k-swapped C6 Corvette

It’s weird ok. I mean who on earth sticks a Honda motor in a C6 Corvette? We get it… K-swaps are cool. VTEC is a lifestyle. But this?! This is just backwards. These dudes went from Ds to Bs lol. Here’s the path that led to a k-swapped turbocharged C6 Corvette: First off…

Austin Brown & Kevin Prescott run a shop called Unruly Motorsports.

They import Japanese cars, and they also work on customers’ cars, as well as their own fun projects. There’s a lot of hustle & bustle going on over there… kind of a fast-paced energy. But when it comes to scooping-up JDM cars that are potentially only available for a short window, you kinda learn to trust your gut, keep the energy going, and don’t look back. Ok so – this k-swapped Corvette definitely lives up to their name & ‘breaks the rules’. Here’s how it happened…

Kevin & Austin had a Honda K-series engine laying around…

And they basically wanted to build something fun to piss off the boomers. Full disclosure: We actually hold boomers in the highest regard. Don’t let the Hawaiian shirts & NB shoes fool ya lol. The boomer generation defined cool as we know it. And it was their generation that gave us things like pop-up headlights, t-tops, turbocharged sports cars, VTEC, windsurfing, and stand-up jet skis. All the younger generations can muster-up is traction control, hoverboards that don’t hover, oat milk, and rehashed movies lol. So – Kevin & Austin wanted to piss off the boomers ok? And the boomers should in fact take pride in that… because pissing off your old man is in fact the essence of hotrod mentality. Savvy?

So how do you piss off a boomer?

One surefire way is to stick a damn Honda 4-cylinder in a Corvette. People k-swap everything nowadays. But never an iconic American platform like a Mustang or a Corvette. You just don’t go there… so that’s where Kevin & Austin were leaning. While visiting another shop one day, they saw this dusty, neglected C6 Corvette Convertible sitting in the corner. Kevin & Austin asked about the car. And the shop owner said it belonged to a customer, but it had unresolved title problems, and wouldn’t run. They got ahold of the owner to poke around a little further, and the owner basically said,

“Give me 3 grand & get it out of my life.”

Austin & Kevin looked at each other & said,

“I think we just found our next project car.”

Since Kevin & Austin import JDM cars…

They know how to work through the red tape of gaining/releasing titles. And get this: It turns out the Corvette wasn’t running because of some mysterious bad-cell gremlin in the battery?? Austin had run into a similar problem once before. So on a hunch, he grabbed a battery from the trailer, hooked it up, and it fired! They drove it on the dang trailer… a running C6 Corvette for $3,000. But – the k-swap fantasy was already deep in their heads. And it’s not like this was a perfect/pristine example of a C6… far from it in fact. So the plan remained: Proceed as planned. Except now, they had an LS drivetrain they could sell to fund the project.

Nobody swaps down from a V8 to a 4-cylinder…

But if you do, just know that there’s more than enough room in the engine bay. Austin made the engine mounts that connect the Honda K24 to the factory Corvette mounting points. They got rid of the Corvette’s torque-tube setup with the rear-mounted transmission, and went to a Power Glide transmission with a Ford 8.8 rearend. The k-series Honda engine saved about 150-pounds over the LS, even fully dressed with a turbocharger. Kevin & Austin continued to strip weight & non-essentials out of the C6, and got it down to about 2,400lbs (with cage). The Honda k-series currently makes well over 900whp at 34psi.

FORD 8.8 REAR END

: BELT TENSIONER

: BLACK CUSTOM ENGINE MOUNT

Yeah but it doesn’t ‘sound right’…

Uhh… it sounds pretty right honestly! It sounds so good (whirring with the turbo & extremely short side-dump exhaust) that you don’t realize it’s not ‘the right sound’ for the iconic American sports car. And granted, I was following an open-top Corvette with an open-top Jeep, but when Kevin laid into it, the sound was so crisp & clear… that all preconceived notions crumbled. Goosebumps are goosebumps.

This k-swapped C6 Corvette was built for shock value…

Austin & Kevin will be the first to admit that. They wanted something they could take to a car show & leave people scratching their heads. Or something they could take to the dragstrip & be a total wildcard. They wanted to blur the lines of all these automotive subcultures. And really, as I mentioned before, that’s what hot-rodding is all about. It’s not about buying an out-the-box fast car. Nah – it’s about building one… your own way… unconventionally. And that’s what makes all this car-culture stuff worth talking about.