When your daily ride is an E46 M3 dumped on BBS LM's, it takes a bit more for a Civic Hatchback to catch your eye. Brandon Mallough of Santa Ana, Calif., set out to build a Honda weekend track toy that was more exciting to drive than his lackluster Bavarian commuter. The hatch's power-to-weight ratio gives it the advantage over the M3. Its weight savings also equate to a more nimble, easy-to-manage car.
Brandon has found a foolproof formula for a kick ass Honda street/track killer. The K20A found in Mallough's EK is about as stock as it gets. The only performance modifications made are the addition of a DTR header, a custom intake, some fuel system upgrades, and a Hondata K-Pro, all of which are necessary for the swap. Even with such minimal modification, the K unit managed to muster 240 wheel hp and 177 lbs-ft of torque, the power equivalent of a heavily built, naturally aspirated B-series.
The price of a Type R K series swap is approximately the same as, if not more than, that of a similarly powered built B-series. So what's the point?
Two reasons: reliability and torque. First, one can safely assume that a K20 in factory form should hold up to whatever abuse you throw at it as long as it is treated like a stock motor (i.e. no 11,000 rpm burnouts).
Second, if reliability is not an issue for you, then going fast must be. There isn't a B series motor on the planet that will pull out 177 lb-ft of torque at a mere 240 wheel hp. Slap that kind of reliability and power into a RHD EK Sir-II, and you save the trouble of having to track down all the JDM parts you would be buying anyway if it were a USDM EK. Getting it registered to drive on the streets in America, in Southern California for that matter, is some pretty tasty icing on the cake.
HONDA TUNING: Lets start with how you came across your EK4 in the first place. Did you import it directly or pick it up stateside?
BRANDON MALLOUGH: Actually I got the car from Jeren at DSport. [Way to pick up your own car's feature, douches. -DB] I had a RHD EG4 Eti that was registered and Jeren didn't want to spend the time and effort to go through the DMV process so I told him I'd trade him shell for shell as long as I could register it. Once I made sure the registration was possible, I pulled the Type-R motor out of the EG and replaced it with the EK's B16. We also pulled the EG's 5-lug setup, but I decided to keep it EK4 and rock the 4x100.
HT: If you already had a RHD EG hatch, decked out with a B18C and a 5-lug setup, why trade for the EK?
BM: I've already had two RHD EGs. I'd had my fun with them by then and it was time to change things up a bit.
HT: Do you drive this car everyday or is it more of a toy?
BM: I drive an M3 on a daily basis. The EK is a weekend/track car. It's built for road racing but it'll see some time on the strip, if for nothing else just to get some numbers.
HT: How much did you drop into the car? Which of the mods took up the biggest chunk of change?
BM: I've spent roughly 20k on it so far. The motor was pretty damn expensive. With all of the parts I needed for the swap it added up to around $8000. It was $5500 just for the motor. There's a lot of little things necessary to make the swap work, but it's worth saving all of that money. Some shops are charging up to $12k for a complete changeover installed. I think I saved a lot of money by doing the swap myself.