So, I don't know where to begin, except at the beginning. Btw hi, I'm Royce, I'm 26 and I have lots of cars.
When I was a young lad, my dad got rid of his old 70 something toyota long bed pickup. Maybe early 80s but I dont think so.
Anyways, he went to a few dealerships and landed on my first truck, an 88 B2200 cab plus. Base model, no tach, red interior, etc. It was white and had american racing rims and some really cool decals on it, I liked it, I learned to drive stick in it, I lowered it myself and put purple neon underglow lighting on it.
Basically I worked on it for years getting it ready for my 16th birthday, but about a month and a half before my birthday, my sister got into a wreck with it and totalled it. I was devastated, my dad was devastated. My mom and sister weren't devastated. They were excited about the 2500 dollar check from the insurance company. WTF.
I still miss it. It was gorgeous.
Anyways! So a few weeks later, I was like, I want a new truck, and my dad and I drove around, where we saw the new one I have now, red one, I think its an LE5, it has full cloth and full door panels, tach, console, chrome light trim and door handles, etc. We bought it, I was surprised at how fast it was, compared to our old one with 240k on it.
I wound up not taking it as my first car, I took my chevy celebrity instead, but we used the truck for truck things, so it always stuck around. Id use it to go camping, haul garbage, just whatever. My dad drove it to work daily for a long while until he bought his 01 dakota. (I hate that truck, its a gorgeous turd)
Eventually the truck just started sitting for most of its days. I had my cars, Sciroccos mostly, and it was just always there. it was the one we kept in the driveway for the rainy day because no matter what, it always started. It had seen hard days though, and with about 200K on it, it was really worn down.
I wrecked my daily driver car and it became my new daily while I built the new one. But it was dying. It got to the point where it could barely run, no compression. Burning oil like crazy. So I threw a new set of rings at it with what was probably the worst hone job anyone has ever witnessed.
It fixed its issues, kind of. There was deep scratches in two of the cylinders, but I didn't have time for proper machine work. It got me through, and continued to run. I used it for whatever I used it for, camping mostly, with my quads.
I thought about V8 swaps, almost did one, but then decided against. Even though I was using it for things it really shouldn't have been used for...
I don't have many pics of the truck, but Basically It's been used. Its been wrecked twice, once when I got too willy nilly and hit a guardrail with the front left corner, and then again when an old lady turned across 3 lanes into my lane in her oldsmobile and her door handle tore from my left front sidemarker to halfway above the wheel. Her handle still worked too.
Well at about the 225k mark it was just plain over. 60 psi on cylinders 1 and 3 with 85% leakage past the rings. It still ran okay, but it had no power. I continued to drive it occasionally, but it wasn't doing well.
Well Pick N pull had a half price weekend, and I knew that the sportage swap was viable, just didn't know how viable. SO I went and robbed one out of an 01. Took the engine, tranny, ecu and wiring harness, but I didn't get the engine bay fuse box, I wish I had, would have saved me a lot of work.
Not having any time for it, I deposited it quietly into the corner of the garage where it awaited it's install.
I shouldn't have waited though, because 8 months later, I pulled it out to give it a real careful look over and spin compression on it ... Cylinder 1 was great, 170 psi or so, I was like, yep.
Then it all went downhill. Cylinder 2 was only about 70, Same with three. Both of them went back up to 160 when I put oil in them.
Cylinder four I couldn't do compression on, it had blown a spark plug out of the hole.
Since I couldn't return it or exchange, and I hadn't bought the extended warranty ... I tore it apart and got ready to rebuild.
I probably could have just cleaned the rings grooves, I think it was just carbon locked, and the rest of the motor looked dandy. Aside from some gunk on the intake valves and a little less than perfect valve sealing, but then I dropped a piston and broke it, so I had to order a new one ... and then it turned into a whole rebuild. I bought all the parts and got to work. I didn't hone the cylinders, it was an experiment.
All the seals and gaskets and whatnot are new, the only things I didn't replace that you normally would are the bearings. they looked brand new with 135K on them. I decided to keep the Kia's factory bearing clearance settings and not mess with what was already working.
Had to do a bit of cleaning. Each piston took me quite some time with my wire wheel on my bench grinder, a broken piston ring, and a gallon of berrymans chem dip.
Before:
After :
I painted the block and assembled it, I didn't take many pictures so sorry.
I did a terrible job of masking and painting my valve cover.
Went to the junkyard and took the header off of a 97 sportage, as well as the engine bay fuse block and a couple other miscellaneous bits.
Followed SilentDawns directions on drilling the transmission bellhousing for the crank sensor. I was going to use the Kia 5 speed but it has a few differences that I didn't want to deal with. Mainly it's a bit shorter than the mazda unit which would require driveshaft lengthening, and the shifter is about 3 inches rearward of the mazdas, which would be an easy fix but I didn't want the hassle. The crossmember mount is rearward too far too but when you flip it around and bolt it on backwards its within about 1/2 inch of the mazda piece so thats an easy enough fix too. But I dont have a welder and I was trying to just get it done, so I skipped on that and will maybe think about it later.
Then I bolted it in.
I didn't want to cut my hood so I got an Idle air control valve for a tiburon or something like that off amazon for like 23 bucks shipped. It works perfectly and gives the clearance you need.
I followed SilentDawns writeup for the majority of it. But I deviated and did my own thing in more than just a couple areas, I will explain those later.
I got an airtex pump and a fuel filter from autozone, I was going to mount it in the rear of the truck but was concerned about ease of access to it and ease of theft. Plus FI hose is expensive. So I just put it in the engine bay.
I ran the sportage accessories Because I didn't want to change to the mazdas, I liked the multi rib alternator belt and the higher amperage (or so I think its higher amperage?) alternator. Plus it looked cleaner.
I still need to get the power steering hooked up, and I want to replace my heater core before I hook it up because I mangled the pipes for it a bit on accident when I dropped the motor in.
As for the specifics of the swap and things I did differently and things I found that may make it easier for you guys or you may like more.
The basics follow Silent dawn, with a few exceptions.
1. I used the mazda lower coolant pipe not the kias. It works fine and you dont have to buy a new hose.
2. Tiburon IAC valve instead of notching the hood.
3. (He mentions this) I used the Kia fuse block and modified it to get rid of the Mazdas original fuse block. I added only 2 fuses, one 15A for BOTH O2 sensor heaters, and one 15A for the fuel pump. Adding fuses is easy. Modifying the block to delete the mazda block is a little more work than just powering the Kia block separate, but not too hard if you are competent in soldering and wiring schematics. I've always had a knack for that sort of thing as well as mechanical stuff, your mileage may vary, but you CAN do it. Just be patient and PLEASE solder and heat shrink your connections as much as possible. Nothing worse than seeing a good job ruined by butt connectors. They work okay. Just okay. Better when you get the good ones, but at the price you will pay for the good ones you will be ahead of the game getting a soldering gun and some solder and cheap heat shrink off amazon.
Heres my fuse block mounted to the modified fuse box bracket.
A shot of inside, I changed a lot of the fuses inside to match their appropriate amperage ratings for the existing wiring. The two blue 15A fuses right next to each other are the ones I added for the fuel pump and O2 sensors.
If you have the newer style fuse block you are ahead of the game as there's lots more fuses in it and you will already have fuses for the 02 sensor heaters and I believe the fuel pump and whatnot in the box ready to be spliced into.
4. Info for all you, My 2001 Sportage throttle cable and bracket worked perfectly with absolutely no modification. It looks as though its meant to be there. Only issue is that when floored the mazda pedal doesn't open the throttle plates 100%. More like 95. I haven't yet looked to see if there is a pedal stop that I can adjust or if its just a ratio issue with the pedal that would require lengthening of the throttle cable end of the pedal.
Wiring info that you may want to know. All ECU pin numbers are for an 01 sportage ECU. I cant speak to any other year model. SilentDawn may have more info on this in his writeup, but what I didn't see in his writeup was the wires I was tying into on the mazda chassis, I may have just missed it in my rush through the writeup, but in case anyone is wondering, here you go
5. I didn't use the coil wire for anything, he suggests tying into the ign coil wire for the key on power to pin 58 of the ecu, the one that powers the coils and some other stuff. I tied that in with the existing key on power for the mazda ECU. It's in the harness that the wipers plug into and its a key on power thats fused at 10 or 15 amps by the "Engine" fuse in the under dash fuse box. It's right there next to the ECU ready to be used and it saves you some wire length. I was originally concerned about this being too low a rating and popping at high engine rpms when the coils get driven hard, but I haven't had an issue after a week of driving, and none of it was gentle driving. It may have saved me some trouble as I was trying to get the tach to work properly via some diodes and some resistors and whatnot and wound up popping the fuse when I hooked things up wrong.
Here's a shot of the wire I'm talking about tied in with the red/white stripe wire.
6. If you choose to add the OBDII port You'll be tying into a brown wire from Pin 83 of the ECU and putting it on Pin 7 of the OBDII port. The Kia uses ISO9141 so if you look up a generic OBDII pinout you'll want the ISO9141 K-Line pin (which is 7) I used one from a GM car cause they are usually really easy to access and always have screw in mounting brackets. The two ground pins 4,5 I just ran to a bolt under the dash and pin 16 I tied into the brake light switch power side. I screwed the port to the head duct just below the steering wheel.
7. Your tach wire is under the dash in the harness that goes to the engine bay behind the gage cluster. The wire color is yellow with a bluestripe and brown dots. You need to wire this into either pin 25 or 52 of the Kia ecu, yellow with a white stripe or yellow with a blue stripe, Either will work but not both. Your tach will only read half RPM because you are only getting half of the engines ignition pulses. I'm working on a way around this. I know SilentDawn said he has been modifying the Mazda tach with Kia tach parts. I'll try to figure out a simpler way but he may have found the best way.
The tach wire tied in with the tach wire.
8. I used a flex a lite fan I got from my buddy for free a while ago. It fit inside the mazda factory shroud (I didn't have any mounting hardware) and I just secured it with a coulple sheetrock screws to the shroud, and that bolts to the radiator factory style, works fantastically.
To control the fan I used a Honda fan switch and installed it in the Tstat flange in the spot that looks like its supposed to almost have something in it. You need to drill this out so coolant can flow to it. The honda switch is an M18x1.5 thread pitch. This is the same as an o2 sensor or an 18MM spark plug. Tap for it is easy to find. I used a 5/8 drill bit and drilled into the housing until I was deep enough that my hole joined in with the coolant flow. then I had to grind the hole I made a little bigger as it was too small for the tap. tapped the hole and threaded in the sensor. Looks like it belongs and it works perfectly.
This is run to a relay I wired in next to the engine bay fuse box (I can provide instructions/diagram for this if necessary) and the power for that relay is run off the Power window fuse from the Kia box. Please note, THIS ALLOWS THE FAN TO RUN AT ANY TIME THE BATTERY IS CONNECTED! After I shut the truck off when its hot, occasionally the fan will come on from the residual heat in the head transferring to the coolant. It runs for about 30 seconds until its cooled the coolant down enough and then it doesn't come back on again.
If you don't want it to be able to run unless the key is on, then you can pull power to the switching pin of the relay from the ignition coil wire.
Hope that info helps anyone that was unclear. Feel free to PM me with questions, I hope between Silent Dawns writeup and this, you can have the confidence and the clarity to get your swap done.
HUGE thanks to SilentDawn for his writeup, it was a huge help and without it I would still probably be staring at the truck wishing it was faster. I wasn't that scared, except for drilling the crank sensor hole in the bellhousing, so thanks for those instructions man.
As for my thoughts on the swap, its by far the best thing I have ever done to the truck. It's everything it should have been from the factory and more. If you are used to your old motor, you'll feel like its a ferrari.
It's a quick truck now. It's got more pep everywhere in the powerband. Speaking of which, it's actually GOT a powerband.
It runs the same cold and hot, you just turn the key and go.
So far I've had it up to 106 on a flat, with lots more to go, I just started to come up on traffic and I didn't want to endanger anyone.
It cruises at 78 mph like thats where it wants to be, its actually hard to go 60 mph, maybe if I loosened the throttle cable a little. I drove it 120 miles tonight on the freeway averaging 75-80 with a couple spirited trips up to 100 mph and it got 37 MPG. I was astonished.
It is worth EVERY penny I've spent on it IMO.
My next steps are to build an exhaust for it. I just ordered all the parts to do so yesterday, new cat, a couple flanges, mandrel bent tubing and a magnaflow muffler all in 2.25 inch so once it comes in I'll take some pictures of the process. for now I just cut up some factory mazda pieces and shoved them into the kia downpipe and filled it with weld, hehe. It sounds horrible at anything above 3k.
Then making the Power steering work.
Then I'll focus on cleaning up the wiring a bit and finalizing a few details, trying to make the tach work properly in an easy manner rather than having to swap it out to the kia components. Eventually I'll hook up the heater core but that's low on my list.
Thanks for reading, guys. any comments appreciated. I probably wont be on here that often cause I'm busy, but like I said if you ahve any questions feel free to PM me, it'll send a notification to my email so I'll probably read it.
Again, huge thanks to Silent Dawn.