FUTURE STAPLES

Take a second; think how many engines you’ve chewed through in your backyard career as a keen modifier. Now think about how many your friends have gone through. Then estimate how many have been lost in the pursuit of motorsports — drag racing, circuit slaying, drifting — and triple it. Once you have a rough idea in your head, apply that worldwide to a population of 7.5 billion. That’s a shitload of engines, even with some of the more popular examples having been produced in the hundreds of thousands. At the end of it all, it’s still a limited supply and we’re starting to see those that have been drawn upon for the past 30 years drying up at an alarming rate. Prices sky rocket, availability is next to nil because no one wants to let go, and what was once a cheap, painless upgrade or swap quickly becomes an expensive headache.

With that in mind we say let’s forget what we’re currently doing and have been doing for some time, and take a look at what could be in the near future. Here are your potential performance staples of tomorrow.

HONDA K24

You may be wondering why an engine that is already widely used today would be included on a list of ‘future’ staples. The simple answer is that while K-series hearts are the larger capacity engine swap of choice in front-wheel drive Hondas, those with chassis from automakers no longer producing highstrung