[fab9racing]

Let me start by saying ,I am new to this community , but have many years exp in the auto industry , lets go to what my project is , i have a 2003 kia rio that i keep around the house for knock around car , i got this thing with 36k miles and now it has 180k before the first timing belt broke , so i got my wife another car and have started playing with this thing , since they blow all to pieces when the timing belt broke , i had to replace all valves and guides , long story short , i have the little thing running pretty good , no codes and all my values in the live data mode look good not that much correction in the short term fuel correction , how ever i am seeing some high intake air temps , which i think has a lot to do with the design , so i am thinking if i can get these numbers down some i might see better life out of the little motor , so my question would be has anybody ever tried to tune one of these little motors with out the up stream converter , this thing creates a lot of under hood temps while you are in traffic , i can watch the intake temps drop 30 deg just by getting out on the hwy , i am going to build a different intake tube that should help good bit , this filter box and its location would be another source of intake temp build ups as well , any comments or helps would be much appreciated

 

[DavesSpectra]

There are quite a few posts on CAI (cold air induction) modifications on the RIOs. I remember one from a poster in California that had overheating problems. He re-routed the air intake from under the hood to the front grill and lowered the temperatures in the engine.
One caution though....
Bringing the air intake to the front or the bottom of the car can be dangerous to the engine. You are placing the air intake close to areas that "may" take in water during heavy rain or flood conditions. The engine will readily suck in the water and seize itself almost instantly from the rapid change in temperature. Take this into account when redirecting the air intake.
Dave

 

[fab9racing]

man i am thinking just get the cat out from under the hood would be probley 20 deg in underhood temp , that thing is like a 700 deg radiator , i want to just gut the converter ,but i am afraid the ecm will fall out of the operating range and check engine light me

 

[DavesSpectra]

You will get a CEL and the ECM will go into a default mode.
Gas mileage will suffer as the ECM won't be able to fine tune the air/fuel
mixture properly. There is no hacking the ECM's program to "correct" for no Cat as it is encrypted and no one has "bothered" to break code for this model. Just not enough demand.
These cars were designed to run properly WITH a catalytic converter in line and comparing the O2 levels before and after it.
The under the hood temps have been taken into account when the car was designed and "if" the engine is properly cared for it can do 300k miles...Seen it posted here!
Dave

 

[fab9racing]

Well all said that is what i was worried about , however let me reveal what i am experiencing now , yesterday after i made my first post and very little feed back ,i thought i would give it till today and see if anybody chimed in , well i stopped at the local salvage yard to see if they had any rio on the yard , and by chance they had an 04 model , well upon inspection i noticed it had a very small cat built into the exhaust manifold , unlike mine is about 12 in l x 6 in w and this manifold at the yard was like a 3 in round by 2 in long cat , so maybe i got somekinda early addition or calif model or something , so anyway i decided to go ahead and gut the converter i had just for kicks , and low and behold you read the numbers with cat (ect was reading 220)( stf was -8 to 8)( ltf 16)(iat 167) (02s bouncing from .150 to .750) and here is the real kicker with the ac on i was seeing a head pressure of 275 , i think this is were the feel in the power was going , now after cat gutted ect rock steady 188 stf -1 to 3 ltf 14 o2s are still .150 to .750 , head pressure down on the a/c 175 and cold as ice now iat down to 148 and has not set a mill light yet will continue driving with the scanner for a bit , but so far its great and i can now get up to speed by the time i hit the interstate

 

[fab9racing]

This will be my last update till the cold air intake is installed , i made a 175 mile run last night and i had good steady numbers on the scanner with the front converter gutted , i would have done this 200k miles ago if i would have realized the car would have performed like this with out setting the mill light , i think kia went to the small cat in 04 most likely to get some power in the little cars , for some one having to pass a emm test , i cant say it would , but based on the o2 readings the ecm is making less corrections now in closed loop , and it is a simple DIY job, took me about 45 min , i drilled a 1/2 in hole to get a straight shout at the cones disconnected the pipe at the 90' elbow and put a 1/2 npt pipe plug back in the converter , and to think they sell these things for like 800 oh ya and another number i neglected tps at 70mph was at 32% now i am running 70mph 21% and this is traveling i-10 east to west no hills to speak of

 

[fab9racing]

Got the cold air intake installed dropped the intake temp a solid 30 deg , dont really see much deference in the fuel corrections, the motor is using less advance but only about 1 deg avg , but i feel better ruining less intake temp , so time will tell , i will post any side effects