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In 2023, we got the chance to showcase a lot of what Noonan Race Engineering has going on inside its state-of-the-art engine and machine shop located in Spartanburg, SC. The shop was named our 2023 America’s Best Engine Shop in the Race category, and we gave people a full shop tour video of the facility, as well as showcased Noonan’s popular V8 Hemi platforms in a couple Engine of the Week features.
However, if we’ve learned anything during our time with shop owners Jamie and Renee Noonan, it’s that they’re never satisfied with the status quo, nor will they rest on their laurels, allowing others to catch up. They push the envelope all the time, and Noonan’s newest R&D efforts have been focused on the 4-cylinder world – specifically a Honda K24 engine platform. Noonan brought one of its first, completed, billet K24 Honda engine builds to the 2023 PRI Show, and we caught up with Barry Pettit to get the full rundown.
“This is our new Honda K24 block,” Pettit says. “It’s a full billet block that we’ve produced in-house. The K24 is the taller deck height. This engine was actually pulled straight off of the dyno from testing to bring it here – it’s still on the dyno cart. We did many, many runs and are currently at 1,200 horsepower, but expect to be at 1,800 horsepower pretty easy.”
As mentioned, the Honda and four-cylinder stuff is new for Noonan, but it gives the shop yet another segment of the engine building and racing world to explore.
“We’re typically known for the V8 stuff, but here lately we’ve been expanding our offerings with the Lamborghini V10, the Porsche six cylinder, the big block Chevy stuff we’re doing private label, so we really just want to expand,” Pettit explains. “We’ve had a lot of customers talk to us about the billet Hondas and they’re making big power. If you look at pounds per cubic inch or pounds per cc, it’s very impressive. We’re all about making big power, so we figured we’d take a swing at it, but it’s something fun that we’ve really enjoyed manufacturing. We look at making a lot more of them.”
As of now, Noonan’s K series Honda engine will be offered in both a wet or dry configuration, and the shop also plans to sell a B series Honda soon.
“This particular K24 is wet, so we were running water while on the dyno,” he says. “Temperatures never went over 100 degrees F. It was very happy and that’s doing several 1,100-horsepower pulls back-to-back, so it worked really well. This has our standard sleeve-style of machining that we do in all of our stuff from LS to the Lamborghini – it’s the same concept applied to this block.”
While the block was machined entirely in-house at Noonan Race Engineering, the rest of the engine build features parts from numerous aftermarket manufacturers, as well as a partnership with Drag Cartel, which is showcased in components such as the cylinder head, the valvetrain and several auxillary components and engine covers. Additional components include a Brian Crower 99mm stroke crankshaft, MGP billet rods, Wiseco pistons, and a new turbo from HPT.
“There’s a lot of features in here that people don’t really know about,” Pettit says. “In terms of crank clearance, you can run a 99mm stroke with an aluminum rod, which is what’s in this engine, or you could go to 106mm if you run a steel rod. This does have 1/2” head studs, 7/16ths main studs, and it can accept a factory stud with some negotiations. We did do dowels for the cylinder heads to where it’ll line up and hold properly. It’s just a great piece. It was a pleasure to build, and it’s performed extremely well.”
For fueling, the K24 Honda utilizes a dual injector per cylinder setup. When Noonan dyno tested the engine, Pettit says they were running it solely off of the FuelTech 720s and it did extremely well. For oiling, Noonan made sure to accommodate the factory oil locations. It has an OE Honda filter on the side of it too, if you want. This setup allowed for both good oil pressure and oil temps, according to Pettit.
“The big part of this for us was a lot of the products out there didn’t allow customers to run either their same engine mounts, some of the same oil filters and OE-type stuff,” he says. “Our main objective with our block was to offer a platform for huge horsepower, but still have some of those factory creature comforts – water-cooled, the right fit, and all that kind of stuff.”
As mentioned earlier, HPT came out with a new turbo that they let Noonan use to test it and the K24 Honda build. Pettit and the Noonan team came away impressed, and saw 50-lbs. of boost during the first dyno sessions.
“We’re still early in testing,” he says. “We saw 50-lbs., but we weren’t using it correctly. We are still learning how this thing wants to work and we’ve been working with Haltech on some of their new software, so there’s a lot of learning going on, but this thing didn’t even sweat at 50-lbs. When we hit the 1,200 hp number, we were at 40-lbs.”
Barry told us that 1,800 horsepower could be expected out of this engine, and it would likely require upwards of 50-lbs. of boost to get there and going beyond the 8,500-rpm rev range Noonan was initially keeping to during testing.
“We still have a lot of room left,” he says. “This will be a great engine for a lot of the front-wheel-drive drag racing classes, and we’ve had a bunch of time attack guys interested. This is a great, lightweight, small solution that you can still run 800-900 horsepower with consistently. The K series is such a great platform and the parts are so off-the-shelf that it really can go in about anything.”
All we know is there’s no debating this billet K24 Honda engine is gorgeous and stands to make a ton of power. For Noonan Race Engineering, this is just the tip of the Honda iceberg!
Engine of the Week is sponsored by PennGrade1, Elring – Das Original and NPW Companies. If you have an engine you’d like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected].
