[Ecky]

Linked this in my Insight swap thread a few days back. Pretty crazy crash. Glad he wasn't more seriously hurt.

The K series engines are incredibly engines, and there are a lot of part options for them. Plenty of people build franken-engines for various purposes, mixing and matching OEM parts from various K engines.

There are a half dozen aftermarket engine managements and modifications for the stock ECU, dozens of crank, cam, piston, rod etc. etc. choices. I've seen builds which rev past 12,000rpm, others which use stock blocks and produce over 450HP naturally aspirated, and still others which are in excess of 1000HP with turbos, with *relatively* good reliability - and these are 2.0-2.4L engines - so just extrapolate how reliable they are with light use. In Japan there are a few variants which I want to say can run as lean as 50:1 AFR, have high swirl heads and VTEC systems designed for economy.

The engines feature intake cam phasing, multiple cam profiles on both intake and exhaust, a reliable (life of the engine) timing chain and roller rockers. Some engines have integrated exhaust manifolds. Some have balance shafts, some don't.

Overall they're tough, efficient engines with great aftermarket support, with nearly all parts being interchangeable. It's not hard to build a highly efficient engine at low revs with huge power up the rev band and little to no penalty for doing so. High power engines can also be made more efficient.

The Arial Atom uses a K series, and it's a common swap into the Lotus Elise, which comes from the factory with a Toyota power plant for most years. Basically the LS of 4 cylinders.

The one feature I wish they had is an offset crank.