Big thoughts on engine swaps

[fortex]

I've been thinking about my car and what I'm going to do to it down the road. Currently if I tried to sell it I'd be lucky to get 10-11 thousand for it, but I don't want to sell it any time soon. I like the car and there's a lot of potential for things there just no ones done anything crazy because, lets face it, it's seen as a cheap Korean econobox and it's only been on the market for 2 years. We're slowly starting to get some vendors interested in producing performance parts for it. We have a turbo kit, a few coilovers choices, but nothing crazy.


So, I've been thinking long term about what I want to do with the car. A lot of you may know that that our engines are based on the GEMA engine platform that's used in various other Kias, Hyundais, Jeeps, and Dodges including the Dodge Caliber SRT-4, Hyundai Genesis 2.0T, and Sonata 2.0T. Yes, our little 2 liter, 156hp engine is roughly the same engine as ones pushing close to 300hp. The big deal, though, is the Mitsubishi Evo X uses guess what? The same block design as ours. Now that started to get me really interested in what our car can do. People push Evos to over 450hp, build them up and actually race them. I started looking around about the possibility of swapping internals or even the whole thing when I started to notice similarities between our cars. The first thing was our cars wheelbase is 2,650mm which happens to be the exact same length as the Evo's wheelbase. The width is also pretty much the same. So I started looking around and found some pictures of the Evo stripped down to bare metal and it's easy to tell that our cars (at least the sedan) share very, very similar designs in respect to the floors and underbody. Having just ripped apart my car for a stereo install I could tell there are a lot of other similarities. The rear seats apear to be roughly the same size and have the same mounting locations and brackets. In fact, most of the car seems to be designed alike, with most of the panels and pieces being very close to each other, with just minor differences to account for different body shapes and design styles.


It's really really got me thinking about what we can do with our cars down the line. It doesn't really seem like that much of a stretch to pick up a wrecked Evo with an intact under side and do a complete swap of the drivetrain. You can currently pick up a salvaged Evo for under 2 grand so 5 years down the line we could be seeing some cool things. It might just be my desire for a unique car coming through but I could see myself doing something crazy like this when my car's not worth anything to sell. An AWD Kia Forte pushing 400whp would be absolutely insane. Do some custom body work to get push out the fenders a few inches or so, and you'd have a sick looking and performing Korean econobox.


Anyway, it's just a thought to get you guys thinking. If anyone wants to see some of the pictures I've found to show the similarities I'd be happy to upload them soon, I just don't have the pics of my car stripped down to compare them to right now.

PS Im not posting this with my regular account since some of you seem to get their panties in a bunch over not just slapping on a TK turbo and calling it a day. I still remember the thread where someone did a custom turbo, that could outperform the TK one and some people getting so upset about it.

[AutoItKing]

The hard part will be making room for the AWD, and possibly mounting some things. I don't know if the engine mounts are exactly the same. Not the mention the rear axle... it uses a completely different system and uses up more room than ours. That will all need to be custom fab.
The gauges will need to be wired up as well, they may use the same protocol, and ECU, or they may be entirely different. There's a lot of things involved in an engine swap, so good luck!

If you have the money and are willing to deal with the headaches, go for it.

[fortex]

Originally Posted by AutoItKing

The hard part will be making room for the AWD, and possibly mounting some things. I don't know if the engine mounts are exactly the same. Not the mention the rear axle... it uses a completely different system and uses up more room than ours. That will all need to be custom fab.
The gauges will need to be wired up as well, they may use the same protocol, and ECU, or they may be entirely different. There's a lot of things involved in an engine swap, so good luck!

If you have the money and are willing to deal with the headaches, go for it.

I'm just thinking right now. I wouldn't do something like this to my car for a few more years. Looking at the pictures it appears like there's room, but of course you'd have to measure before doing anything. The cars are near identical size and very similar shape so it might fit perfect. The biggest difference that I can see is the Evo has no spare tire well, unlike the regular Lancer and our cars, but that's no big deal. The Evo ECU would have to be swapped of course. I have no source but I remember reading something on the engine mounts being the same through all these engines, but even if they were different it's not a huge problem. Anyway, ideas, thoughts are all welcome. This isn't a serious idea for me yet, just something I'm thinking about.

[AutoItKing]

Yep, no spare tire because of the rear axle for AWD. That'll be easy to remove though.

[Koupsx4110]

your looking for this... Engine swap and rwd conversion
and you can probably post under your own name

[trevorusn]

The Caliber SRT-4 is a potent lil beast. Than again, I guess this shows that turbocharging is the way to go for these engines, and I'll probably go down this route in the next few years.

[SLEEPS]

Everyone is going to the turbo charging scene. Its the future of cars, for now. This, I believe is the first year every manufacture has at least 1 turbocharged car in its lineup.

[SketchedOut]

haha if its too much work to go AWD.. just throw the evo X engine and turbo in.. done deal. Fast Front wheel car

[SLEEPS]

With that much money just build the stock engine to handle 300hp. Forged, and a 16G/50 trim turbo at like 15-20psi and supporting mods should do the trick.

[SketchedOut]

if you can fully build up the internals id go big turbo and big boost
a friend had a built CTR engine with 27lbs of boost and pushed 488 WHP

[GraveSideTears]

I don't think you can just drop a 411B? Into these cars.. I haven't looked into the engine bay or done any research on the EVO's but they actually have a tranny going down the center of the car.. Ours is to the passenger side wheel.. Plus our transmissions were designed by KIA themselves. The 2.4 from the Ralliarts might just do the trick With a good following to :P

[SLEEPS]

The tranny does not going down the middle its the transfer case for the AWD. Looks similar though. The base engine is similar, not the same, but based off the same block cast. Mitsubishi, Chrysler, KIA, and Hyundia all use the same engine builder, not for all the motors but for some.

[SketchedOut]

Which makes me wonder if the moutns might be close to the same.
It can't be that hard to drop an EVO engine into a forte
lol I have a 2.2 Preludle engine in a 1.6 civic engine bay.
It can be done haha

[SLEEPS]

It may not be. But just as well get a hold of the 2.0L Turbo Optima motor. May be easier, and FWD.

[(K)illed(I)n(A)ctionII]

K series engine swap boosted with LSD...600+hp. You won't be kdm anymore but fuck it, who's gonna find out until you pop the hood!