John Grudynski, of HyTech Exhaust, has been building K-series engines from day one. When he and the guys from Hasport started talking about building an H1-legal engine that could also be used for time attacks, things got interesting very quickly. The resulting hybrid is a K24A1 block with '06 TSX rods connected to stock, forged, '05 Honda S2000 pistons. It runs an RSX oil pump and an Endyne ported cylinder head. In the effort to help keep the B-motors competitive in H1, K-series engines were not allowed to run aftermarket cams, only OEM cams were allowed, but the rules didn't say which OEM cams. The best power was found with a combination of an Integra (JDM) Type-R intake cam and an exhaust-side cam sourced from an '06 TSX. The TSX VTC cam gear was modified to allow 40 degrees of advance. One of Grudynski's beautiful anti-reversion chamber HyTech headers is mated to a Magnaflow exhaust. A Walbro fuel pump and Fluidyne radiator do their bit to keep the engine happy, while the Hondata K-Pro was tuned by Shawn Church of Church Automotive Testing. The whole package put out 293 hp at 7,500 rpm at the axles on Church's dyno and 253 hp at 7,500 rpm on the roller dyno used at Nationals. Those are big numbers for an H1 car-the biggest seen yet in the class.
Sadly, this combination of engine, chassis and driver has met its end. Everything worked a little too well and NASA's reaction was to jump into the rules to satisfy their customer base rather than let Darwin's theory have its way. At the time of this writing he had proposed that the 2008 H1 rules will outlaw the S2000 pistons, restrict K-series head porting and limit the K24's compression to 11:1. Last year's championship winning combo has been regulated into obsolescence.
Bernardo and Hasport are moving on to a new chassis and a new engine build for the 2008 season. They're ready to do it all again and ready to prove that 2007 was no fluke. Want to buy a car?