This particular car was one of the first units to be brought into the Philippines. Apparently, not a locally assembled unit, it seems to be enduring quite nicely. The paint is original and so are the dings and scratches (from vandals, inconsiderate door dings, and psycho girlfriends). The car already came with alloy wheels which made it a little bit more presentable.
The car was originally ownedby my very good friend who didn't really use it much, and whose family had acquired it brand new from their relatives were the owners of Mantrade, one of the dealers for this 'people's car' back in 1991. The day I picked it up, the odometer read a 59,999.9 kms which i found somewhat funny as I'd be getting the car in the high 50000 k's and it became 60000 k's the moment i left their driveway.
It looked quite lonesome sitting in it's nook on the driveway, paint looked flat and unwashed, tires still had deep tread grooves but had some cracking going on from the age. Otherwise, it was the same old Kia that we used to go galavanting in when it was newer, and it was coaxed back to life without much troub le, and ran typically of a car that was left sitting for years... it ran like sh*t. :P
The drive home was a bit disheartening, as the steering was clunky and the car wandered, you could feel the engine clunk back and forth every time you hit the accelerator, and a constant humming of the wheel bearing was equally madenning. But, the a/c still worked. *grin*
So began a few months of discovering what was wrong with it, and fi xing it. Cash was tight, so it happened in stages. A lot of the work was done by myself. First thing I did when I got home was to start overhauling the brakes which were needing attention badly and i did the bearings at the same time too, then followed by a tune up and oil change and a rub down on the faded paint which revealed a very good layer of paint still there.
In the next months came the extensive steering rehabilitiation. I had to sell my mountain bike and Yammy SRX4 to fix up the Kia, but it was well worth it. Almost all the parts were changed save for the rack end, which i ended up getting a used part which still is in use to this day. Springs and shocks were replaced and the engin e supports, which seemed to be the cause of the clunking engine. While I was here, my friend sold me a pair of Hella 450 driving lights for like super cheap! so they went on posthaste.
The alternator was replaced to a Nissan unit which cranked out m ore Amps to cover for the extra fan and heavy electrical loads, while the a/c was upgraded to one for a larger displacement engine. Somewhere along the way, I was given a motorcycle exhaust pipe and I had it installed, it is an Akrapovic titanium end can and apart from being super light, it gave out this very unique sound that is more like a bikes than a cars.
Somewhere along the way of all the mechanical work, and the car being a daily driver, I installed some tunes into my ride, settling for an old school Blaupunkt unit with a tape player, to which I used a tape adapter to plug into my iPod. 2 speakers were added into the stock slots, but it proved to be too tinny sounding, so I searched for a subwoofer to try and pull some bass in, and found one with my cousin... a Sparkomatic 8" bass cannon with a built in amp that claimed 100watts. It wasn't booming and expensive... it was adequate to get me through a year of daily commutes.
A few more failures occured during my time under the employment as a journalist, being that the hydro-vac unit borked on my way to work one day, preceded by a few months by the distributor messing up. These were changed, the hydro-vac with a brand new unit, and the distributor a used part was utilized.
Next in line was a Personal 4 spoke wood steering wheel (most won't recognize this brand nowadays, but it was a choice brand in the old days, preferred over Momo by most the similar Fittipaldi model in particular, with the signature pad that covered up the spokes) and a set of gauges to allow me to monitor my engine's stats at a glance. I chose a vacuum gauge, an oil pressure gauge, and a voltmeter.
A Veglia Tachometer eventually replaced the one in the picture. which was cheap and quite inaccurate.
Side mirrors were replaced with stock ones, as the original ones I had seemed to have been damaged somewhere along its lifetime, not having the stalks to adjust the mirrors from inside the car.
Jok of the Kia Pride Club generously donated a set of original mud guards (thanks Jok!)
A pair of JBL 6x9 speakers went on soon enough, which took care of the missing mid range that my music so badly needed. and my brother donated an old school ADS 120 Power Plate amp which I used to drive the JBL's. unfortunately this showed me that I now needed to upgrade the front speakers as there seemed to be not enough sound coming from there... that will follow in time.
Oh yeah, same time as the speakers and backboard, were the HID headlights.
I ordered a set of Hella Stone Guards (fancy name for headlight covers) from the US too.
The latest improvement: A set of old school Speed Star Racing Mesh wheels in 14x6.5 specs and some 165/60/14 tires which matched nicely. It was quite nice to find that the wheel and tire combination fit the car almost perfectly as I had wanted. The rear wheel barely peeks out of the rear wheelwell :D
I think this is about all the mods to be done for now, it looks good, it runs good, so it must be good. :)
02-08-09 : found a set of SPARCO sport pedals... Just had to have them since I always found heel-toe maneuvers on the stock pedals difficult depending on the shoes i wear.
numbers can be funny things when they are in a certain order
