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I would stick to a factory assembled engine if you're staying with the F series.
Nothing wrong with picking up another used F series, installing it, and living your life.
There's positives and negatives about the K swap. The *huge* negative is that you will have a 2.4L minivan engine, likely without balance shafts, which requires you to use polyurethane engine mounts.
I would, however, try to determine the cause. You don't want this happening to your new engine. Although, its probably just something that wasn't done correctly/went wrong during the oil jet bolt install
Kswap is awesome but also not so much a "do it quick and go on with life" thing as engine swaps are ... engine swaps And the F20/F22 are pretty darned reliable and I would not hesitate buying used one and running it. I am still happily beating on my 165,000 mile engine on track, so not scared of used ones at all. With used, the downside is you are not sure WHO used it and how they treated it. Getting one with known good compression/leakdown numbers is one big thing.
To be fair, you are also relying on used engines for the K swap route. They just happen to be a lot cheaper and way less sensitive to tomfoolery.
There are also hidden costs/effort related to replacing a K24. You need to re-install a type S oil pump and VTC gears into your replacement engine every time you replace it. And they typically don't last as long as a F series.
If you're racing or heavily tracking a S2000 where you need the extra torque and cheap engine replacements, then the K24 is your guy.
Or if you just want that big motor feel and you can live with the horrendous vibration and the noise that a K series makes.
If not...idk...just buy a used F series and make it easy on yourself.
..., its probably just something that wasn't done correctly/went wrong during the oil jet bolt install
Same thought.
One of my mottos in life: Be careful not cause the very thing you're trying to prevent
Perfect example. You go through all the cost and effort to fit updated banjo bolts to help preserve your motor, and that ends up being the cause of its early demise.
Something like this has to be done perfectly, or its way worse than not doing it at all. And its not at all easy to do it perfectly (at least, not for that rearmost one).
So sometimes it might be better not to do something at all vs risk it. In this case, it might very well be the motor would still be healthy with many years left on it if we had ain't broke don't fix it.
Hmm will have to look at the cylinder walls, compression was decent and it hasn't started knocking so maybe it's salvageable.
If the bores are good, think I can salvage the engine by going for a Toda 2.35L stroker as opposed to going to a K24A?
I'd stick with a stock OEM crankshaft. Too much work to make a K24 crank to work. You'll have to notch the block, you'll need custom rods, for a lower redline and more second order vibration from the increased stroke. If your bores are in good shape, I would just pull the motor, clean it, new oil pump and crankshaft, and call it a day. Even easier, but more expensive, would be to just find a used motor. If you replace the crank you'll have to do lots of measurement and bearing selection. You'll likely pay half the price of installing a replacement engine, but again it will take longer to do, and chance to make a mistake on assembly. At least a used engine has already made it past break in.
I don't think the oil jets were the cause of failure as they were all in there correctly.
I'm thinking it was due to old age and negligence by the previous owner(s) to keep the oil levels in check, which came into fruition when I started to track the car. I've had the car for 5.5 years and always burned a lot of oil.
After some research I think I'm leaning towards a K24 swap package by AS Motorsports, who have a ton of endurance racing experience with K swapped S2000s. I love the F-series and would take it any day over the K-series if the replacement costs were the same, but the idea of another potential motor failure and the costs that come along with that isn't appetizing. While the upfront cost and work of the K swap will be more than just dropping in another F, future replacement (if needed) will be much easier to swallow.
Looking forward to ripping some VTEC again in the future.
Not all K series are the same. If you get a K24 make sure it's either the A2 or the A3, the others just aren't worth it in my opinion. If you can find a unicorn K23A1 go for it, it's already turbo. Science of speed has a K20C1(FK8 and FL5 type R) swap kit. I think their latest version let's you keep the A/C. You can find salvage Type R motors for ~$5k. That's an infinitely better motor than any NA K series. Then again NA K series are just north of $1,000 and there's endless options.
05-04-2024, 07:27 PM
And the F20/F22 are pretty darned reliable and I would not hesitate buying used one and running it. I am still happily beating on my 165,000 mile engine on track, so not scared of used ones at all. With used, the downside is you are not sure WHO used it and how they treated it. Getting one with known good compression/leakdown numbers is one big thing.
