This is the culmination of 4 years of work and research. Believe me when I say that there is not many things avaliable for a Rio, as far as performance aftermarket parts. Most everything you will see on the following pages has been done with my own two hands. The project of modding her continues to this day. Hopefully, I'll make this the fastest N/A Rio. Then I'll get back to working on a turbo setup.

I take extreme pride in my little Rio. I made her what she is today. She may not be the fastest, but it would surprise you at how fast she realy is. I get looks of surprise where ever I go. No one ever expects to see a Kia Rio as quick as mine is. Even the guys who are faster than me still give me props for what I have done. First of all it takes BALLS to roll in a Kia. Secondly, it takes lots of blood, sweat, and tears to modify one like I have.

It is NOT stock any longer. The stock days were over a few weeks after I got her.

To date, it has a Ported, polished and decked .030" head (11.5:1 compression ratio), ARP head studs, Gasket matched and polished I/M, Custom Feramic Stage 3 clutch, Lightened 12.5 lb Flywheel (stock is 18lbs), Colt Cams Tri-Flow 330 Lift 264 duration camshafts, 19lb/hr Mustang injectors, APEXi S.A.F.C. mounted and running in the dash, KFX Performance Short throw shifter, custom fabricated polyeurethane shifter bushing kit (for precise shifts), cross drilled-zinc plated-and epoxy coated front rotors, Stainless steel braided brake lines, Megan racing 4-2-1 header, 2 1/4" cat back exhaust, MagnaFlow 40 series 2 chamber muffler, KFX Performance 2.5" C.A.I., MT Engineering Light Weight Underdrive pulley, TopStop Strut tower Bar, Whiteline Racing Rear sway bar, Custom hand fabricated adjustable rear pan hard bar, Intrax Lowering Springs, Denso 4mm Iridium spark plugs, and a Type RS ground wire harness. I have accented the interior in purple....Yes purple. I like purple. There is a StreetGlow purple under body neon kit and various neon accents inside too.

Here the little thing is! February of 2004. Even after only 5 days of owning her I was stretching her legs at L.A.C.R. Having fun with my friends and seeing what she was capeable of. The best time I could pull in her stock was an 18.139 at 73.7mph. No not fast. Yet capeable of SO much more, given the time. By the way, that is my BEST friend in the far lane!

As of 02/20/05.....

This is the first picture of her slightly modified. I was without a camera for a while so I was unable to obtain photos of the changes taking place. You can see the hand laid fiberglass hood scoop, my purple stripes that I painted on, the Mini Cooper rims I was given, and the lack of the side skirts. I was completely devastated when the hood got dammaged and the hood scoop was scraped.

As of 05/23/06.....(camera date wrong...lol) 
You can see the side skirts that were modified to fit my car. Got the side skirts from a friend and just chopped a bit off of the back and mounted them. The chrome grille still there looking horrible, from having to replace the hood. I miss my scoop. I also got rid of the Mini rims and purchased a set of Konig "Incident", 15" rims.

As of 01/20/06.....
Headlights blacked out now, using the "oven bake" method to pull them apart. The grille meshed in, on the new hood, and the front canards installed. I was starting to get tired of those stripes at this time.

As of 03/12/07.....
Finaly got tired of the old stripes, and removed them. Going in a different direction. Time for a re-vamp. Wanted her to look simpler and yet still make a statement.

As of 03/12/08.....
New front lip splitter added. This finished off the front of the car nicely, and blended well with the canards and the black grille.

As of 7/25/08.....
Side skirts gone! They just began to look too tacky and were not where I was headed with her styling wise. Re-vamped and went with factory mud flaps, subtle, yet enough to be an accent. Decals re-done, in a custom color to match my scheme, and moved to rocker pannel for a cleaner look. Carbon fiber gas door added.

11/01/08 Just got done cleaning a couple weeks worth of dirt off of her and decided to snap these interesting looking pics. I didn't even know my camera could do the negative shot...lol. Looks neat.

Page 1) Introduction
Page 2) Performance/Mod pics & info.
Page 3) Interior
Page 4) Exterior
Page 5) Project "Forced Induction" (on hold)
Page 6) Attended show pics
Page 7) Mods to come