[Highbeamz]

I finally got around to doing some 0-60 runs in the SX AWD while recording through track recorder on my Torque app. Here is my thoughts:


Brake boosting from a start does NOT help, it actually hinders straight line performance. Letting off the brake and mashing the gas without brake boosting results in a progressive build to about 17psi in first gear (will not likely be the case for FWD). Brake boosting results in a much slower build of boost, often hitting around 10psi at the top of first gear. If brake boosting allowed our cars to build boost normally, we'd likely get a better 0-60 time.

0-60 times of magazines are all over the place, and I can't seem to get mine to do better than 7.4 seconds. Maybe my best run was still slightly uphill, but I have not yet beat a 7.4s 0-60, which I find disappointing as I could almost hit that time with my old 164hp Ford Probe GT. Magazines are testing anywhere from 6.1 seconds to 8.3 (which I think was for the FWD), I'm not sure why there is such a large discrepancy. I want a 6.1 second time. I don't see how I am doing it wrong, as all you need to do is mash the throttle pedal. I have driven plenty of manual transmission FWD "performance" cars in the past, so I do know how to launch a vehicle.

Our gearing seems to be different than the Optima SX. When people do a 0-60 run in the Optima, they hit 60mph in second gear around what looks to be 6000rpm, but mine is doing about 53 or 55 in second at the same rpm, and needs to shift to 3rd to hit 60.

One final note, although I would need to do some data logging to see if it is true, it does feel like the boost builds a little more quickly when starting in first gear in manual mode rather than starting in drive.


I will end this by saying I KNOW it is not a "performance vehicle", but I am a little disappointed I'm not getting low 6's from 0-60. I'm only at about 2100ft above sea level, 8430 miles on the paper filter, plus maybe 50-100lbs over the stock weight due to running board additions and a full stereo change. I only weight about 150lbs myself, so I'm on the lighter end of "test drivers".

To alleviate the "slowness" of this car (although it is still fun to drive), my plan is to pick up a LT1 or LT4 C4 Corvette next year, which will also curb my no-manual-transmission blues. The C6 will follow in a few years after

 

[cloud9utk]

what year is your sportage? also, have you tried using the sportmatic to shift and hold 2nd gear? Location?

it is a performance vehicle, in the sense that it is has better numbers that most of the cars sold, but it's never gonna be an STi or a 500 hp mustang. I kind of think it is more of the asian luxury vehicle style. I read once that in Asian markets (please don't think i am racist if this is wrong, just saying what i read) it follows the trend like the optima models. LX= is base + convenience options, EX= LX + luxury options, SX= EX + sport options.

So the difference between US market and Asian (Korean) is that korean top of the line is generally more focused on performance (tighter suspension, engine upgrade, brakes), whereas in us market the top of the line is decked out with luxury options. then the "second tier" in asia might be focused on comfort and quality like leather, wood trim, plush suspension, etc. Second tier in US usually means sport, but no leather/nav/premium.

the SX is performance, but only because it is more focused on a "more spirited" driving experience instead of a more "comfortable" driving experience.

Also, you could say it is high performance vehicle given the competition within the CUV/Small SUV class. Don't compare apples to oranges. In this vehicles class, there are only a few that can match the numbers of the SX, but NONE can match the VALUE.

As far as satisfying you appetite for speed, have you considered a motorcycle? Lots of motorcycles of all different styles can out run a corvette. It's all about power to weight. Plus they are generally manuals.

 

[Highbeamz]

I didn't mean to sound too harsh when I was stating the Sportage SX is not a performance vehicle, what I was aiming at was the fact it's a sport inspired CUV, but not a "sports car". It seems some people on this board think that if you buy a CUV, you have no right to expect it to be a performance car. I did buy the SX on the basis of performance numbers, the 0-60 in 6.1 seconds was really appealing. For me the purchase was a compromise between versatility and performance, the Sportage initially seemed to hit the mark. The other two vehicles I was considering was the Rav4 V6, although that car is way too beige for my liking, and second was the RDX. I bought the Kia on the basis the price was good, plus the performance numbers seemed really appealing. I wanted to have the "fastest" car in the segment, but was a little let down when my own testing had it fall short of the numbers I had initially read. All the hype of low 6's to 60, yet I can't seem to get mine to hit that.

My Sportage is a 2012 (in the sig), I did notice a few (or all) of the Sportages that hit the low 6s to 60 were 2011 models, I am curious if they reprogrammed the 2012 to have the boost build less aggressively. One article stated the 2.4L was somewhere around 0-100km/h in 8.9s amd 60-100km/h in 5.6 or somewhere thereabouts, which means the 0-60km/h is around 3 seconds. The sad thing is my SX hits 60km/h in about 3 seconds as well, so where I should be getting the huge jump with turbo and AWD, I'm losing out. I have timed the boost and it takes a whole 2 seconds to build to max boost in first gear from a stop.

As far as bikes go, although they somewhat appeal to me, I much prefer vehicles of the 4 wheeled variety. Beyond that, I am not mature enough to not kill myself on a bike, plus my GF refuses to allow me to get a bike as she is too worried someone else will hit me while riding. She will allow any 4 wheeled performance car I want, no matter how fast it is

 

[yokai]

did u turn off traction control?
as well as the active eco?

 

[cloud9utk]

i heard that the boost won't go to max (17psi) in the first and second, but your evidence proves otherwise. Maybe that is just in the FWD, which i believe you were implying in your original, or with Traction Control on. For me it has plenty of get up and go and keep going.

Perhaps sometime in the near future, there will be some performance mods (factory? PLEASE?!?) that will let you get that 6 sec time. Maybe stickier tires? Just because it's not squealing doesn't mean you aren't slipping.

I have been thinking more and more that the engineers that designed this SX may have wrung out about 95% of the max power that this engine can run (with current 4 cycle, mainstream gasoline, etc). Consider this.

A Porsche Cayenne Turbo makes 500 hp and has a twin turbo 4.8L V8. The turbos output 17psi max (1 atm, essential double the N/A volume of air) and it is GDI, plus it has the ECU controlled fancy cams, wastegate(s) etc. Half of a V8 is a I4 and our I4 has all those same attributes. i know it's oversimplified, but still. so half of the power is 250hp. There is the matter of the extra 0.4L per cylinder, but that could be used up moving the heavy crank and all the extra engine parts, oil, water, etc.

Honestly, i don't know if there it is possible to get more power out of the Porsche with bolt-ons or engine mods, but i feel strongly that for that particular $100k+ "High Performance CUV/SUV" they have to have gotten A LOT out of it. I feel like the SX is pretty much getting the most power out of this design (especially the AWD version) aside from some small gains with a more aggressive ECU Map with a factory "r-spec" CAI/catback combo.

Then you got the aftermarket insanity. Nitro? Bigger turbo? Top End Mods? Manual transmission? Bigger intercooler and intake manifold? Low Restriction Cat? I'm not thinking that anything more than 50 hp gain is even remotely possible with this engine and mostly stock components, there isn't a lot of "head room" of extra performance for cheap, effective mods or even "r-spec" mods.

The older Cayenne N/A 4.8L GDI V8 makes 409 hp, whereas the N/A 2.4L GDI I4 makes 174 hp, which is almost half. I guess the example breaks down when comparing the N/A versions of these engines.

Sportage SX AWD vs Porsche Cayenne Turbo: 1/2 the performance for 1/4 the price. sounds like a winner.

I dunno, just some thoughts.

Re: Bikes. Ahh, a natural cage driver. It takes a special kind of stupid to straddle a motor and blast off into traffic on two wheels in todays world. your gf is smart. The #1 cause of motorcycle accidents other than rider stupidity is other cars not seeing them. I always ride like everyone is trying to actively kill me and i have a loud exhaust system. Please do keep your eyes peeled for bikes.

 

[ToXiK]

From my iphone app i get 0-60 in 7.1 seconds, but I'm gonna get "real world" results tonight. I'm going to my local 1/8 mile track, which is probably the only distance the sx can "compete" ...

I hope to be under 10 seconds...

 

[Highbeamz]

In response to you, Cloud, just to clarify I am not implying that I don't like the Sportage or think poorly of it, and I do understand your justification of what it is capable of. My only complaint is that I am not able to get the numbers others have, which not only somehow feels like a deficit on my part, but also a deficit of MY car.

NOTE: All my runs were done with traction control both on AND off (did many runs), some in manual mode, some in drive, never in ECO mode. Always ran with 87 octane.

As far as mods, there is definitely room for improvement. I have not seen a single turbo gas engine that did not gain at least a little power from freeing up the exhaust a bit, and a tune. If you look at Kia's specs, the car puts out the same torque figure between 1850-3000rpm, which means it is being limited. My last car was a 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt SS which had a 2.0L direct injection turbocharged 4 cylinder (very similar to ours). GM released a "stage kit" which they claim increased the HP from 260 to 280, and the torque from 260 to 320, although most people dyno'd numbers that would imply that was underrated. The increase in torque alone made third gear pull as hard as second used to, and you could spin the tires in second doing 60km/h if you got on it hard enough. Also, the car had a no-lift shift algorithm, which controlled the throttle between shifts, meaning you don't let off the gas between gear changes. What that did was essentially allow you to maintain nearly full boost between gears. This was especially ridiculous from first to second gear, which resulted in not a "chirp" of the tires between gear changes, but a full out "howl" for a full second. All that aside, I believe the Kia could easily see 300ft/lbs or more on the torque end and the HP could probably see around 275 or 280 with a mild tune. In another thread I had stated that PowerAXEL has unlocked the Sonata PCM, so the Sportage would be possible to unlock. I believe their tuning resulted in around 20psi of boost and gains of about 30hp and 30-40ft/lbs...give or take, would need to find the dyno graphs again.

Regarding my choice of the Sportage, although I felt the interior and most of the build quality did not seem quite as good, one SUV I was really interested in was the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, but I just can't justify single digit fuel economy!

At the end of the day, if Kia put out a "tune" just like GM did, I'd be willing to pay decent money (say $700, maybe more) if the gains were good, and if you still retained factory warranty.

 

[twinscroll]

I'll be very disappointed if claimed ~6.1sec 0-100kph numbers were wrong.

Being a well-designed turbo I-4 2.0L, there won't be 50hp to find. There are exhaust modifications for ~10hp. I haven't checked the OEM intercooler specifications or operating temperature. The stock twinscroll turbo is already impressive concerning turbo-lag. I wasn't able to find an aftermarket intake manifold. If you're looking for 50hp, the only inexpensive option would be nitrous.

 

[Highbeamz]

I'll be very disappointed if claimed ~6.1sec 0-100kph numbers were wrong.

Being a well-designed turbo I-4 2.0L, there won't be 50hp to find. There are exhaust modifications for ~10hp. I haven't checked the OEM intercooler specifications or operating temperature. The stock twinscroll turbo is already impressive concerning turbo-lag. I wasn't able to find an aftermarket intake manifold. If you're looking for 50hp, the only inexpensive option would be nitrous.

Yeah, you might be right about not being able to salvage 50hp extra without too many supporting mods. Considering we only run a MAP sensor capable of reading around 21lbs of boost, I would think we can't really run boost above those levels as the engine won't be able to meter it and match fuel and whatnot. I do think we could gain at least 30lb/ft of torque or more with a tune alone, just because of that flat torque curve from 1850 to 3000, opening up the levels to 20psi or more over the entire powerband and not limiting that curve would net us good gains.

I don't know about how well it flows, but I know the intercooler does keep the air charge cool. I have never seen the intake air much above 100*F even when idling, it's often only a few degrees above ambient when moving, which to me says it's quite efficient.

I still think out best gain would be to have the boost come on earlier and harder in first gear, it really looks like it is limited as you don't hit full boost until 4000rpm, which takes about 2 seconds from launch. I'm sure the turbo could spool to full boost within 1 second if it was programmed to do so, being twin-scroll and all. Also, programming the engine to allow brake boosting and having the turbo build boost normally would give us one hell of a launch. When you brake boost, you build to about 4psi and the brakes can't hold the car back, it inches ahead, so it's pushing good torque. Once you release the brake after torquing, it just doesn't spool properly, about 3 seconds to build to 10psi only...

If I find an editing program, I might post my videos to Youtube to give some better evidence.

 

[Wry 'Cuda]

I finally got around to doing some 0-60 runs in the SX AWD while recording through track recorder on my Torque app. Here is my thoughts:

Maybe my best run was still slightly uphill, but I have not yet beat a 7.4s 0-60,

I will end this by saying I KNOW it is not a "performance vehicle", but I am a little disappointed I'm not getting low 6's from 0-60. I'm only at about 2100ft above sea level, 8430 miles on the paper filter, plus maybe 50-100lbs over the stock weight due to running board additions and a full stereo change.

I'd glad that you realise that it's not a performance vehicle, but 7.4 isn't a bad time when you compare it with the supposedly "best ever" of 6.1 reported by some magazine. 2100ft above sea level will give you a 7% oxygen penalty, and you could add another 5% for the weight of your accessories plus fuel. Did you have a spare wheel on board? There's another 1-2%, and adjusting for these factors would give you mid 6 times.

So, you didn't do too bad. Fooling with the tyre pressures might have improved your time by a couple of tenths. What were your tyres doing during the run? How much slip?

I've had a couple of performance cars over the years and never actually tested the 0-60mph time with any degree of commitment. I'm more interested in the real-world acceleration between 80-120km/h which can easily be tested and used as a benchmark figure for future reference without frying the transmission.

 

[ILLJIM69]

I'll be very disappointed if claimed ~6.1sec 0-100kph numbers were wrong.

Being a well-designed turbo I-4 2.0L, there won't be 50hp to find. There are exhaust modifications for ~10hp. I haven't checked the OEM intercooler specifications or operating temperature. The stock twinscroll turbo is already impressive concerning turbo-lag. I wasn't able to find an aftermarket intake manifold. If you're looking for 50hp, the only inexpensive option would be nitrous.

Crank up the boost, grab some test pipes, there are some things that can be done, but you mentioned "inexpensive" and since most things for this car will have to be custom, you're right, lol.

 

[Meeces]

Some decidedly non-scientific based thoughts- I had a 2011 model, now have a 2012 (lemon law replacement). . . and by "seat of the pants" the 2011 felt faster. Could be manufacturing variance too I suppose. Also, wonder how much, if any, was changed to get the extra mpg on the 2012, now rated at 26 hwy instead of the 'old' 25? And, lastly, which I'm sure could start it's own whole other thread- do the magazines test with regular unleaded, or premium, and would that make a difference? Now I'm gonna have to find an app for my iPhone and try it.

 

[SXTurbo4]

If I'm not mistaken in addition to altitude, doesn't the outside temperature also play a role in performance of the turbo? My understanding is that the higher the temperature the worse performance will be, please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Wry 'Cuda]

If I'm not mistaken in addition to altitude, doesn't the outside temperature also play a role in performance of the turbo? My understanding is that the higher the temperature the worse performance will be, please correct me if I am wrong.

Something like 1% decrease in output for every 10°F rise in ambient temperature. Engines do feel as though they enjoy cold wet mornings.

That's why people are interested in special air intakes, I guess.

 

[Highbeamz]

I did another test yesterday to check the manifold pressure (will allow me to see how much atmospheric pressure is lost). With boost around 16psi, my manifold pressure was seeing 29.2 as a maximum. Doing the math, if atmospheric pressure is 14.7psi, then I am about 1 to 1.5psi short of ideal pressure at sea level. I'm not sure what that translates to for power loss. Theoretically, if ideal was 17psi boost + 14.7psi atmospheric, I am short about 8%. I know my last car (Cobalt SS turbo) was said to actively meter the torque and add boost where necessary to ensure you will get 260lb/ft no matter what your weather conditions or altitude were, but I'm not sure if that is the case with the Sportage, especially since it uses MAP only and not MAF.

 

[Wry 'Cuda]

I did another test yesterday to check the manifold pressure (will allow me to see how much atmospheric pressure is lost). With boost around 16psi, my manifold pressure was seeing 29.2 as a maximum. Doing the math, if atmospheric pressure is 14.7psi, then I am about 1 to 1.5psi short of ideal pressure at sea level. I'm not sure what that translates to for power loss. Theoretically, if ideal was 17psi boost + 14.7psi atmospheric, I am short about 8%.

If you're still at 2100ft, atmospheric pressure is only 13.7 PSI, so there's your deficit.

 

[Sportage-KJM]

Is there a setting to have the traction control OFF by default every time you start the car?

Does the ECO actually conserve fuel or is it just a dummy light to warn you to drive slower to get optimal MPGs? I have had the car on cruise control and noticed no difference in MPGs with ot without the ECO control engaged and this was doing 60-65 mph on the interstate.

did u turn off traction control?
as well as the active eco?

 

[skygtr]

Is there a setting to have the traction control OFF by default every time you start the car?

Does the ECO actually conserve fuel or is it just a dummy light to warn you to drive slower to get optimal MPGs? I have had the car on cruise control and noticed no difference in MPGs with ot without the ECO control engaged and this was doing 60-65 mph on the interstate.

2011 ECO is just a light, 2012 it actually turns the turbo off IIRC.

 

[ILLJIM69]

I don't see how it could turn the turbo off since it runs off the exhaust, so if it stopped spinning, you have big problems. It probably lowers the boost though and it definitely changes the shift points.

Overall, the ActiveECO sucks. It makes the car no fun AND I found that it doesn't really help the mileage anyway. Maybe it does, but I can't stand to drive with it on long enough to notice.

 

[dohcacr]

Overall, the ActiveECO sucks. It makes the car no fun AND I found that it doesn't really help the mileage anyway. Maybe it does, but I can't stand to drive with it on long enough to notice.

I think I see an increase in mpg under circumstances where I'm in top gear and maintaing a constant speed, otherwise, it seems to hurt mpg.