For what I hear from our friend in Korea, if I take the whole thing from a rear differential, I should be able to insert it into the front differential housing and that the shafts should slide right in, at least, that's what I understand. I think he said he did it with his '96 Kia, but I may be wrong. I wish I had the investing money to try it, but my wife is getting a new Nissan and that puts me in a bind.

Actually, he is in Thialand. You would probably do the same thing as I am doing with the Miata Torsen LSD. Just swap the ring gear, put it in and adjust it. You might be able to swap the whole 3rd member but I am not sure about the bolt pattern, mounting holes or driveshaft flange.

If everything is true, you could also use either the Eaton, the Miata Torsen, the RX-7 Clutch LSD or the RX-7 Viscous LSD in either the front or rear of a 93-97 Sportage or front only of 98 and newer sportages.

1. The 99 uses the same 26 spline front diff as the 96. It looks even more like ARB only needs to make one locker housing, just 2 types of side gears, 26 spline and 28 spline.

2. It shouldn't really matter the direction of rotation but both front and rear turn the same way anyway since the ring gear is fliped.

By the way, the 99 rear uses the same bearings as the 96 front.


It's looking more and more like Kia did almost the same thing as GM did with their 7 1/2" diffs and their 7 5/8" diffs.

Now that I think about it you're right. ARB will only need to make one locker, but 2 different types of side gears.

One for the 26 spline that may be the same as one already in their parts list, and one for the 28 that also may already be in their parts list.

The only part needing to be fabricated is the differential housing. Most of the dimensions they will need for this I posted earlier today in one of the other threads.

Sounds like we are back in the world of owning a KIA Sportage. We end up doing our work and someone elseÆs too. We should have figured this out already. When we go to a parts store, we tell the DORK behind the counter what part number we need instead of telling him Make, Model, and Year.

I'll bet ya KIA did the same thing ARB is going to have to do. They went to a greater number of splines, but didn't change the axle shaft diameter. This only required them to change the side gears and nothing else. This would explain why the bearings are the same.

Logansportage <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

Thinking out side the box again <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />, but....

Gary,

What if we could get the side gears from the two different differentials we are talking about and send them to ARB to use for this air locker we are talking about?

Then they wouldn't have to spend all that money for tooling! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Then possibly they could match up the differential housing to one in their parts list and SHAZAM!!!! ARB AIR LOCKER FRONT AND REAR FOR ME!!!!!

I'll even send them my rear differential if it would help get me a free locker.

Logansportage <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

Looking on with interest <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

From the other thread it would appear that the rear axle grew from about 27 mm to 29.845 mm. Once again, the big money is in the tooling for the side gears. They need to be specially machined as one of them has a spline machined onto the back of it to engage with the hemisphere via the diff locking actuator. (can't just send them ours <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />)

It is never going to be that simple...........

I will be in contact with the Mitsu guys over here about their 28 spline and also liase with ARB.

Hi Logansportage,

Do you have any rear axle shafts that you can measure?

Just updated my last post on the other thread with some of the additional info Gary asked for. Will be adding the axle diameter and spline length later.

Going to have to pull one of my rear axles first.

Logansportage <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

Holy cow!! I don't check this thread for one day and you guys go ahead and discover something amazing!! This is great!!

I'm really liking the sound of a limited slip differential up front and an ARB in the rear. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> Can't wait for ARB's response to all this.

Oh yeah, Yuenngong - Welcome and thank you very much for this information!!! (We Americans are a bit slow on these things... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />)

Hi Gary,

We know that the axle splines can be no bigger than 29.845mm but from looking quickly at a Sporty rear diff, I saw that the clearance hole in i.d. of the bearing journals was somewhat larger than the splines. The splines are probably closer to 29mm as solomiata reported that the RX7 turbo splines were. I would really like to know what diff those figures really came from since it looks like the RX-7 Turbo diff is actually 30 splines.