Hey guys, Well before thanksgiving I blew my diff (broke 2 pinion teeth). I knew that if I were going to be pulling the diff out I might as well go ahead and do some sort of upgraded final drive gears. After researching I found that it was going to cost over $800 to rebuild the diff which sucked so I dug a little deeper and saw that the kia sportage has a 4.778 final drive gear and it is a direct swap into the AP1. Apparently kia gears and mazda gears are a direct swap and companies have been secretly ripping people off for years by buying these gears for 300 bucks and re selling for over 800. But anyway my buddy works at kia so i got the gears for $257 then got a good deal on the rebuild kit from honda for $140. I also ordered the modifry yellow box for the speed calibrator for $53 (this is a must). Last night we finally got the diff back in the car and let me tell you, I am EXTREMELY happy with the results. The car has great pulls through all the gears and really doesn't drive at extremely high rpms vs the stock 4.10's. First gear is extremely short now but second and up seems perfect. I noticed when shifting under hard acceleration the rpm's really dont even drop which really makes for a hard pull. I would seriously suggest running these kia gears for anybody who wants to do the 4.77 swap but doesnt want to spend a ton of money doing so. Search on here and you can find an article from turbo magazine I think that does a very good write up and diy on swapping the gears.



the damage:

 

Awsome man. Did you install the gears yourself?

 

My buddy did it, the biggest pain in the ass is finding a bearing separator to get a washer off the pinion. Its amazing how such a simple tool is so hard to find last minute. Took about a hour to pull the diff and 45 to put it back in.

 

Good for you!!! Any whine from the rear with these kia gears?

 

^^^ ttt for more details :-)

 

so 4.77's for A little under $400?!?!

 

http://www.turbomagazine.com/tech/0804_tur...ive_ratios.html

 

yeah guys! no whine at all from the gears. i love them! check out that article posted above.

 

I love my 4.77's. I've had them almost 2 years now and work great. I'll be running Big Willow on the 5th of February so we will see how they perform.

 

JDMQuip how do you like them in the ap 1 transmission man? how does it pull compared to an ap 2? how about high way driving bud? any help is appreciated bro