4.77 gears can be found in the '95 to '02 Kia Sportage for the North American market. The gears are in the front differential assembly.

Chris.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chrissa
gernby, are you still following this thread?

 

thx

 

what KIA models with exact years have the 4.77 gears in them for our cars that will work 100%?

 

Search under "The real truth about the S2000 Ring & Pinion" and you will have all your questions answered.

 

This thread, back from the dead.

xviper was nice enough to deliver in person my share of a group buy on Zaino he organized for us Calgary members. He also brought by his left over stock ring and pinion (he did a 4.44 swap way back). We compared that set with my Kia set that I have. We took a few measurements to confirm that these two sets were in fact interchangeable, and the news is good.

Both ring gears were 180mm in diameter.
Both ring gears had the same number of bolt holes on the back, same sized holes, and same hole spacing.

Both pinion gears, when stood on end, were the same height and had the same profile.
The threads on the end were the same, so were the splines for the drive flange.
The diameter of the shafts where the inner bearings fit were both 35mm, where the outer bearings fit, 30mm.

Now for the differences:
The Kia ring gear was ~5mm thicker (41.5mm vs. 36.5mm). So this means when the ring gears were lying flat on a table, the Kia was 5mm taller.
The Kia pinion gear had a radius of ~5.5mm less or a diameter of ~11mm less (64.7mm vs 75.7mm, measured on the larger end of the pinion). Note that this last measurement was a little crude. It was hard to pick an accurate place to measure the true diameter of the pinion gears, but I think it's enough to get the point across.

So, the Kia pinion gear is 5mm smaller (in radius), and the Kia ring gear is 5mm thicker to make up for it.

Holding the two pinion gears next to each other, the S2000 gear visually kind of dwarfed the Kia gear. The 4.77 gear set really shrinks the pinion to make the proper ratio. I remember Rick Hesel commenting that he's seen more 4.77 failures than 4.44 failures. The really small 4.77 pinion gear may be a big factor into those failures. A real rough calculation says that the 5mm reduction in radius also reduced the pinion mass by ~27%. That's gotta hurt a little.

In the end though, I'm pretty damn confident that a Kia gear set can replace an S2000 gear set. So, until next time, that's all for now.

Chris.

 

Chris,

Put the damn gear in already and go for a very hard spin somewhere. I'm still dying to find out how the 4.77 fairs in hard use.

BTW, what's the status of Big Ben gear swap?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Luder94
Chris,

Put the damn gear in already and go for a very hard spin somewhere.

 

Mine is on hold. I've got too many other things to pay for right now. Maybe this fall or winter sometime. I'd rather try and save up for a supercharger though.

 

Chaning the gear ratio and having like 450hp to the wheels. What difference will I have then? I don't have 450 but just asuming to know if I should change gears or not. And to reinforce the diff, should I get the comptech thingy?
The S is gonna be my daily car, and at night, have a little fun on the streets maybe track too. What ratio would be good then? Even if I wanna go to the 1/4 mile.