cleaned, pressure tested, valve job, In/Ex supertech bronze valve guides, Ferrea valves, supertech dual springs and Ti retaining hardware.





ARP headstuds, new headgasket, fingers crossed I don't regret not opting to sleeve this thing.



Cam towers and stock cams in, more red juice liberally applied.



And that's where I left it for tonight.




I'm waiting on a rear main seal. I herp derped and forgot to order some minor items, RMS was the only thing I didn't have spare of on hand. By the time it shows up this motor will be well assembled and ready to throw into the car for startup and breakin.

 

Gah damn! Just a bit of a step up from the last one eh? Stoked to see it fire again.

 

Wow, haven't checked this thread in a bit and holy moly it really blew itself apart! You've been hard at work props man!

I'm personally not a fan of sleeved blocks as I saw some issues with sleeved motors (granted this was ~20 yrs ago, maybe things are a bit better now). This was on old honda B series motors. One was a golden eagle sleeved block (don't know if they're still around) and another Darton. One sleeve sunk a bit after the engine ran and the other would leak coolant from the water jacket into the crankcase. If you can avoid sleeving I think it's just one more failure point to avoid. Perhaps this is a non-issue these days, Jeremy Allen is local to me and supposed to be top notch, but I'm very skeptical of sleeved blocks. The OEM Honda steel sleeves are cast into the block have "ribbing" (yes for pleasure ). I cracked an oem sleeve on my old b18c back in 2003 and have a piece around still. Aftermarket sleeves are press fit and can shift more easily (I think).

That's a lot of boost and power you were pushing. The K24 has cast pistons right? At ~500whp I'd think anything that's slightly off could be trouble. On my F22, I know people can make 5-600whp easily on the stock motor, but most of these guys are just doing straight line racing which is simply much less stress on everything only being short bursts. I'm making almost 400whp on my turbo s2k, and originally built it to be a track car, but puzzied out as parts/motors/chassis are expensive these days. There are some turbo s2k track cars but most seem to be only ~450whp mark, no more. Honestly at >500whp I gotta wonder how often/how many hours you can expect a motor to last on track. This is where I start to wonder if more cylinders is the answer as it's spreading out the "load."

I completely agree. Germans do some stuff, which may make the engineers happy, but is a pita in the real world and unnecessary.

 

I snapped a picture of the old sleeve I keep in my toolbox. It's a good reminder to not do stupid ****. My integra was running great. Built motor with .5mm overbore wiseco pistons, eagle rods, stock sleeves. Running 1.1bar on pump gas, t3/t4 50 trim. The car started missing on the highway a bit that night but on the way home someone pulled upto me at a stoplight and started revving at me. Of course I knew the car started missing but said F it. Spinning first and 2nd, shifted into third, and giant cloud o smoke. The sleeve let go. If I wasn't a retard I would've never raced that idiot but that's what happened. :( In your early 20's you do dumb ****.. lol Sorry for the rambling.

 

@SlowTeg Pretty sure sleeving tech has improved. I've seen tales of a few botched jobs, but the vast, vast majority of high HP(800-1500hp levels)K24 builds are sleeved. I think CSS is currently the go to for sleeving, and the installed steel sleeves are much, much thicker then your toolbox ornament appears to be. The entire cylinder area of the block is completely milled out on a CNC machine and one piece sleeves/block guards are pressed into place. It's not just a steel liner pressed into a bored out aluminum chamber, its effectively a completely new set of combustion chambers fitted to the OE cast aluminum block.


Few catch-up items before I get into the good stuff and forget about them.
Shifter itself was great. Tight, notchy, felt just as good as my old shifter. Two issues. One, due to the slight tilt on the transmission(the Fisch bellhousing adapter assumes you maintain the original ~10° of the K24. The Kpower mounting does not), the completely vertical, normal 3rd gear position was... 5th, first was tilted very heavily towards the driver, and 3rd was imperceptible between the two.
Second... The shifter was actually a little too close between the gears for my liking. It took some slight concentration to land the desired gear, instead of being purely natural.

I fixed both these issues by chopping the shifter handle off the base, welding on about 1.5" of height, and giving an angle to it so it now sits perfectly vertical on the neutral position. The resulting additional leverage and natural position has GREATLY improved the shifting feel and driver comfort. Once painted and with the tunnel cover in place, you can't even tell the shifter was modified from an aesthetic view.



I've been wanting to do this for awhile, but didn't have the ***** to drill a hole in the turbo manifold till now. Finally manned up and destroyed a bit drilling though that solid piece of stainless. EGT added so I can monitor combustion temps and shut things down before things get too spicy.


I stole this trick from a buddies timeattack car, and replaced my terrible amazon knockoff fake carbon side mirrors with cameras. 130° field of view on each, much less drag due to only having a small camera in the airstream, and was fairly cheap to do. While these 720p displays are not exactly crystal clear, they will be plenty to see anything alongside in the paddock or track.










Timed, valve cover on, rod bender bolted up, ready to be mated to the transmission and installed.




And shortly later, installed in the car. The days of being able to have this engine go from engine stand to installed for fireup inside an hour are definitely gone, even with my efforts to keep assemblies unboltable and modular, but its still doable in under 2.5-3hrs or so.


And as of yesterday morning... we have successful light off. Few minor hiccups during initial heatcycle, but nothing that wasn't able to be remedied quickly. Made terrific oil pressure, reached and held operating temp, and is the smoothest idling engine this chassis has ever seen, K or BP. Fully balanced rotating assembly ftw. Now to drop it on the ground, take it out and start breaking it in on the street.

The wastegate is wired FULLY open because otherwise I just wouldn't be able to help myself...

 

Honda motor, blind spot cameras just like the new Hondas… what’s next?

Seriously, the camera idea is badass. Bet the line of sight allows you to keep your eyes closer to what’s happening in front of you while “checking your mirrors” as well.

Oh, yeah, and I guess it’s cool your new engine is running too. Congrats dude, that was a quick turnaround all things considered!

 

I'd like to think technology has improved, but not necessarily. Maybe the machinists that install sleeves are simply better/more careful/tighter tolerances, but the closed deck sleeves haven't fundamentally changed from 20+ yrs ago. I never said sleeves don't work and aren't stronger. Of course a sleeved motor can make a lot more power, I was just saying it adds another failure point (if you don't need it). The point about the picture of the sleeve I posted is that the steel liner is not just a straight piece of steel. It has "ribbing" that holds the sleeves tightly in place and is cast into the aluminum block/water jackets with aluminum surrounding it and is MUCH less likely to move/shift than aftermarket sleeves (which are "only" pressed in place). It's irrelevant how "strong" a sleeve is if it shifts a tiny bit and pops a headgasket. The weakest link is obviously not the sleeve itself (on a sleeved block).

Anyway, nice progress on the build.

 

Excited to see this thing start ripping again! I feel like I should know this, but is that a g25-660?