**The Journey of Installing a K20 Engine**

As I watched Adam and his team work on installing the K20 engine, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. We had been following the instructions, but there was still something that didn't feel quite right.

"Okay, so we scared ourselves a little bit," Adam said, "but we realized that the timing chain tensioner is pressurized with oil from the engine, it was causing this chain to kind of pull some slack and then get tight." I nodded in agreement, relieved that we had figured out the issue.

The K20 engine is known for its high horsepower and revving capabilities, making it a popular choice for compact cars. But as Adam pointed out, "the thing attached to it that is special is this throttle body, which can think of an engine really as just a big air pump."

As we continued to work on the installation, I couldn't help but be impressed by the complexity and beauty of the engine. The 66 millimeter diameter throttle body was particularly impressive, providing a significant increase in airflow compared to more economy cars.

"The more air you can get inside those combustion cylinders, the more power you can make," Adam explained. "And that's where this throttle body really excels." I nodded in agreement, recognizing the importance of air flow in engine performance.

As we worked on installing the intake manifold, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the engineering that went into creating this engine. The cast aluminum construction was lightweight and effective at dissipating heat, making it an ideal choice for compact cars.

But just as we were getting started, Adam's strap malfunctioned, causing us to pause and reassess our strategy. "I don't want to be right next to this strap that I have zero faith in," he joked, highlighting the importance of reliability in engine installation.

Despite the setbacks, we persevered, determined to get the job done. And when it came time to fire up the engine, we were all excited to see if our hard work would pay off.

As we waited for the engine to start, I couldn't help but think about how far we had come. From installing a new water pump to tackling the tricky throttle body installation, every step of the way had been a learning experience.

And when the engine finally roared to life, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment that came from knowing we had done it ourselves. "It's one thing I don't trust," Adam joked, referring to my own abilities, but deep down, I knew that with teamwork and determination, anything was possible.

**Special Thanks**

We would like to extend our gratitude to several individuals who helped make this project a success. Club d-sport, for their exceptional machining skills, and Jose, whose Type R brought the heat to our testing session. We also want to thank Jeremiah Burton for his tireless efforts in documenting our journey, and of course, Donut Media for their unwavering support.

So, what's next? Stay tuned for more exciting content from Donut Media, and don't forget to check out our latest merchandise designs, including brand new shirts and posters. And if you're feeling extra adventurous, be sure to grab a sticker pack from us!

**Final Thoughts**

As we wrap up this episode of engine installation, I want to leave you with a final thought: the journey of building and maintaining an engine is never easy, but it's always rewarding. With teamwork, determination, and a willingness to learn, we can overcome even the toughest challenges.

So, until next time, keep on revving, and remember: when it comes to engines, Donut Media has got you covered!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is a Honda four-cylinder engine that's capable of handling upwards of a thousand horsepower so how did Honda the same company that built this making engine so good that people are swapping it into everything from Miatas to Ferraris well today we have a completely disassembled Honda k20a engine the very best version of the k-series from the type R so we're going to rebuild this engine and examine it piece by piece to find out what makes it such a popular engine welcome to Donut thank you so what we have here is an Acura Integra this is a dc2 with a k20a swap which makes it about as close to the dc5 as we could get here in the states the k20a makes 250 horsepower and red lines at 8600 rvm I like that now most cars Redline a little bit close to like 7000 RPM they don't feel like they enjoy being up in those higher RPM ranges but that's not the case with the K20 hey thanks I love it and this one this one goes to nine thousand now the popularity of the k-series engine began to soar as early as 2003 and 2004 as car enthusiasts and Tuners began to realize how capable this engine is Fast Forward 22 years the K20 K24 are as popular as they were back then and that's facilitated by a massive and robust aftermarket which is really a testament to the engine itself now if you're thinking about doing a k-swap yourself just know that there are almost 20 variants of the K series engine here they are alarmed but apparently there's something about this k20a variant that makes it so much more special than all the other variants and I think we should find out what that is I think you're right yeah let's go to the shop all right Joey we got a bunch of parts on the table I'm excited to get this thing put back together and look at this this is the main building block of this build our aluminum block now the k20a is an inline four-cylinder engine making it extremely small and compact they have a lot of good balance due to the mirrored piston movement so Pistons one and four are synced as well as Pistons two and three and because of that you have an inherently very well balanced engine so this is a square engine and there are also over square and under square over square is when the bore is larger than the stroke and that's good for making a lot of RPM inversely under squares when you've got a smaller bore and a longer stroke which is great for making torque and a lot of times that's the way diesels are so this is kind of a happy medium in between both of those all you need to know about this thing is that just wraps up really high and that's where it makes its power which I like that okay so we're about ready to drop our crankshaft in and this crankshaft is forged like many are and of course it's balanced with these big counterweights on here when they build this engine they balance the crankshaft with the rods and pistons installed that's stuff that you usually see in full aftermarket builds pretty cool to see it in a little four-cylinder from Honda one of the distinctive features of the K series is that it uses this bed plate that serves multiple functions typical engines will have an individual crank cap that's placed over the crank to keep it in place now with the K series that's integrated into this bed plate this bed plate also acts as a girdle and that helps strengthen the bottom end of this engine nice this comes from the factory which is super super unique and pretty cool what I do is torque these down I'm guessing it's a torque plus angle there's probably a procedure so I'm going to need your help you finger tighten it let it set and then torque it if our tool doesn't actually do that the other thing we can do is do dots on the bolts then do like a protractor to 56 degrees that's so much work I know what 60 degrees is okay here we go boom boom all right so the first thing we're going to do in terms of reassembling this engine is put in some new piston rings these are for the engine so hopefully we won't have to do any filing but we're going to measure to make sure and what we're going to be measuring is What's called the end gap which is the gap between the two ends of the piston ring when it's installed in the cylinder get it down a little bit by hand then we'll grab our piston and using the Piston helps to flatly and safely move the ring down we're going to measure the end Gap with a set of feelers gauges it's basically what we're looking for is to get our feeler gauge in that end Gap with light amount of resistance on The Feelers gauge that piston ring measures out great so I'm going to do the rest of them then we'll put the rings on the Pistons then put the Pistons in the block just going to butt it up to the top of the deck and then Jerry's going to hammer it home ready yeah go for it oh now what's the deal there huh throw that back in okay it's just one one Fell Swoop it's getting caught what is happening no like bottoms I think it's gone there we go well that was one down it wasn't quite as smooth as you'd like but it worked all right let's flip it over get that cap on you're so strong here we go hey squeeze it all right okay now let's make sure she rotates and she does lovely now the Pistons have a couple features that we're going to talk about the first is the four cuts and the top of the Piston that correspond to the four valves per cylinder so you have two intake and two exhausts we have a raised Dome top here and that helps create our compression ratio of 11.5 to 1. now compression ratio is the ratio of the volume inside the cylinder when the Piston is at bottom dead center compared to when it's at top dead center so you want a higher compression ratio because you're going to make more power and you're going to get better fuel efficiency because that's what we're all after you know more MPGs when we're building a nice k20a 1000 horsepower inline four banger okay so we're reinstalling our oil pump this oil pump is a little bit different than a lot of other ones many oil pumps are driven directly off the crankshaft by way of splines on the end of the crankshaft but this is driven by a sprocket with a chain to another sprocket so now we're installing the windage tray which is just a tray that basically covers the crankshaft and separates it from the sump of oil and that just keeps like a lot of splashing and sloshing of the oil down which keeps power up so we're about to throw the oil pan back on before we do that I'm just cleaning off the old gasket material clean clean yeah yeah I don't want to be right next to this strap you're still way off working in the garage eats up a lot of time which is why we have today's sponsor factor factor makes eating healthier easier than ever by delivering fresh never Frozen dietitian approved meals right to your front door Factory meals only take two minutes to make so you'll always find time to meet your nutrition goals even during your busiest day Factor has a wide range of breakfast lunch and dinner options plus they've got food for everyone's tastes you can choose keto vegan veggie calories smart or Protein Plus today I'll be eating roasted garlic chicken my favorite part about factor is that there's no prep and no mess so don't waste your precious gas going to the grocery store and head over to factor75.com or click the link below and use our code donut 40 to get 40 off your first Factor box that's factor75.com and get 40 off your first box with code donut 40. we finally got our head back from the machine shop and they did a great job so they obviously machined it so it creates a nice smooth mating surface to our block we have new intake valves they cleaned up the exhaust valves as well this thing is looking pretty good as good as new should be better than you actually better than new and if you're wondering Hey where's jopey well he got caught with another case of massive diarrhea so Adam and I are gonna have to pull this thing through the end mmm crunchy now the head's ability to flow air is crucial to the performance of an engine and the K20 it can suck some air in now basically the diameter of the intake valves as well as the angle of the intake Runners determines how much air flows through the head now typically when you cast a head like this there's some Machining that needs to be done from the factory a guy will Port match the intake ports and the exhaust ports making sure you get a nice good flow of air into the cylinder and exhaust gases out now this engine has four valves per cylinder we got two intake two exhaust the intake valve diameter is 35 millimeters and the exhaust diameter is 30 millimeters now one thing that's really cool about this valve train is that from the factory we have upgraded valve springs that's because when this engine is revenue close to 9000 RPM we don't want any valve float and they address that when they built this thing foreign and cool about this engine is that it has IV Tech you've probably heard of VTEC but have you heard of Ivy Tech I stands for intelligent okay so if you look here we have our camshaft and on our camshaft underneath it we have our rockers and the cool thing about these rockers is it gives us essentially two different cam profiles so when you just kind of at a lower RPM this cam is rotating and it's actually hitting these two outer lobes but after you reach a certain RPM oil pressure connects these three pieces right here in your Center cam lobe which is a more aggressive profile pushes down on that giving you longer lift and a little bit of extra timing to it which allows for more power but when you're just cruising around town and you don't need that aggressive profile you're using the smaller one so you have nice good fuel efficient inline four-cylinder what makes Ivy Tech so special is this guy right here this camshaft is adjustable because of this sprocket when filled with oil pressure it'll either Advance or the timing and because of that it gives us the ability to have power both on the low end and the top end getting the best of both worlds foreign good job good pull good smack okay so we got our timing marks aligned on all three spots chain tensioner in we got new guides which is nice coming along nicely go in somewhat of an angle something real satisfying about that because we've rotated this before we put that on to confirm all that's good nope make sure there's no binding or anything it'll be fine Jerry we've been following the instructions see that well I don't know but it goes with slack right there I don't think it should ever go that Slack dude we're still way off yeah okay so we scared ourselves a little bit but we realized that the timing chain tensioner is pressurized with oil from the engine it was causing this chain to kind of pull some slack and then get tight but part of that was is we don't have maintained tension because we don't have oil pressure that's okay it's okay we learned better thing we check now than uh when we go to freaking fire this thing up oh don't go down that hole oh yes okay water pump on is that correct that goes before the intake manifold pop it off So Adam is installing our intake manifold that thing's made out of cast aluminum which is nice because it's lightweight and it dissipates heat well but it's nothing really all that special however the thing attached to it that is special is this throttle body you can think of an engine really as just a big air pump and the more air you can get inside those combustion cylinders the more power you can make and that's where the K20 really excels this throttle body itself is 66 millimeters in diameter now more economy cars will probably be in the 50 to 60 range so this is getting a lot more volume of air and that's important because you can make more power more torque and have better throttle response that comes straight from the back now if you look at these Runners these settings are chunky look how thick they are and they're pretty long so that's helping us get nice laminar airflow into the cylinders so we can make as much power as possible and be efficient in making that power coming along here foreign exhaust manifold on all right the piece the resistance the visual confirmation that says hey we're about done with this sucker red Honda valve cover this should just slip on nice and easy as easy as that if I had to put money on the Jay-Z last thing longer for this I think where is the doubt coming from is it because it's me and not Joe to be honest though I would trust you over Joby joby's blown up a bunch guy's gonna wait one thing I don't trust is Adam's strap Shenanigans I don't want to be right next to this strap that I have zero faith in oh 266 266. all right Adam so as it turns out this thing's pretty hard to start while it's on a stand kind of is yeah that Ivy Tech got to talk to a lot of different sensors for it to even fire up and to be honest that's kind of a good ending point this engine is what cemented Ivy Tech in Honda's lineup you know you got a high horsepower high revving very small compact engine that you can throw in anything this thing is really a cool piece of engineering one of the best engines that Honda has ever made it's really cool and we're just going to skip the whole firing up on a stand and go straight to throwing it into a car what car is that I don't know but if you guys have any ideas leave a comment down below creeps are back baby brand new shirts brand new design we've also got posters the Torso a wall or a head we've got you covered what if you're saying James I don't have any of those things all I have is a bunch of random surfaces but we got you covered too brand new sticker pack go to donutmedia.com thank you guys so much for watching this episode we gotta thank a lot of people that helped us get this engine put back together Club d-sport did all the Machining so if you guys need some engine work go hit them up also my boy Jose who brought us his type R let us rip that sucker around oh Adam at Connecticut racing follow me at Jeremiah Burton follow donut at donut media follow Joby even though he's not here it's all a joke that's that joke bye thank youthis is a Honda four-cylinder engine that's capable of handling upwards of a thousand horsepower so how did Honda the same company that built this making engine so good that people are swapping it into everything from Miatas to Ferraris well today we have a completely disassembled Honda k20a engine the very best version of the k-series from the type R so we're going to rebuild this engine and examine it piece by piece to find out what makes it such a popular engine welcome to Donut thank you so what we have here is an Acura Integra this is a dc2 with a k20a swap which makes it about as close to the dc5 as we could get here in the states the k20a makes 250 horsepower and red lines at 8600 rvm I like that now most cars Redline a little bit close to like 7000 RPM they don't feel like they enjoy being up in those higher RPM ranges but that's not the case with the K20 hey thanks I love it and this one this one goes to nine thousand now the popularity of the k-series engine began to soar as early as 2003 and 2004 as car enthusiasts and Tuners began to realize how capable this engine is Fast Forward 22 years the K20 K24 are as popular as they were back then and that's facilitated by a massive and robust aftermarket which is really a testament to the engine itself now if you're thinking about doing a k-swap yourself just know that there are almost 20 variants of the K series engine here they are alarmed but apparently there's something about this k20a variant that makes it so much more special than all the other variants and I think we should find out what that is I think you're right yeah let's go to the shop all right Joey we got a bunch of parts on the table I'm excited to get this thing put back together and look at this this is the main building block of this build our aluminum block now the k20a is an inline four-cylinder engine making it extremely small and compact they have a lot of good balance due to the mirrored piston movement so Pistons one and four are synced as well as Pistons two and three and because of that you have an inherently very well balanced engine so this is a square engine and there are also over square and under square over square is when the bore is larger than the stroke and that's good for making a lot of RPM inversely under squares when you've got a smaller bore and a longer stroke which is great for making torque and a lot of times that's the way diesels are so this is kind of a happy medium in between both of those all you need to know about this thing is that just wraps up really high and that's where it makes its power which I like that okay so we're about ready to drop our crankshaft in and this crankshaft is forged like many are and of course it's balanced with these big counterweights on here when they build this engine they balance the crankshaft with the rods and pistons installed that's stuff that you usually see in full aftermarket builds pretty cool to see it in a little four-cylinder from Honda one of the distinctive features of the K series is that it uses this bed plate that serves multiple functions typical engines will have an individual crank cap that's placed over the crank to keep it in place now with the K series that's integrated into this bed plate this bed plate also acts as a girdle and that helps strengthen the bottom end of this engine nice this comes from the factory which is super super unique and pretty cool what I do is torque these down I'm guessing it's a torque plus angle there's probably a procedure so I'm going to need your help you finger tighten it let it set and then torque it if our tool doesn't actually do that the other thing we can do is do dots on the bolts then do like a protractor to 56 degrees that's so much work I know what 60 degrees is okay here we go boom boom all right so the first thing we're going to do in terms of reassembling this engine is put in some new piston rings these are for the engine so hopefully we won't have to do any filing but we're going to measure to make sure and what we're going to be measuring is What's called the end gap which is the gap between the two ends of the piston ring when it's installed in the cylinder get it down a little bit by hand then we'll grab our piston and using the Piston helps to flatly and safely move the ring down we're going to measure the end Gap with a set of feelers gauges it's basically what we're looking for is to get our feeler gauge in that end Gap with light amount of resistance on The Feelers gauge that piston ring measures out great so I'm going to do the rest of them then we'll put the rings on the Pistons then put the Pistons in the block just going to butt it up to the top of the deck and then Jerry's going to hammer it home ready yeah go for it oh now what's the deal there huh throw that back in okay it's just one one Fell Swoop it's getting caught what is happening no like bottoms I think it's gone there we go well that was one down it wasn't quite as smooth as you'd like but it worked all right let's flip it over get that cap on you're so strong here we go hey squeeze it all right okay now let's make sure she rotates and she does lovely now the Pistons have a couple features that we're going to talk about the first is the four cuts and the top of the Piston that correspond to the four valves per cylinder so you have two intake and two exhausts we have a raised Dome top here and that helps create our compression ratio of 11.5 to 1. now compression ratio is the ratio of the volume inside the cylinder when the Piston is at bottom dead center compared to when it's at top dead center so you want a higher compression ratio because you're going to make more power and you're going to get better fuel efficiency because that's what we're all after you know more MPGs when we're building a nice k20a 1000 horsepower inline four banger okay so we're reinstalling our oil pump this oil pump is a little bit different than a lot of other ones many oil pumps are driven directly off the crankshaft by way of splines on the end of the crankshaft but this is driven by a sprocket with a chain to another sprocket so now we're installing the windage tray which is just a tray that basically covers the crankshaft and separates it from the sump of oil and that just keeps like a lot of splashing and sloshing of the oil down which keeps power up so we're about to throw the oil pan back on before we do that I'm just cleaning off the old gasket material clean clean yeah yeah I don't want to be right next to this strap you're still way off working in the garage eats up a lot of time which is why we have today's sponsor factor factor makes eating healthier easier than ever by delivering fresh never Frozen dietitian approved meals right to your front door Factory meals only take two minutes to make so you'll always find time to meet your nutrition goals even during your busiest day Factor has a wide range of breakfast lunch and dinner options plus they've got food for everyone's tastes you can choose keto vegan veggie calories smart or Protein Plus today I'll be eating roasted garlic chicken my favorite part about factor is that there's no prep and no mess so don't waste your precious gas going to the grocery store and head over to factor75.com or click the link below and use our code donut 40 to get 40 off your first Factor box that's factor75.com and get 40 off your first box with code donut 40. we finally got our head back from the machine shop and they did a great job so they obviously machined it so it creates a nice smooth mating surface to our block we have new intake valves they cleaned up the exhaust valves as well this thing is looking pretty good as good as new should be better than you actually better than new and if you're wondering Hey where's jopey well he got caught with another case of massive diarrhea so Adam and I are gonna have to pull this thing through the end mmm crunchy now the head's ability to flow air is crucial to the performance of an engine and the K20 it can suck some air in now basically the diameter of the intake valves as well as the angle of the intake Runners determines how much air flows through the head now typically when you cast a head like this there's some Machining that needs to be done from the factory a guy will Port match the intake ports and the exhaust ports making sure you get a nice good flow of air into the cylinder and exhaust gases out now this engine has four valves per cylinder we got two intake two exhaust the intake valve diameter is 35 millimeters and the exhaust diameter is 30 millimeters now one thing that's really cool about this valve train is that from the factory we have upgraded valve springs that's because when this engine is revenue close to 9000 RPM we don't want any valve float and they address that when they built this thing foreign and cool about this engine is that it has IV Tech you've probably heard of VTEC but have you heard of Ivy Tech I stands for intelligent okay so if you look here we have our camshaft and on our camshaft underneath it we have our rockers and the cool thing about these rockers is it gives us essentially two different cam profiles so when you just kind of at a lower RPM this cam is rotating and it's actually hitting these two outer lobes but after you reach a certain RPM oil pressure connects these three pieces right here in your Center cam lobe which is a more aggressive profile pushes down on that giving you longer lift and a little bit of extra timing to it which allows for more power but when you're just cruising around town and you don't need that aggressive profile you're using the smaller one so you have nice good fuel efficient inline four-cylinder what makes Ivy Tech so special is this guy right here this camshaft is adjustable because of this sprocket when filled with oil pressure it'll either Advance or the timing and because of that it gives us the ability to have power both on the low end and the top end getting the best of both worlds foreign good job good pull good smack okay so we got our timing marks aligned on all three spots chain tensioner in we got new guides which is nice coming along nicely go in somewhat of an angle something real satisfying about that because we've rotated this before we put that on to confirm all that's good nope make sure there's no binding or anything it'll be fine Jerry we've been following the instructions see that well I don't know but it goes with slack right there I don't think it should ever go that Slack dude we're still way off yeah okay so we scared ourselves a little bit but we realized that the timing chain tensioner is pressurized with oil from the engine it was causing this chain to kind of pull some slack and then get tight but part of that was is we don't have maintained tension because we don't have oil pressure that's okay it's okay we learned better thing we check now than uh when we go to freaking fire this thing up oh don't go down that hole oh yes okay water pump on is that correct that goes before the intake manifold pop it off So Adam is installing our intake manifold that thing's made out of cast aluminum which is nice because it's lightweight and it dissipates heat well but it's nothing really all that special however the thing attached to it that is special is this throttle body you can think of an engine really as just a big air pump and the more air you can get inside those combustion cylinders the more power you can make and that's where the K20 really excels this throttle body itself is 66 millimeters in diameter now more economy cars will probably be in the 50 to 60 range so this is getting a lot more volume of air and that's important because you can make more power more torque and have better throttle response that comes straight from the back now if you look at these Runners these settings are chunky look how thick they are and they're pretty long so that's helping us get nice laminar airflow into the cylinders so we can make as much power as possible and be efficient in making that power coming along here foreign exhaust manifold on all right the piece the resistance the visual confirmation that says hey we're about done with this sucker red Honda valve cover this should just slip on nice and easy as easy as that if I had to put money on the Jay-Z last thing longer for this I think where is the doubt coming from is it because it's me and not Joe to be honest though I would trust you over Joby joby's blown up a bunch guy's gonna wait one thing I don't trust is Adam's strap Shenanigans I don't want to be right next to this strap that I have zero faith in oh 266 266. all right Adam so as it turns out this thing's pretty hard to start while it's on a stand kind of is yeah that Ivy Tech got to talk to a lot of different sensors for it to even fire up and to be honest that's kind of a good ending point this engine is what cemented Ivy Tech in Honda's lineup you know you got a high horsepower high revving very small compact engine that you can throw in anything this thing is really a cool piece of engineering one of the best engines that Honda has ever made it's really cool and we're just going to skip the whole firing up on a stand and go straight to throwing it into a car what car is that I don't know but if you guys have any ideas leave a comment down below creeps are back baby brand new shirts brand new design we've also got posters the Torso a wall or a head we've got you covered what if you're saying James I don't have any of those things all I have is a bunch of random surfaces but we got you covered too brand new sticker pack go to donutmedia.com thank you guys so much for watching this episode we gotta thank a lot of people that helped us get this engine put back together Club d-sport did all the Machining so if you guys need some engine work go hit them up also my boy Jose who brought us his type R let us rip that sucker around oh Adam at Connecticut racing follow me at Jeremiah Burton follow donut at donut media follow Joby even though he's not here it's all a joke that's that joke bye thank you