K24 2001 Honda Insight. The jack of all trades.

Scottah wrote: Question on sand blasting the knuckles. What did you do to protect the bearing surfaces?

I didn't do anything special while blasting in the bearing area. These bearing are press in, so there is no critical surface to protect.

I can't wait to see more pictures of this thing! Makes me more excited to finish up my k20 swap!

For this installment, I will cover the shifter box and shift linkage. When I was researching this project I found that most people used an RSX shift box and cables. They mount the RSX shift box where the Insight box is located.

I was not fond of that idea, if you look at an RSX box vs the Insight box, the Insight version has a lower kick out that allows it to mount much lower. This is important as I wanted the interior to end up looking pretty stock and clean. The raised RSX shift box may cause an issue with location and mounting the console.

Here is the Insight box, you can see the lower kick out.

Knowing all these things, I decided to measure the Insight vs the RSX box and see how different the throws were. Well after about 20 mins of measuring I concluded that they were pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME. This was great news. I could just connect the RSX cables to the Insight box and be done with it. So that's what I did and it didn't work. The cables mounted perfectly, the issue was the shifter hit the side of the Insight box when I tried to get into reverse. The Insight being a 5 speed, had less room to the right of the shifter, thus causing contact when I tried reverse in the 6-speed RSX trans.

At this point I had 2 options, I could clearance the shift box in order to make room tot he right or I could modify the shift cables in order to move all the shifts over to the left slightly. As you can see in the picture below there is not much material that can be removed before the box starts to lose strength.

This forced me to go the shift cable modification route. In order to move the shifter over correctly I needed to shorten on of the cable ends by about an inch. So I did the smart thing....Guessed and started cutting.

Now that the cable was cut I measured to make sure that the shifter would end up in the correct place, this meant I needed to cut off an inch. Now the halves would need to be welded back together, but it ensure that it could handle my gorilla like shifts, I needed to add a sleeve.

Welded it all together, threw on some paint and tested the cable. The paint make it looks crappy but it came out pretty nice. All worked like it should and keeps the stock appearance. I added some shifter bushing to firm up the shift and all is well.

Now that the engine is mounted I can move on to making all the things necessary to get this K24 running.

First in line is the exhaust.

I want the car to idle nice and quiet with zero drone while cruising at highway speeds. This car is going to be used for a lot of 5hr drives and I want to be able to hear when I get to my destination. If I open it up I don't mind if it gets a little louder at that point, though.

I knew I wanted a 2.5in system in full stainless steel. I decided to use a Ktuned swap K24 header as it should make good power but it is also compact enough that it should fit where the stock 1.25" exhaust went.

This is how I received the header. It had a 3 bolt flange and a nice spot for an O2 sensor. This is their 4-2-1 system for clearance reasons like I previously talked about.

I didn't want to use the 3 bolt flange so that would need to be removed and a v-band added. So that what I did. Here is the 2.5" v-band tacked in place.

Next I would need some tubing and, at least, a muffler. I had an old Borla XR-1 muffler laying around that was removed from an old race car and I loved the sound it produced. I decided that I would use that muffler for this project. Its a very high quality that will last plenty long I'm sure.

I started putting all the pipes together and came up with this.

It fits under the car nicely and the muffler fits in the stock location.

This was supposed to be the end of the exhaust party. I had the car ready to turn over so I fired it up and it was way too loud, haha. I needed something to quiet it down and also something to direct the exhaust out from under the car to the stock hole in the bumper. I did some research and some of my Honda friends told me to try a Vibrant Ultra Quiet, So that's what I did.

Here is it, it's small enough that it would fit in the stock tunnel and I hoped it would take the noise level down just enough so I was happy.

Now through the magic of doing a bunch of work and not taking enough pictures, here is the final result for the exhaust. It's super easy to remove if I ever need to. Pop the V-band and it all drops out. You can also see the turn out I made at the end to direct the exhaust to the stock bumper hole.

This setup ended up being perfect. It's nice and quiet at idle, no drone at highway speeds and makes a little more noise when you open it up. I am very happy with the results.

Perty welds there. What type of filler rod are you using?

In reply to proawemike:

You do nice work.

In reply to AngryCorvair:

Thank you sir.

In reply to maschinenbau:

Generally, for stainless exhaust I use ER308L Tig rod in 1/16". I was using a new touch I was not used to for this exhaust but everything turned out pretty well. Some of the welds don't look the best but they are strong and that's what counts.

Just wanted to chime in and say I'm appreciating this documentation. I've got grand ideas for an Insight someday (had one before, will have one again), and a lot of the mods you're doing are right up my alley. I won't be doing a K swap, but the powertrain, interior, suspension, etc. mods are done great so far.

Out of curiousity, sounds like the documentation in this thread is a bit behind reality. I totally understand how that goes, been there, done that. I was just wondering if you're still working on the car, or if the work is basically done and you're just catching up on documentation.

Thanks for the info!

Bryce

In reply to Nashco:

Bryce,

The car is running but is not finished yet. I guess you would say its a little bit of both. I have been really busy and haven't had the chance to post the updates when I would like to. I am working on catching up now.

It's good to hear (pun intended) that the vibrant resonator helped. I have one to add to my s2000. The home made exhaust is way too loud.

In reply to Spoolpigeon:

Honestly, it was way better than I expected it to be, especially for the price. Now I just hope it holds up for years and years.

In reply to proawemike:

Man, what a pretty exhaust!!! Lovely work.

Now back to the front suspension.

The custom top hats that I designed for the new front coilovers needed to have a little material removed from the body in order to allow for camber adjustments while the car was on the ground.

Here are the Fortune Auto coilovers with the custom top hats as a refreasher.

I installed the coilovers and marked the area that would need to be removed to allow access to the bolts. I used a burr bit on an electric die grinder to clearance the aluminum. Here is what I was left with.

Here is what it looks like with the coilover back in place.

This setup should work well to allow adjustment while on the ground. I calculated that this slot will give me 2.2 degrees of negative camber with the eccentric bolt at full positive. I should be able to go to 3.7 degrees negative with everything in the max direction.

That looks fantastic and super oem. Love this project.

84FSP wrote: That looks fantastic and super oem. Love this project.

I am trying to make this project as reliable as possible as well as keep a sleeper vibe. I don't want anyone to realize work has been done to the car unless they look closely.

With the strut now in place and the body clearanced for camber adjustment. It was time to bolt in the rest of the suspension. Here is a picture of the new control arm with my custom bushing in place.

You can see how the ball joint used to go upwards but the control arm will now accept the EM2 ball joint.

I started to bolt everything in place starting with the lower ball joint.

Then the strut bolts and its pretty much together. Pretty easy right. Everything fit great, all the measuring paid off.

That's looking awesome!

Is it possible to run a longer lower ball joint as a roll center adjuster for more static camber?

beans wrote: Is it possible to run a longer lower ball joint as a roll center adjuster for more static camber?

Yes, that would be possible. This current bushing modification adds a little roll center correction as it is but I could add more if needed in the future. With the crash bolts and top hat I have plenty of static camber adjustment range.

All good things to note. I definitely appreciate the feedback with all this.

Is it possible to run a longer lower ball joint as a roll center adjuster for more static camber?

You'd have to space the actual ball joint down on the spindle (hello structural aluminum welding) to have any effect. In this way it's much more difficult with a ball joint in the spindle than on the control arm.

Is that undercoating you used on the mounts for paint, or powdercoating? Looks good and unique.

This whole build is so unique, bet it will turn heads!

Vigo wrote:

Is it possible to run a longer lower ball joint as a roll center adjuster for more static camber?

You'd have to space the actual ball joint down on the spindle (hello structural aluminum welding) to have any effect. In this way it's much more difficult with a ball joint in the spindle than on the control arm.

That is not really true. You can buy extended ball joints for many applications, this one included. This is one of the reason I decided to use an EM2/RSX spindle. Its not the best way to do it, but it does work to an extent.

Roll center adjuster

engiekev wrote: Is that undercoating you used on the mounts for paint, or powdercoating? Looks good and unique. This whole build is so unique, bet it will turn heads!

Its a wrinkle powder coat, though there is paint that can make this finish as well.