Customer Reviews

Building Honda K-Series Engine Performance (Cartech)

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Unless you're looking for nothing more than chassis dyno numbers for different (simple) bolt-ons, this book isn't for you. It contains little if any technical information regarding building these engines, so if you're interested in modifying K series engines, this book's a complete waste of money.
TheOldOne

well, I was kind of disappointed by this book, Honestly I expected a lot more information. As far as this book goes you're better off just browsing the web for information. The dyno charts were good but not all that informative.

There is a lot of good information in this book pertaining to the Honda k-series engines. Most of the info goes over the more powerful engines but really neglects the k20a3 and only briefly talks about it.
Don't get your hopes up about head swapping either, only one swap is mentioned and is about the k24/k20 hybrid which consists of a k24a1 block with a k20a2 head; essentially making a TSX engine with lower compression. Still this book is useful in some aspects but doesn't touch much on engine internals. Its basically your bolt-on handbook.

I bought the book wanting knowledge on how to complete performance upgrades. After all, the title is: Building Honda K-Series Engine Performance. There is nothing about building. You know, building the verb. There is nothing about upgrading intake, cams and heads as stated on the cover. There is information about dyno results which you can sometimes get from the mfr websites. If you think a mfr results are untruthful then why would you buy the product. Simply stated this book is a compilation of dyno results for various products which now there are many more aftermarket prod available than at the time this book was published. I've bought a 02 Si August 2002 and when they came out there were not many parts available. Now this book doesn't even have a 50% of the parts out there. You are better off going to some of the more well know sites for parts like Amazon.com and read a review. The one positive review, come on you all can figure it out.

The good: Dynos are great. The book is all about k-series motors, and thats exactly what i wanted. Well written.

The bad: there is very little analysis after the first 10 pages or so. for the price, i was expecting a little more input and opinion rather than leaving the reader to come up to their own conclusions. while dynos are good, the power differences are vast from motor to motor. The author never seems to address how gains would have possibly been different if the modification were performed on a different motor.

Its great for what it is. The dynos show you what is good and what is not. i would recommend thoroughly reading posts in a honda forum over this book though. the info is not that much different.

I found it to be more a advertisement than a actual informational book. There is a fair amount of misleading info. You can find far more useful info on most any K-series engine related website. Very disappointing.

The strength of this book is its rather heavy testing of off the shelf, bolt-on modifications. In doing so, it gives people considering an engine upgrade a good initial direction.

I also like that the author stresses the obvious but often ignored point that in order to modify any engine effectively and safely requires tuning. (Who knows how much money and how many hearts this book will save.)

This is not a how-to-design-a-proprietary-600hp-bolt-on-kit book; nor is it advertised as such. But if you want your K to sing really well, you don't have the cash, time, expertise or interest in mastering the relevant engineering and black arts, and are not interested in spending a good part of your productive time reinventing what others have already brought to market, this is an excellent starter.