Having nominated the Fit as a viable candidate , like a diapered kid with uncontrollable diarrhea, Norman couldn't wait for Honda to launch it Stateside. Luckily for Norman, he had Koji, a buddy over in Osaka, Japan, find a tip-top yellow '04 Honda Fit S to ship to his shop. The minute the car cleared customs and landed into Norman's eager hands, he had his boys at N1 yank the frail and feeble Screech-like 1.5L motor out so they could figure out how to shoehorn in a bigger and buffer AC Slater-ish K20. "The engine bay is a real 'tight Fit' [see, I'm not the only one with puns!] so it took a lot of convincing to get the K20 to sit in there without having to cut," Norman explains. "It was difficult to do the swap without any manuals and a lot of components needed to be customized as they aren't interchangeable like other Honda swaps."
With deductive powers rivaling that of Sherlock Holmes, once Norman and his Watson-like N1 crew figured out the mystery of a swap, they stuffed the hood with a pre-prepped K20 loaded with BLOX prototype cams, valve springs, retainers, and cam sprockets. Opting for a N/A route, a TWM 52mm individual throttle body setup complete with four Bosch injectors, TWM fuel rail and carbon fiber velocity stacks is aimed forward with marksman-like precision at the cool air coming in from the front grille. Freeing up the exhaust side is a custom Golden Auto dual muffler and 4-1 headers from Midnight Performance.
Although N1 Concepts got the motor to fit in the Fit like a glove, the team still had the task to get the Honda to run. As with most custom swaps, the stock axles and shift linkage didn't line up, so custom axles and shift kit had to be fabricated. The final hurdle was finding a compatible steering rack shaft that would work on the newly equipped Fit. After some good ol' fashioned trial and error, Norman found that a modified rack from an RSX did the job. After slapping on a stock Type-R LSD and a Clutch Master twin disc clutch, the K setup to put down a respectable 253hp to the wheels at 7,800 rpm-that's all VTEC motor, mind you.
With the complicated K20 swap completed, Norman had the Fit's stock suspension, ahem, retrofitted with prototype N1 antiroll bars and coilovers, and then slammed the car 3-inches closer to the ground. With stock OEM rear disc brakes, the stoppers were left stock, however the 4-wheel JDM disc brakes now slow lightweight 17x7 bronze Volk CE28s shod in Toyo RA1 tires.
The biggest hit on the Fit has to be the new outfit (OK, I'll stop now)-a KFC jumbo bucket-like 22-piece Type D widebody kit from N1 that's more than finger lickin' good. Karry from, you guessed it, Karry's Collision was burdened with the responsibility of molding all 22 components and spraying the tiny, yet wider mass the stock SpaYellow. After the bodywork was completed, Joel at Import Trix added subtle graphics to finish off the new exterior.