What's the best way to fix a broken old Porsche? Swap a Honda motor in there. Hey, don't be mad. It's been way too long since we built something on the channel, so we're going in with a real moonshot: K-swapping a broken old Porsche 944 with a sketchy, untested kit we found online. This is no studio-shot big budget series—we're doing this outdoors, in a cold parking lot, with the same tools and resources that any DIY enthusiast would use.
Here's why this matters, beyond annoying Porsche purists. It's no secret that new cars today aren't capturing or creating the enthusiasm they used to. The future of car culture will belong to people building, creating, and discovering new things to do with the cars that have already been made. And though you might think everything worth doing has already been done, that's not the case here.
Honda K-series engine swaps have grown in popularity over the years in all kinds of cars, since the tiny four-banger is capable of massive power with relatively easy mods. But the engines were designed for FWD applications, so putting them in a RWD car requires special kits or a lot of custom fabrication. Meanwhile, almost every used Porsche is being priced like a collectible these days—except the 944, which you can still find for under $10,000.
So when Tom's 944 blew up, we thought: why not combine Germany and Japan and get something good out of it for once? A K-swapped Porsche 944 would be like the '80s Mazda RX-7 competitor Honda never made. Perfect balance, smooth reliable engine, beautiful handling... sounds like a dream.
But it turns out there's only one way to do it on the cheap with the original Porsche transaxle—an untested kit we found online from a mysterious overseas seller. So we ordered one. And many months later, we're ready to find a new frontier with Project K244.
00:00Just about anyone these days can engine swap a car.
00:03Attempt 3.5, we clearance the socket.
00:07But very few can piss off an entire community
00:10while proving that something awesome is possible.
00:12My name is Tom Gorelick and I'm the video producer for the drive series Charisma.
00:17And for the last year and a half I've been traveling the country
00:19telling people's incredible stories of the cars that they've built.
00:22So I thought it was my turn to tell my story
00:25after the engine and this year old Porsche 944 decided to fail on me.
00:30Let's talk objectively for a moment.
00:32Engine swaps are a huge part of the future of car enthusiasm
00:35because let's be real, new cars suck.
00:38Here are 10 things I hate.
00:40I think it broke again.
00:41This brake pedal moves while I'm driving.
00:45I don't like that. I don't like that at all.
00:47Where the next generation of car enthusiasts is going to find excitement
00:50is discovering completely new things to do with old cars to transform them.
00:54But even that's getting hard to do.
00:56Everything's been done and everything is expensive, right?
00:59Not this.
01:03In my case, Porsche is the problem and the promise here.
01:05It's an 80s rear wheel drive coupe.
01:07They made a ton of them and one can be had for well under $10,000.
01:11In an era where used Porsche prices are in the stratosphere
01:15and every single Porsche is looked at as a collectible that must be respected.
01:19That's not my vibe though.
01:21First introduced in 1982, the Porsche 944 was Porsche's newest version of an entry-level sports car.
01:28It came with a four-cylinder engine producing about 140 horsepower.
01:32That by 2025 standards is pretty damn slow.
01:35It's a Porsche with a perfect chassis, but it's 41 years old and it's tired,
01:39which makes it a perfect candidate for what I'm trying to do.
01:41When this engine failed on me, I thought of a few options for swaps, but really the one I've always wanted to do is a Honda K-Series swap.
01:48And that also just so happens to be one of the more popular swaps going into rear-wheel drive cars these days.
01:54This is a Honda four-cylinder engine that's capable of handling upwards of a thousand horsepower.
02:02First debuting in 2001, Honda's K-Series motor continued its legacy of reliability and tunability.
02:09They rev high, they're dead reliable, and you can find one at the junkyard for under a thousand dollars.
02:13The swap is being put into everything from Nissans to BMWs, even as high as Ferraris.
02:19Obviously these engines were developed for front-wheel drive cars, and this thing here is rear-wheel drive.
02:26That's either going to take a plug-and-play kit or a ton of fab work to make it all work.
02:30You know, it's almost like I'm trying to prove that if you combine Germany and Japan,
02:34you can actually make something good happen.
02:37Also, we recently released a video with a Porsche 996 that had a Honda K24 turbo swap in it,
02:42and you guys seem to really love and hate it.
02:45So we thought we'd piss off some more Porsche purists with this.
02:48So here I was with this broken Porsche 944, and a will and courage to K-Swap it.
02:54Turns out no one makes a kit for that, except for one person who alleges to make one,
02:58but he's thousands of miles away, has no internet presence, and I only found him through a Facebook group.
03:03The only proof I've seen of this kit actually working is two or three videos on Instagram.
03:07So what does a brilliant guy like myself do?
03:09Well, I reluctantly wired him $5,000.
03:13Many months later, the kit arrived.
03:15That's a whole other topic, but we'll get there.
03:17Now that the kit's here, I figured, why don't I torture myself for your viewing pleasure?
03:23If this car doesn't start up after all this time and money spent, I will be pissed.
03:28Tune in as I lay on my back with this car in jack stands and try to figure out how this whole swap works.
03:34Will it work?
03:34I don't know.
03:35This is my first time engine swapping something, and I picked probably the hardest chassis to do it in.
03:39So this should be pretty entertaining, especially the fact that I don't have any help with this,
03:43and I started the swap in February in New Jersey.
03:46I'm Tom.
03:47This is my K244 project.
03:52Jumping straight into this engine swap, the first order of operations for me was to disconnect the
03:57negative terminal, which I did not do, unfortunately.
04:00But it's a good rule of thumb, because you don't want sparks flying and hitting your exposed fuel lines,
04:04and igniting your project long before it started.
04:07Next up is to remove all the water lines, all the vacuum lines, get your fuel lines out of the way,
04:12and of course we're removing the stock engine harness, because obviously this stock motor is not going back in.
04:17So the time has come, the engine is just about to come out.
04:21K-swap, they said.
04:25For the most part, things were going smooth, but I just could not disconnect the transaxle from the engine.
04:30Ah, no, that's not good. So what's really not great is that, as you see, the motor has tugged now at the hood latch.
04:37We're going to hope that that's not going to be the end for that hood latch.
04:41Oh boy, less than ideal.
04:44But with a little MacGyvering and ingenuity, the engine was finally starting to come out.
04:48And that's how a baby is made.
04:53I did it.
04:54Oh, there's oil spilling off.
04:56Look at all of that pouring out.
04:58I totally thought I was in the clear, but then I realized the slave cylinder was still connected with two bolts.
05:04I was two bolts away from removing this motor when this happened.
05:12That bolt just broke off.
05:15Next up, I had to park the motor to the side and begin cleaning up the engine bay of my Porsche 944.
05:20After all, it is 41 years old, which means there's 41 years of soot and grime lining the entirety of the engine bay.
05:27I got out my degreaser and my microfibers and began cleaning up.
05:32This stuff smells good too.
05:34Citrus.
05:35Folks, if you're doing an engine swap, make sure to park your new motor in a clean engine bay.
05:39And tell me this master cylinder doesn't look 10 times better now that I've cleaned it up a little bit.
05:45Next up was to remove the steering rack because I'll need as much space as possible.
05:48The last thing I really need to do here is undo this power steering hose because I'm just not going to run it.
05:57There we go.
05:58Look at that angle.
05:59The next order of business was to get the new K motor onto an engine stand and begin to take off all the accessories that I won't be reusing.
06:08It's a good rule of thumb to take about a million photos of any and all angles of where things go on the engine.
06:14So that when you're putting things back together, you'll know exactly which sensor goes where and how to route all your vacuum lines.
06:23So this front engine mount can get taken off.
06:25I won't be using it.
06:26The mounting points will be somewhere here and down here.
06:29That's off.
06:32Also, just a note, I got this exhaust manifold off of Marketplace.
06:36I'm going to hope it works.
06:38I'm also going to have to adapt this T3 flange to a V-band flange because that's what my precision turbo has is a 2.5 inch V-band.
06:46As much as I would have loved to continue wrenching, the day was still quite short as it was middle of February.
06:51So I wrapped it up after taking off the intake manifold.
06:54Make sure to tune into the next episode as I begin to accessorize my new K-Series motor with all the goodies necessary to be able to install it into my Porsche 944.
