Family Rock Kia-rawler

I've spent the last 4 years wheeling solo and leaving my family at home. It's time for a change. Time for a light duty family rig. Would like to keep it street legal but we will see. This will be a 2 stage build, first stage is to get chosen rig running and driving as a stock rig with motor swap. Second step, build a unique rock crawler out of it.

Enter the 2wd 2005 Kia Sorento. Wanted to do something different than the normal 4runner or Cherokee. Picked up my Kia for $500 with a blown engine. Sorentos have a full frame so if will be nice to work with.

Final product plans

-5.3/th350/205 swap
-One ton or custom 9in axles
-bumpers/sliders/cage
-Undecided on 37-42in tire

Future Kia-rawler

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Nice.

Amazing garage. Haven't seen a garage that clean since..., well, never.

Also, putting big tires on a rig with those small wheel openings will be challenging. Be an interesting problem to solve. Make sure to post lots of pictures. Jantz put 36s on his Isuzu Rodeo, and had to cut out portions of his firewall / inner fenders. Probably be easier for you, as you can stretch the wheelbase when you go solid axle.

Will be watching this one :awesomework:

Nice!!! I found this picture of a Kia Sportage for some motivation!

This should be interesting! Please post progress pics.

Search username trail demon he did his 6 years ago.

Traildemon still has and wheels his sportage

I remember traildemons, he bought some of my old Toyota axle parts for that thing.

I have had the Kia with the motor pulled already for probably 4 years and the motor transmission and transfer case as well. Just haven't had time or the space to work on it. Now that my shop is a little bit set up and ready I started working on this a month or two ago.

I don't have any pictures from my first test fit but in doing that I realized the stock manifolds would not work, driver's side exited right into the stock steering shaft, and the truck oil pan would not work. The steering rack right in the way. So a mast Motorsports oil pan and headers it is.

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TreeClimber said:

Nice.

Amazing garage. Haven't seen a garage that clean since..., well, never.

Also, putting big tires on a rig with those small wheel openings will be challenging. Be an interesting problem to solve. Make sure to post lots of pictures. Jantz put 36s on his Isuzu Rodeo, and had to cut out portions of his firewall / inner fenders. Probably be easier for you, as you can stretch the wheelbase when you go solid axle.

Click to expand...

Thanks, just finished most of work on shop so now I do do fun project stuff.
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I'm planning on driving a rig stock vehicle for a while wheel openings won't be touched just yet. But when the axle swap stuff happens front should be easy like you said, frontal will be moved forward a little bit and fenders trimmed. The rear I will probably be moved back a little bit as well and rear bumper off should give me some good room back there as well.

Going to have quite a few post right at the start since I am little ways into this project and thought, hey, I should be doing a build thread.

Going to use the stock steering and going to try and use stock radiator abd fans for now. To get everything to fit I needed the engine to go back a few inches. Also, since this was a two-wheel drive the tunnel underneath was not big enough for the transfer case. Decided to do a 3 inch body lift for everything to fit. Probably would not have done a body lift if I didn't need to make this rig drivable as a stock looking rig for a while because I need something to drive while my tow rig is getting repaired.

The body left was a pain because it's not as simple as throwing in spacers and longer bolts. The stock bolts are inside the body and welded in place. I decided to make bolt on 3 inch high frame blocks
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The holes in the tops of the blocks match the hole on the frame mount and the washer on the bottom centers the mount in the divot on the frame mount. There was 10 mounts total to make.

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Ran into issues with body lift. Stock did bolts to long and hit new mounting bolt for block. Ended up trimming stock body bolts as much as possible and they still hit. After trimming they still hit so I got rid of bolt on idea and welded them on.

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After cutting all body bolts and the body going off and on about 20 time I managed to screw up 3 of the threads in the start. Made this nifty tool to clean threads up starting in middle of bolt going to the end.
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3 inch body lift called for a 3 inch steering shaft extension and fuel filler neck extension. Small hose had enough play but big hose was cut and spliced with tube.

Brake lines had enough play in lines to be bent to work

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Motor, transmission, t-case mounts are done.

Was going to go off is stock motor mounts because mounts in engine lined up perfect. But since stock exhaust manifolds didn't work and I had to get center dump headers I had to make new mounts
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Transmission mount lines up perfect with stock crossmember so that was easy. Just had to drill a couple holes and weld a plate on bottom. Cheesy homemade rubber mount for now. Will get new above skid mounts when made into crawler.
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Added mount on rear of tcase to help support it
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The stock radiator was a tight fit without the fans and should on. I angled it back to clear everything by moving side mounts.

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Shifter mounting was pretty easy. Borrowed a buddy's shifter to play with to see if it worked. Turned out pretty good.

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This puts me pretty much up to date so Saturday is my next full shop day:awesomework:

Man the frame on that thing really seems wide! Not a bad thing at all. Your mounts really had to go deep into the center to catch the V8. I love how much room is in that frame.

Also I really like how you attempted to keep the interior "stock" looking by making sure the shifter fit within the KIA center console.

Great work man.

Thanks, the frame is 28 1/4in at the motor mounts(5 1/4 in wider than my Toyota frame). And 40in wide at main rails, (4in wider that my Toyota frame).

Putting just the shifter in there was fairly easy (once I figured out where all the hidden screws and clips were) to keep the interior look stock. Later I will need to add transfer case shifters and might have to cut into some stuff