Joe Sawyer is a pretty well-connected guy. By night, he tunes Hondas in his humble facility, aptly named Locash Racing. By day, he works just a stone's throw away, at Hasport in Phoenix, Arizona. It almost goes without saying that he had all the hook-ups he needed when it came time to swap an engine into his latest acquisition-an Integra GSR. Actually, this is more of an install then a swap as Joe stumbled upon this GSR, minus the B18C, through yet another one of his connections-Hond-Auto Salvage.
Because this car was B18C-free, Joe felt the need to upgrade rather than simply replace the venerable powerplant-but how to improve on a B-Series? The K-Series is the only way to go. The K24A2 that comes in the Acura TSX is simply a more technologically advanced design, featuring improved variable cam timing through i-VTEC, not to mention the block itself is actually stronger than that of the B-Series. Most importantly, even at its stock 200hp, the K-Series offers more ponies then the B-Series. From there it only gets better as minimal mods will extract another 40 or so horsepower; it's been said a naturally aspirated K-Series can be modified for up to 275hp.
Of course with all these benefits there has to be a drawback, and there is-kind of. K-Series engines are "flipped" in comparison to the B-Series. That is to say the transmission is on the driver's side. So what Joe needed was a good set of motor mounts to affix to his K24, which brings us back to his Hasport connection. They offer a complete mount kit so that Joe, or anyone for that matter, could put a K-Series in a GSR with an RSX Type-S six-speed transmission, and mounts for the TSX transmission are in the works.
Yet another benefit of working for Hasport is that Joe was able to have his K-Series installed into his GSR on company time, and we just happened to be there to show you exactly what went down. Funny how things just work out like that sometimes.
