Liberty mkiii's K20 spyder

[Liberty mkiii]

Hello all, my name is Liberty.
I am new to this forum, I live in Texas.  I realize that most of you are in Europe.  There is a big following of MR2s in europe as well as some part brands that are more common on your side of the world that I will be looking for feed back on...  I assume similar questions might be present for offerings in the US that you might have.  Hopefully we can help each other.

About the car and the plan.  I have had 24 cars so far in life.  I wanted to build a light weight track car with good grip and lots of power.  Narrowing down options eventually led me to the 2000-2005 MR2.  

I previously owned a 1991 sw20 3sgte turbo model as my first car in highschool back in 2000 so I already had a love for these cars.

After much research and debate I decided on the K20 swap for my 01 Spyder. I do not daily drive this car so the plans were to go extreme with a build for race track use. It is only in the beginning stages but I will document the build as it progresses.

I picked up this car with high mileage with the intent of changing out the engine transmission axles almost everything. When I got the car it had 265,000 miles.

Originally I wanted to go with a K24 for the larger displacement and more torque, however after further research it was very clear that the cylinder head on the K20 is far superior.  With intake full exhaust and a good tune the k20 often makes around 210 to 215 horsepower at the wheels.

My engine is the k20z3 from a 2007 Civic SI in the US this was the only model that came with an LSD from the factory.

[Liberty mkiii]

First things first was removing the economy engine (please forgive me for the advertisement bar on some of my pictures.  Comprimise I pay for free cloud storage)



Lots of cleaning



Innovative mounts, axles, and shift adapter.



600 whp rated





Beginnings of my exhaust manifold

[Liberty mkiii]

Ecu is rsx type s with k-pro

Plug n play harness:


I am not a pro welder or even close but very much so wanted to do each part of the fabrication myself when possible.



The collector is make from a solid block of CNCd billett stainless 304. T3 v-band outlet sized for precision turbo.  However ill likely end up running Garrett.



Echaust routing I chose to go with something I have not seen done yet.



The muffler should arrive today and ill be able to wrap up the exhaust, and move onto the last few areas needed to fire it up.

[StuC]

Cracking start.  :-) :-) :-)
What made you chose that route for the exhaust?

What route are you planning for the induction?

[Liberty mkiii]

I wanted both a resonator and muffler as I dont enjoy overly loud exhaust systems.  To stuff everything within the normal area would require tighter bends than I would like to use. (reducing flow)
Induction will be routed to the drivers side air vent.

This was only a mockup as the throttle body was not on the motor yet:


Injectors were swapped for the 440cc RDX injectors which are said to provide a better spray pattern.

I am looking at relocating the fuse box into the interior of the car behind the seats to open up that area further.

[Topdownman]

Good progress, looking very tidy.

I am impressed by the condition of that engine bay after 265,000 miles, wouldnt look like that over here!

[s12vea]

Very interesting build will look forward to future updates

[shnazzle]

Yes! Finally a k20

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Liberty mkiii]

Good progress, looking very tidy.

I am impressed by the condition of that engine bay after 265,000 miles, wouldnt look like that over here!

I had spent a few days scrubbing and cleaning.  The old motor and axles had made a big mess...

[SDB278]

Excellent! Keep the updates and photos coming!

[4dvti]

This looks to be an informative buildup and a great start too! I've been K for two years now; you'll absolutely love it when it's complete!

[secla]

Trying to shift my 2zz so I can go k20 ! I'm a long time Honda guy

[shnazzle]

May be a silly question but.. Explain that collector to me... Why does it have two outlets? Wastegate for future turbo?

[Liberty mkiii]

May be a silly question but.. Explain that collector to me... Why does it have two outlets? Wastegate for future turbo?

Correct I plan to go turbo after I finish up my engineering degree. I did not want to build the manifold twice.  This one will perform ok in normally aspirated mode although not as good as one with long runners and a tri-y design.

01' K20 swap crazy mods to come

[tommyzoom99]

very nice, looks great

the only engine for me if i was ever to do a swap, should be very quick!

cheers tommy

[Liberty mkiii]

I was shooting for the end of June to have the car running.  I ended up finding several things that I would like to replace before getting the car back on the road so it will be delayed roughly 2 months.
(sad)
Summer vacation with the wife and kids takes priority as well as work & college.

[Liberty mkiii]

Got a full hose set (3 layer silicone) for the car.  Burping the bubbles out of the cooling system is such a chore I figgured I might aswell replace all the hoses before going through the trouble.



I would do the radoator now as well but I will be doing something custom later and dont have those dimensions yet...

[Liberty mkiii]

I have been considering a move out of state which has light a fire on my progress.  Wrapped up the exhaust on Saturday.

I hate mig.  The welds are horrid but will suffice for a few years till I re-design the system after going turbo.





I plan on trimming the pipe back some but it had reached 100 F  with high humidity so I called it a day.

[Liberty mkiii]

Car was starting then immediately dies.  Figured out I had connected the tps plug to the map.  Fyi if you do this it shorts the map sensor.  Changed map sensors and runs now.

Finished up some wiring protection.  Hooked up a Braille. 6.8 lbs battery.
Fixed some coolant leaks.  Found and oil leak that I need to investigate further.

Bled the clutch with overkill motul 660.  Not an easy task fyi.

Still need to do heat wrap shielding on the exhaust after it goes through a few heat cycles.

Getting very close!

01' MR2 K20 swap, crazy mods to come

[jvanzyl]

Hey man - what's the latest on this? Any videos of it running?