K20 KMiata kit build

[jwagner]

The original build thread for this car was "Waukesha Wisconsin Build".  After running the car for year and a half at track and autocross events, I pulled the Miata motor last February.  The plan was to swap the motor into my '94 Miata R and drop a K20A2 into the Exocet, and have it ready to run before  April so we wouldn't miss any of the year.  That didn't work out.  Now that I've moved to a new house with better garage space, I'm ready to start building the motor.  The target now is to be up and dyno tuned by early April.  2018...

I bought a motor with 82K miles and a warranty from a recycler in Michigan.  It came with a 90 day warranty, but by the time I discovered it had lousy compression in cyl #4, caused by a bent rod, it was too late to do anything about it.  Found a short block on Craigslist with 12.5 to 1 pistons, Carillo rods, and a bunch of other new parts I needed.  The head from the broken motor went to a shop where it was rebuilt by a guy that builds lots of Honda heads.    Racing valve job, new valve guides and seals, smoothing the rough spots in the casting to improve flow, etc.  Should be better than new.

Here's a pic of some of the parts waiting to go together.  I'll be running a thread over on K20A.org because there's Honda K expertise over there that will probably be useful once I dig into it.

[jm1211]

How is the build coming along? My son keeps asking me when we are going to look at the race car again!

[jwagner]

Making slow progress on the project, but I've got until April to put together a running car, so there's no hurry.  Had some minor fitment issues with the oil pan that David at KMiata helped me sort out.  I'd like to have the engine together before winter really hits.  Between life and Fedex disappearing a package for most of a week, that set me back a week and a half and it's getting cold here in Wisconsin. 

The pickup and pan are on the block, on to the head, hopefully this afternoon.

[gwnwar]

Just wondering if there will be any problem with getting oil from the front to rear pan chambers..

[jwagner]

Nov 7, 2017 5:43:07 GMT gwnwar said:

Just wondering if there will be any problem with getting oil from the front to rear pan chambers..

Good question.  Probably not a problem with track use as the oil will get splashed around a bunch.  There will be an Accusump to make sure there's oil pressure at all times.

[cooltech]

Have the same pan and the same questions. Also running an Accusump "just in case". Will definitely be datalogging oil pressure across first few track events to see if Accusump is ever having to fulfill shortcomings in oiling system. Finally did first "around the block" drive last weekend. Hope to get to dyno to build engine tunes right after the Thanksgiving break. (Ours is K24.)

[jwagner]

Rolling on the project again.   The motor is built save for things like intake and alternator that will be bolted on in the car.  Here's a vanity shot of the header test fit.



(nice to be able to upload images to the board, hope they're more permanent than photobucket)

Dug the car out from under a year of dust and using it as shelving and started working on removing the front subframe.  Since there's no engine to get in the way, access to everything is easy and it's a whole lot easier to disassemble a car that hasn't been rusting for 20 years.  Took the wheel hubs, brakes and a arms off as an assembly.



Looking forward to firing up the motor for the first time (again).

[jwagner]

Finished draining the brake fluid and pulled the NA subframe. 



Here's the new subframe



and the subframe installed with the steering rack.



The fit was pretty good.  Had to ream the passenger side mounting bolt out a bit and I'll shim the middle mounting bolts with a couple of fender washers as there's some space between them, but the whole subframe swap took an afternoon.



Also need to figure out how to secure the brake lines as they were on brackets on the Miata subframe.

[jwagner]

With the subframe in the car, it's back to the motor to finish getting that ready to drop in.  There was a problem with the AC/tensioner bracket occupying the same space that the throttle body wanted to be in.  Apparently this is a K20 thing and most builds are using K24s.



Another view - the EGR barb won't work either.



After a whole lot of work with the angle grinder...



Taped up everything that might get aluminum dust in it and that was a good thing since it's all over the shop now.

This is the last post for a while.  It's spring break here and I don't expect to have time to get back out in the shop until late next week.  I won't make the first autocross weekend this year.