my new .50 over pistons with matching rings. motor is getting the appropriate bore to accommodate these plus I asked the machinist to consider this motor being converted to turbo. He said he'd make the clearance a taste looser to compensate for the added heat in the cylinders. in a nutshell, your piston rings have a gap where the end of the rings meet (ring end gap) while cold. theres a stock specification of how much gap you should have and that gap will decrease as your engine warms up to operating temperature. What you DON'T want is that gap closing entirely and the rings not being finished with their expansion due to hotter than expected cylinder temps. This means the rings start to bind up on the cylinders and scuff them and ruin your rings. Think thats what happened with my current engine from all the high rpm aggressive driving cause it burns a good deal of oil. Anyway, it's coming together very slowly guys, but it IS happening. Also getting the crank polished for new bearings. If they are beyond polishing, then we'll regrind them. I've slightly ported and polished the intake and exhaust ports to match the gaskets. I still need to port and polish the intake manifold but it looks like Kia's version of an intake is a thin one. I will have to be careful not to get overzealous with the porting of the intake manifold. Think I'm going to take a drill and 'slot' the holes of the exhaust cam position sensor. Since the original mazda motor was FWD setup as opposed to RWD, The engine's distributor wouldn't be able to fit in the Sportage cause of teh firewall. So Kia removed it and installed a magnetic pickup sensor in its place that informs the ECU of Exhaust Cam's each rotational pass. This sensor is basically what the ecu uses for a timing reference and then instead of the distributor sending the spark to each cylinder, the ECU releases the ground that releases the spark out of each coil pack. interesting note.. the coil packs have two wires.. one is constant hot (once ignition is on) and the other is constant ground except for the instant when the coil is supposed to fire the 2 plugs simultaneously. the releasing ground signal is the instant the plugs are to fire. Yes, both spark plugs, one is fired on a waste cycle. It's a smart design to save Kia from putting an additional 2 coils on each sportage they sold without really any drawbacks. One exception though is if one signal wire goes bad (got the tshirt) you end up with 2 misfires instead of 1 misfire, but surprisingly my sportage not only kept running, but limped me and my family all the way home 10 miles down the highway.
Anyway, I think imma slow the mount holes on that sensor to trick the ECU ignition timing.. only problem is is that when I tap into the ecu and watch the timing I will have to guestimate my adjustment to what the computer thinks its timing is.. The ECU changes timing advance dramatically between idle, accel, and decel I've noticed. I have an app on my android phone that can monitor my ECU specs. Monitor only, no alterations other than clean CEL's. Anyway, the timing will be near 0 during idle, spike to 14-18 degrees advance under accel and roughly 8 advance on decel. Being turbo, I may want to pull timing back a few degrees to prevent Knocking, but I think the ECU will be able to do that on it's on being they are already equipped with a knock sensor (imagine that on an N/A motor.. hmm.. lol). Plus, the underside of the pistons are constantly being cooled with a jet of oil by the piston oil squirters.. another turbo motor trait... weird. lol. Noticing this motor was meant for a turbo. I'd add an oil cooler to the setup but, well.. They have one already too.. lol. If any of you didn't know this (as I didn't for years) the engine has a water cooled oil cooler. Next time you replace your oil filter notice the housing the filter sits on sticks out of the engine a ways.. that housing has two coolant lines running to it and cools your oil with your rad fluid. I'm not sure that they had this feature on the original mazda FE3 motor or if KIA did that one but I like it. Being that the motor was FWD which would put the filter on the 'back' side of the motor, I don't think that oil filter cooler housing would've fit with and have enough room to replace the filter. anyway.. it's like 5 in the morning and i'm exhausted. peace! End rant!

Very cool rant!!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> Please keep us posted on the rebuild. I plan to keep my Sporty for as long as possible. So an engine rebuild/replacement will eventually be needed. Great info on the details of the engine design - lots of stuff I didn't know about. Too bad the ECUs can't be tweaked to adjust the timing through the firmware. From what I've read, the BOSCH boxes can't be reprogrammed... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Great post - looking forward to more updates... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

NICE!!!

I'm build a high comp N/A right now, and I found some .20 over flat top pistons from Venolia Pistons here in Long Beach...

Ahhh, what luck to have such a capable engine in the Sporty...

Thx for the support. If I find myself at that point that I need more than what the stock ECU can supply, I'll look into Megasquirts stand alone ECU.. it's very cheap but tedious... It's like building an ECU with from scratch kinda.

This place here has rebuild kits.

High Performance Engine Kits
KIA Sportage 1995-96 8V SOHC 4
Complete Gasket Set
ROSS/Wiseco Forged Custom Pistons
(86, 86.5, 87, 87.5mm bore) and
(8.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, 11-1 comp ratio)
Performance Rings
Performance Wrist Pins
TOGA HP Main Bearings
TOGA HP Rod Bearings
Thrust Washers
Timing Belt
Freeze Plugs
EKK4MPX
$899
Following Kits w/TOGA HV Oil Pump
EKK4MPXG
$1009
KIA Sportage 1995-02 16V DOHC 4
Complete Gasket Set
ROSS/Wiseco Forged Custom Pistons
(86, 86.5, 87, 87.5mm bore) and
(8.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, 11-1 comp ratio)
Performance Rings
Performance Wrist Pins
TOGA HP Main Bearings
TOGA HP Rod Bearings
Thrust Washers
Timing Belt
Freeze Plugs
EKK5MPX
$899
Following Kits w/TOGA HV Oil Pump
EKK5MPXG
$1009

ALSO Topline OEM Engine Kits
Engine Kit Descriptions:

Major Engine Kit:
Contains complete gasket set, set of pistons and rings, main bearings, rod bearings, thrust washers, timing belt, balance shaft bearings (if applicable), and a set of expansion plugs.
Does NOT include: camshaft, timing kit or oil pump!
Bronze Engine Kit: Major Kit components plus Oil Pump & Water Pump.
Silver Engine Kit: Major Kit components plus a Timing Kit.

Gold Engine Kit: Major Kit components plus Oil Pump.

Platinum Engine Kit: Major Kit components plus complete Timing Kit and an Oil Pump.

Ultra Engine Kit: Major Kit components plus complete Timing Kit, Oil Pump & Water Pump.
Re-Ring Kit:
Contains complete gasket set, main & rod bearings, thrust washers (if applicable), and piston ring set.

Sizes Available (no extra charge for oversizes)
Pistons & Rings: Std., .020, .040.
Bearings: Std., 10, 20, 30.
NOTE: if you do NOT specify an Oversize when ordering, you will receive Std. size.

Droolz.. that's awesome! didn't know there was such a kit for the sportage! Wonder what the end result N/A gains are for the Hi Perf kit.. (=

Got my engine back and ordered/recieved my new Bearings as well. So happy. Here's the new piston just inserted in the freshly bored .50 over cylinders.. Rings not installed yet.

Very cool, :

Can't wait to see this up and running.

on the computer front have you tried contacting Powerchip to discuss what you wish to achieve?
Here is a link to the site specifically on the Kia. Although a bit of mucking around with sending off your ECU it could be worth it.

http://www.powerchipgroup.com/Datasheets/1/Kia0008.pdf


I am running the 98 chip in mine.

Cheers, Chris

Thanks 4run, I sent in an email. asking if they'll do business with me being in USA. Did you have to ship them your ECU first? How does that work? The HP gain is worth it I think depending on price! Think it was 14HP converted from Kw.

I believe so. One of the guys onthe forum from the US did it a few years ago. His name escapes me. he had a custom bonnet cowl on his Sporty. He might be able to shed some more light.

I was lucky and did it local. they removed the ECU opened it up pulled a chip from the mother board and tuned another chip and then installed it into the ECU and refitted.

the whole process took around 2.5 hours.

Interesting thing was the chip was removable no soldering.

Cheers, Chris