Civic EK Hatch with Built K24 is a Track Beast
EK hatch can lap Toronto Motorsport Park at the same pace as built S2000.
Speed Academy loves to test fast Honda builds on the tight and technical Toronto Motorsports Park circuit. This time around, Dave Pratte gets to experience a car not too dissimilar to one he built for himself a number of years ago. Pratte built an EG, but the hardware on this EK hatch is almost idential to what he had built. Pratte goes into the details, saying, “the standout feature would be the motor. It is a built K24 that makes about 275 at the wheel.” OK, you have our attention.
Considering it has “all the good stuff,” such as Wiseco pistons that bump compression up to 12.5:1, and Carrillo rods that lower rotational mass, you’d expect it to be quick. But every built car has some kinks to work out.
On track, the car was surprisingly squirrely. Pratte noted, “the alignment is really extreme and so was the brake bias, so we need to dial that in.” But otherwise he was quite happy with the results. Lap times were comparable to that of Speed Academy‘s built S2000, which says a lot for this EK hatch. But it was built for more than that.
Being able to lap consistently was important. Pratte points out the modifications that make this happen; “he’s done a lot for cooling. It’s like an endurance race car. You can just go lap after lap after lap. The tires will over-heat but the car never felt like it was getting hot.” Everything has a cooling system of some sort, which is the reason why it can go forever. “It’s got an engine oil cooler, a transmission oil cooler, and a power-steering cooler. As a result it feels like a car you could drive forever. and I want to drive it forever.” We have to agree with Pratte on that one.
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