I built some v8s but am starting in the import scene. Done a fair amount of research need to know if I’m on the right track. I have a bare k20a3 block and a bare k24a2 head. I will be putting new everything into them. Machine work, crank, pistons, sleeves, stroker kit, turbo, cams, full build. No OEM stuff. Will this combination work effectively or should I think of changing block or head models. I believe the combo bare like they are the same as a bare k20a2 short block. The heads bare are identical and the block bare is identical. Correct? Minus some bolt holes?

 

Cool. Welcome to the world of Hondas.

What are your goals exactly? If youre already planning on turbo, there is pretty good power to be made on a stock bottom end and even more to be made with a stock head. Just putting rods and pistons into a K20 or K24 can get you upwards of 600hp.
Youll also find very few people running stroker kits unless they are really radical builds, and usually that would be NA engines going for 2.5L+. The stock K24 crank is already longer stroke than what you see in most small block domestic V8 engines.

You currently have a 2.0L block (not the best thing to build imo) and the worst "real VTEC" K series head. The K24A2/TSX head (commonly called an RBB) has an inferior casting, and while it still can make great power and responds okay to porting, there are a few heads that are significantly better out of the box. Those heads also respond even better to porting. Do some searching and you can find flowbench numbers comparing the RBB head to the high performance K20 heads (RBC, PRB, etc.)

So again, it all depend son your goals.
If I just happened to have a K20 block and that head, I could see slapping them together and throwing boost at it for cheap fun, but if youre wanting to put money into internals and machine work, you really should get a K24 block and a K20 head.

 

My goals. I would love to get my son into to racing as he grows. I’m a big fuel guy but that’s besides the point. I want this car to be a 600-700 hp car that I can keep at 400 or so and drive it to work and the store. No huge trips. Then turn it up to have fun once in awhile. Obviously I want a strong motor that won’t blow up and such. I’m willing to spend money but if it doesn’t all have to be on the motor then I can pretty it up a bit more. Any advise is appreciated. Is the rsx 6 speed a good tranny? I had a 01 type S I drove from 4000 to 13000 miles. I also owned a 93 sc300 which I sold at 19. Didn’t know in my youth I happened to own a k20a2 and a 2jz but you live and learn. Excited to get back into car builds again. Also isn’t there a bunch of machine work on the head when you go to k24 block? Why not just port and polish the k24 head? And I thought the k24 head had better cams. Is any k24 block superior? Any k24 head superior? This is going in a 96 accord. How tough is rear wheel drive? Sorry I have so many questions. I’m already excited to be guided down the correct path the first try.

 

Build the bottom end with rods and pistons and it will be able to take enough boost to make that kind of power. No need to go crazy with the head imo. One of the most common issues with building a K series comes from the timing chain tensioner, but its not an issue if you keep the cams stock or very mild. A K24/K20 hybrid is already making hp numbers in the upper 200s, so with a built bottom end it isnt hard to make 600-700hp.

My view on the issue is that its easier to make the power with more boost, rather than trying to do it with cams and more revs.

Good ratios. Im not sure about putting that power down. Its going to depend a lot on the tires and what youre expecting of it.
I suspect that a lot of the money in fast K powered cars is in the transmission.

The heads interchange pretty easily.
The K20 heads are better to start with, so I think it makes more sense to start with one of those. But, considering your goals, you could just use a full K24 long-block with rods and pistons and make the power you want.

RWD is not easy. Youre basically talking about tubbing out the car at that point. A K swap is pretty straight forward with all the parts available today, but trying to make it a RWD setup is a an order of magnitude more difficult. At that point the chassis its going into doesnt even matter, youre completely building a chassis. Might as well just adapt a K24 to a natively RWD chassis, like and F-body.

 

thanks for the advise. I’ll get some pics along the build. Any diff between the tsx 2.4 and the crv 2.4? What are the best years?

 

the 2004-2008 tsx k24a2 is the best k24 to start off with and the better years of that engine are the 06-08
crv accord element all have k24 but they are more or less the same engine. basically grunt k24s