Dallara k20 build

Hi Guys,

It's been a long time coming but after 12 years of the car sitting in the shed I've decided to finish it off.

The dallara kit was fitted about 8 years ago when the car was taken off the road.

http://imageshack.com/a/img540/819/Bk2mjJ.jpg

I picked it up from its place of hiding.

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/2407/7U4gEm.jpg

Enough of the body time for the Honda k20 install

I bought this kit off Matt around 2 years ago for a period I wasn't going to do it until finding inspiration on here. Originally when I bought the kit I contacted an engineer in Australia to see what could be done.

I had Matt's pictures on hand and the engineer basically said it was near on impossible to register here if I cut that much of the chassis.

After seeing someone had done this with basically no cuts I decided well why not then.

So it began.
http://imageshack.com/a/img661/2407/7U4gEm.jpg
Fitting and welding the engine cradle in was easy this took around 2 hours.

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/1003/d8YrBI.jpg
Everything stripped off the motor for fitting


The first offer up where I found the slave cylinder mount on the gearbox needed to be removed. Once that was removed the motor sat in place with no modifications to the firewall or chassis. I did remove metal from the passenger side rail but this was actually done years ago for a 4agze which has a much bigger gearbox.
















Another thing I discovered along the way I purchased a k20z4 its fly by wire and one of the motors Matt says not to get. The reasons he said not to get it didn't worry me I'll be running a motec ecu. One thing to note though the sump from the Z4 which is a very late motor won't fit with this kit. Not the end of the world I just need an earlier sump but if you were hoping to use the standard ecu it wouldn't work as there is an oil level sensor where the crossmember goes.

Thanks guys,

Very interesting. So on the bulkhead/cabin firewall side are you rearranging some of the ancillaries, using an alternative intake and I assume selective hammering of the bulkhead?

Looking good so far. Please keep the updates coming, thanks!

Bulkhead

At this stage I see no reason at all the bulkhead or firewall need to be touched. Hammer or cutting.

The intake is the only real issue I've got an RSP manifold which I do think without too much issue I can modify to fit.

I'll be cutting off the factory plenum and taking a filet out of the intake trumpets. By doing that I should be able to reduce it down to 19cm's which will fit.

Once I get it to fit it's just a matter of welding it back together making a box plenum. Mounting the throttle body where it can avoid any extensions or cutting .

Currently I'm doing the body work and then I'll go back to getting the motor running.



At the moment the proto I just finished it the main priority it's off getting wired at the moment then it's off to tuning.

I have wondered about that given the manifold has seemed to be the biggest impediment to easy fitment.

Thanks and congrats on the great progress. That other pic looks like another fine project.

Uno Turbo Engine

Hey Lachlan,

what ever happened to that Uno Turbo engine that you spent all your dosh on?

http://t124.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10862

Cheers,
Dom.

Manifold

Thanks Karl,

At this point I'd say the electrical is the trickiest thing but I'm not an electrical guy by any means.

The manifold though will be tricky but not impossible.

I think you should be able to chop it up and make it fit without effecting runner length as well which is nice.

I'll be removing most of Hondas good work with the plenum though which is a shame. I'd prefer to do that than cut up the firewall though welding fiat steel is painful. It's often harder than welding aluminium.

I am happy that I could inspire you to get back to work, with my build. I have had a blast in my K24X1/9 over the last year and am looking forward to more exciting times in it. I tried to go with a shorter intake so that I did not have to cut or bend the firewall, but gave up after having a long conversation with two different custom manifold designers. Both of the designers stated that shortening the runners would make the engine power band very high in RPMs and the engine would not have good torque down low. The only solution that I found would be to curve the runners upward instead of downwards and maybe even make them curve 180 degrees into a large plenum. This would give good runner length and a good plenum size without having to cut or bend the firewall. it would look something like this.



I guess that is why the Fiat one is shaped the way it is. If you could design one in a similar manner to the original Fiat Intake manifold, only with much bigger runners, you could probably avoid any cutting at all of the firewall. In the end, I decided not to spend thousands of dollars to design and have built a custom intake manifold, that might not give me as much power as the stock K20 manifold. If you can build this yourself and tweak it to work as good or better than a stock PRB or PRC manifold, I would be interested in purchasing one. BTW, I tried to fit an RSP in my K24X, but found it was quite a bit bigger than the stock PRB and would not fit. I ended up with a PRC intake manifold which is a little better than a PRB, but not quite a RBC or RRC.

Good luck with your build.

Pics of Dallara kit not working.

The red/yellow body in the later post is ProtoTipo style, no? - is that the car? Since I'm doing a Dallara conversion, I'm more interested in pics of other dallara conversions than the motor work, sorry. :rolleyes2:

Hope the conversion goes smoothly for you.

RSP manifold

Thank you your post has really helped!

I didn't even think to try fit the motor after the engineer said no until reading your post.


RSP manifold without the velocity stacks you can see its in the 18-19cm range which I believe will clear.




With the velocity stacks it's 21cm's which won't clear.

What I can do though is cut the stacks and lay them so they face further down. I should be able to gain that 2-3cm's I need wind only reducing the length by .5cm on the inside edge.

I don't believe the RSP manifold fits all k20's though which is a shame.

Not sure what I'll do with the throttle body just yet but I'll work that out as I go.

Dallara

Hey,

The proto is another car I've got that ones finished.

Sorry here are the photos.






Fitting the kit isn't the issue its the ridiculous amount of sanding and filling that comes with it that's a pain. Realistically the dallara kit is the reason this cars been off the road for 10 years. You need a crazy good air compressor a good sander and a lot of time and patience. I love the car because of the kit but often at times it's been difficult to see that.

Looks good overall! I do see that the filling and sanding is going to be lengthy.

Did you have a similar issue to me where the fibre nose panel / front fender corner/ stock nose come together? It seems there is a funky multiple compound curve to deal with...

I did

I did that's one of the trickier bits that's a big gap though my kit was basically sitting flush with the front nose cone.

There all different though

Maxmod said:

I did that's one of the trickier bits that's a big gap though my kit was basically sitting flush with the front nose cone.

There all different though

Click to expand...

Thanks - the gap looks worse than it is - the fibre panel is uneven depth from left to right along the top - so gap on DS is greater than gap on PS.

I couldn't get it tucked further in without having issues with the arch centering & rear alignment on back edge of fender. I think it will be OK. The compund curve transition in the corners looks like the tricky part to get symmetrical.

Yeah your not wrong there, I think those pieces alone which still i'm not 100% happy with have taken me around 20 hours to get to around 90%.

The gap I had from memory and this is way way back was less than 5mm.

I actually used fiberglass to bridge the gap so it can't crack on me later on over speed humps and things.

That was extremely painful as it gave me an extra 2-3mm's of thickness I had to hide. Ultimately I think it was the right decision to do it that way for longevity though.

I also fiberglassed the part that your struggling with. To make it work I have to add thickness to the headlight pods as well.

Thanks for the tips - I have aluminum angle stock taking up the main gap, I was thinking of using fibre reinforced filler for the seam gap between the nose/aluminum stock and the fibre panel. The transitions from fender tip through the headlamp cover to nose panel I will probably cut some sheet metal & bond it to get the overall fit, then fill from there. The pods are leaving, so I don't need to worry about the stock height needing filler to bring it up. I do want to avoid any large amounts of filler if possible.

get rid ofthe gap it like that

sub-zeroil said:

get rid ofthe gap it like that

Click to expand...

That is cleaner - but the kit I have doesn't allow for a uniform plane from the fibre panel to that plane shift in the stock body and through the headlamp pod covers. I would have to fabricate a new panel that sits on top of the stock nose & extends to the forward edge of the fibre panel. I don't think I want to get into that.

This variation is like this:



and this:



you can see the difference in the 'bumper' aspect of the nose panel as a result of the plane shift.

lookforjoe said:

That is cleaner - but the kit I have doesn't allow for a uniform plane from the fibre panel to that plane shift in the stock body. I would have to fabricate a new panel that sits on top of the stock nose & extends to the forward edge of the fibre panel. I don't think I want to get into that.

This variation is like this:

and this:

you can see the difference in the 'bumper' aspect of the nose panel as a result of the plane shift.

Click to expand...

i think i have 500+- hr into it when i started i had gaps all over , foam will help alot , make sure the car is lavel on all 4 wheels in the air it helps too , and panal bonding will help you too and will not crack like the bondo !

I am curious as to how cutting down the velocity stacks will affect performance. My understanding is that the velocity stacks are what increase air velocity and that air velocity can have a bigger impact on performance than even air volume in general. From what I remember, the turbo guys I was talking to said that even if I went with a larger diameter intake tubes for more air volume, that without length I would lose air velocity and this is what would affect torque. Also on the RSP you have that large plenum, will you be modifying the plenum as well? If so I wonder how that will affect performance.

I am pretty happy with the performance I am getting out of my K24 with a PRC. Although if I do upgrade (when I upgrade is probably more appropriate) I will be going to Individual throttle bodies. I have been reading K20.org posts for a while and it seems clear that the NA 9 second 1/4 mile cars are all running ITBs. The downside of ITBs is that they are harder to tune.

Keep us posted I am sure I will learn a few things from your build as well. Maybe it will motivate me to do a second K20 conversion. I have been thinking about doing a street car conversion complete with AC and cruise control for a little while now.

To be honest performance doesn't worry me a great deal with this I guess the benefit of never testing it before cutting the manifold is you don't know what you've lost if you never had it.

The main reason i'm doing the K20 is of course performance but mostly it's the reliability and turn key they I am after. I'm not interested in chasing 5-10Hp here or there.

If I wanted that I would be doing Cams and high comp running E85 before I was too concerned about the intake. Or turbo it I have considered that a few times.

I've got a 500Hp daily driver and I just don't use the Horsepower it's completely pointless. I had way more fun driving my old Renault Clio sport with a useable 200Hp than I do the 500Hp wagon. Which is the principal i'm using for building this car. I want something I can thrash around not be too worried about speed cameras and speeding.

Yeah I will be cutting the Plenum off completey and remaking it using the standard volume as a guide.

Who knows I could gain HP I doubt it but you never know.