I forget where I first heard that a Honda K24-swapped 997 Porsche 911, but I basically immediately dismissed it as nonsense. Even if you blew up your glorious Porsche flat-six, why would you replace it with a four-cylinder Honda engine? The K24 is good, but still… I had a hard time believing this car was real until I found it on YouTube.
Tuning by Nick on YouTube is the mad scientist behind this project, and not only is it real, it’s actually running and driving!
I definitely feel weird about the swap itself, and I kind of disagree with builder Nick’s reasoning: He says he wanted more power and the 300 horses of the stock 3.8 Carrera S engine didn’t cut it. Before you flame me, I think the swap is extremely cool, it just seems like a pretty complicated way to add power to a Porsche! After I took the time to watch the videos though, I will admit we’re seeing some genuinely great workmanship that went into this wild custom project.
The “no power” thing comes from Nick being an engine tuner by trade, so he’s used to seeing huge numbers and making cars go quite rapidly. That’s cool and all, but aren’t Porsches defined by the intangibles? The whole point of a 911 is that it feels good, exquisitely engineered, not wasteful, and not about outright performance with brute force. This K24 swap is a turbocharged one, so the power is going to be brutal, and the character of the entire car changes. I can only think about the center of gravity and weight distribution changes, and I kinda wish he could get those figures.
But, let’s abandon my boring and dumb philosophies for a second. The work that Nick did to integrate the swap cleanly and reversibly into the 997 is nothing short of excellent. He actually used the stock Porsche engine mounts in an ingenious way, too. He built a stock-car style engine mount plate for the front of the engine, and simply used the factory studded engine mounts to hang the front of the engine, while an adapter plate was used for the gearbox so the stock gearbox mount worked perfectly.
Better yet, he didn’t fall into the common engine swap trap of an electric power steering conversion, he did a custom adapter to the stock Honda hydraulic pump, potentially preserving one of the 911’s best features. I’m even impressed by his consideration of serviceability, designing the engine and accessories as a unit separate from the body so that the engine can be easily lowered to access the top of the engine.
The fact that zero holes were cut and everything is reversible along with how clean the swap itself is has actually made me totally OK with it. Anybody who puts this much time, effort, and craftsmanship into their project deserves respect for it. This could have easily been a dumb youtube build with shoddy work and poor execution, but Nick really did his homework here. He even chose a Sivex ECU that can interface with the stock gauge cluster, keeping the interior completely stock. That’s the detail missing from this trend of ridiculous engine swaps.
So yeah, I guess I can shut my own mouth up about “intangibles” and “feel” and “purity.” Make some power, have some fun. That shit is dope. Best of luck to Nick. Check out his channel!
