The K20-powered, 200 HP Honda K-Sight is not exactly a hybrid, but it sure does look the part.
A major point of owning a hybrid vehicle is, of course, sheer righteousness. They're very helpful in projecting your car’s green credentials with their wind tunnel-inspired jellybean styling.
Even closer to the ideal of a cutie bunny slipper of a vehicle than the second generation Prius was the first Insight: a lithe 2-seater made of aluminum and powered by a one-liter three-cylinder engine with 70 HP. Oh, and an extra 10 HP from an electric motor. Don’t forget that. In fact, if you take a Hamilton Beach Model 1G912 professional bar blender along for the ride, you can up the horsepower figure to 82.
But what if, in the quest for even more power, you swapped all that stuff out and replaced it with something more substantial?
Say, a rev-happy 2-liter K20 Honda engine with VTEC trumpets and 200 HP. This is exactly what the mischievous gremlins of LHT Performance did to produce the Honda K-Sight.
MrLHT of the team had this to say:
We stiffened the whole car by welding extra braces, as well as building a complete sub frame, which ties the whole front together, and course the whole thing is aluminum.
The mounts are Honda OEM mounts from various Honda Vehicles so the car is very smooth with no teeth chattering. In fact you can’t feel it idle in the driver seat.
Now for numbers, with very little tuning the car is making over 200whp with a very quiet exhaust and tied with a JDM 6 speed transmission accelerates like a rocket. The car feels very tight and has great feel due the extra bracing and a custom alignment.
With the Insight’s fantastic drag coefficient of 0.25 guiding all that power through the atmosphere, the K-Sight does 46 miles to the gallon—and you get to look greener than green. Well, red, but you get the idea.
Photo Credit: LHT Performance