Your 1996 has one cat convertor under the driver. Not two as shown in the shop manual. There should be one O2 sensor in the exhaust pipe before the cat, and the second one after the cat.

The universal O2 sensors will work. However, you'll have to follow the instructions and modify the wiring to connect it into the Sportage wiring harness. There will be 4 wires. 2 of them will be for the heater element and it really doesn't matter which way it connects into the heater wires in the harness. It isn't polarity sensitive. The 2 other wires for the O2 sensor itself are polarity sensitive and you must connect them properly or it won't work.

Also, and I'm thinking on the fly here. If you are getting slow response from BOTH O2 sensors you may want to check out the heater wiring. There are O2 sensor fuses in the fuse panel on the driver's side kick panel. Then check the wiring as shown in the schematic back to the main relay/fuse panel in front of the battery. Especially the contacts for the fuel pump relay. That's a known trouble spot in older Sportages. If the heaters don't work the response from the O2 sensors will be "slow" and make you think they are bad.

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