Fallen

Hello guys,
Well Im very anxious to buy the Kia gears and do the 4.77 gears
After a vast research I noticed couple of guys have done it them selves saving them bunch of money.
Im very experienced with cars, but never had an experience doing gear swap. Anyone who has done it themselves could you please
shed some light on me and let me know how it went for you?

suzuka-blue-s2k

I would recommend you just have a shop that knows what their doing, and has all of the proper equipment to install them for you. It's not just as easy as swapping the gears out, there are some very precise measurements that need to be taken and adjusted which most people can't do at home. Yes I now some people have done it, but it would be easiest and best to have a professional do it. S2kpuddydad does most of the differentials for the guys here and he even says it's not that easy to do, and the proper equipment can get expensive also.

I got a quote from Puddy at one time, he was going to charge like $1300 for a full diff with cryo treated gears in it already assembled and shipped to my door. He will also refund you $400 if you return your good condition diff back to him, so you can get a fully built rear end assembled, cryo treatead gears, and shipped to you for around $900 if you send him yours back. Even then, $1300 isn't bad if you decided to keep your old one.

suzuka-blue-s2k

Here is a DIY also, just in case you still want to look into doing it yourself.

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/555...ferential-diy/

Gernby

I installed my own 4.77's with marcucci's help, and I was very surprised at how technically challenging it was. It's one of those "black art" kind of things. We made signifcant mistakes during the first install, so I ordered new hardware, then reinstalled them again. We made even more mistakes the second time, but I wasn't about to install them a 3rd time. I just fixed the mistake as good as I could, and left them alone. They did fine until I sold the car years later. I'd never try installing them again.

Fallen

Thank you very much for the link Suzuka. Helps alot.
And gernby since I like learning from other peoples mistakes I think I just might have to give it to the shop .
Thank you for your posts

Duke Togo

if you buy all of the parts you can have it done for 300 some places - save yourself the hassle.

Froth.

I spent a grand total of $70 for my 4.77's - Installed myself, and Pulled myself from a '97 Kia at the Scrapyard. I however am a mechanic by trade so all of the tools/know how are second nature. If you have the tools(Dial indicator/Torque wrench, Press, bearing splitter Etc...) it can be done in a matter of 2-3 hours.

-Froth

liquid_helix136

I had my mechanic buddy (girlfriends step dad) do it, who happens to be a rear end specialist (he says pun intended)
but anyways, I had bought all the replacement hardware from HTG, but by being careful and knowing a few tricks, we were able to use all the old bearings and crush sleeve when we installed my 4.77s. I sold back the diff replacement hardware on here for $100, which made my 4.77s cost a grand total of $250 and a chick-fil-a sandwich (our deal, i buy him lunch and he installs stuff on my car that I can't do myself) It normally would also cost a sticker from the brand of the mod, but he said there was no way in hell he was slapping a kia sticker on his tool box

I was helping him out the whole time, we got it wrong the first time, but it was because it was late and we measured it out to .08 instead of .008 or something, dont remember exact specs, so it was SUPER loose and whined like a b*tch, but anyways came back the next day, properly specced it up and have been running it silently for the last year and a half or so.