First off this is my first post here and wanted to say hi. I have been doing research on both NA setups and FI setups for my K20A3 for some time now (MI4K20, you know I can't make up my mind sometimes.) and while I was leaning more and more toward turbo I found out that NA with the A3 block is actually very promising. I have a complete ported and polished Type S head, Type R intake manifold, Type S throttle body, Type R pistons and Rods, Type S ECU. I talked to Doug from Hondata today and he had this to say:
The A3 rods are weaker then the A2 - and it is revs that normally kill them. If you want to stay NA, compression is low with the A3 pistons and I would recommend aftermarket high compression pistons - such as 12:1 and rods. Combined with the Type S head and type R intake + some race headers it should fly. At high rpm, 9000 + and in racing conditions the stock pistons fail.
So it is true that the crank can handle higher revs (although i'm not going up to 9k, just staying stock A2 rev limit) I think the Type R pistons would be best, they are forged and can handle more heat and stress than the A3 pistons so NA is looking very good now.
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