105: Is Honda’s K-Series Really the Greatest 4-Cylinder Ever Made?
About this episode
A deep dive into Honda's K-Series engines with expert Terry Radborne reveals why the K20 is considered one of the best 4-cylinder engines ever made. The discussion covers its design advantages, such as chain-driven cams for reliability and impressive rev acceleration. Terry shares insights from his extensive background in high-performance engine development, including his experience with F1 and endurance racing. The episode also touches on turbocharging the K20, challenges in engine design, and the importance of airflow and component synergy for maximizing performance.
Few people know more about ultra-high-performance engine building than this week’s guest, Terry Radbourne of Bourne HPP. In this episode, we’re going to be discussing topics like creating engines for LMP1 and Mercedes’ F1 team, truly getting the absolute most out of Honda’s K series motor, as well as the odd controversial opinion that’s sure to get the comment section fired up.
Use “BOURNEHPP100” to get $100 OFF our HPA Engine Building package:
https://hpcdmy.co/enginepackageb
Terry brings an intriguing mix of expertise and insider knowledge — straight out of school, he found himself working for Advanced Engine Research and quickly became involved in some seriously high-end race engine design and building work. After a few years spent honing his craft — including a stint creating engines for the Mercedes Formula 1 team, Terry went on to found his own company, Bourne High Performance Powertrains, or Bourne HPP for short.
Bourne HPP specialises in designing and building seriously aggressive motors — most commonly of the Honda K-series variety in both naturally aspirated and turbocharged forms. This allows us to dive very deep into the intricacies of four-cylinder engine building, and time is spent discussing intake port design, cylinder sleeves, compression ratio, and a whole lot more.
We also get stuck into the K-series motor itself, and Terry spends time talking us through exactly why he thinks this is one of the best engines ever produced and how to get the most out of it. As Bourne HPP is something of a one-stop-shop that does everything from engine rebuilds, to NA and turbocharged crate engine packages, to dyno tuning with the use of Syvecs and Lyfe Racing ECUs, Terry has an absolute oversupply of knowledge that he’s (mostly) willing to share.
If you want to get smarter, this episode with Terry Radbourne of Bourne HPP is not to be missed.
As mentioned in the podcast, you can listen to our episode featuring Syvec’s Ryan Griffiths here: https://hpcdmy.co/Syvecs
Follow Bourne HPP here:
IG: @bourne_hpp
FB: Bourne HPP
WWW: bournehpp.com
Don’t forget, you can use “BOURNEHPP100” to get $100 OFF our HPA Engine Building package:
https://hpcdmy.co/enginepackageb
Born Bourne
"... this episode we're joined by Terry Radborne from Bourne HPP in the United Kingdom. Terry is a specialist ..."
Lancia Lambda
"...enthusiast market we're used to tuning at sort of lambda targets, maybe in the range of 0.80 for turbochar..."
Nissan 350Z
"...ine project to be involved with. We developed the Nissan 350Z engine into a sort of 480 horsepower race engine ..."
Ford Pinto
"... far technology has come. Go back to the old Ford Pinto engine. You're going to be struggling to sort of ..."
Nissan Skyline
"...e move into. I'm also a massive fan of the Nissan Skyline, so RB26s and bits and pieces I'm sure you'll see..."
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.