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New on the board but i hjave a question. I've been told that kia is using mazda engines, the 1.8 in particular. Just wonderin if i used this engine and set it up for turbo application (forged crank, pistons etc.) would it be a good choice. I knoqw there are bpt's out there but i've heard they're hard to find parts for. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Yes the 1.8L in the KIA Sephia is a Mazda BP-DE. In fact the platform it is built on is a (BG) 323 just like the MX-3. On the later Sephia KIA did make a few modification to the BP casting but still carry the BP marking on the final product. For the most part they are about 98% interchangeable.

THey don't have forged cranks, or oil squirters. You'd be better off buying a BP from an earlier protege or escort.

also the cylinder heads on the 98+ kias had a different intake manifold & port setup and still used HLA's instead of solid lifters like the mazda bp powered cars.

If you want a kia bp get the 94-97 verison not the later version...the newer ones are too big a headache to deal with.

also note that the 96+ cars have OBD-II and the sensors will be completely different and require swapping out.

it has the same tranny as the protege too right?

I used a 97 Kia Sophia GS BP, but just the long block, everything else is from my last motor(EGT) manifolds, harness and ECU. I'm using the Kia Sophia tranny, which bolts in the same, but uses much larger axles, the protege's and the EGT tranny's i've used had 26 spline axles, and the Kia's has a 28spline shaft and seems to have some sort of LSD, not sure though, but i know i can't break loose just one tire. Now 28 spline axle shafts are the same size they use in a Ford 9in which most people know are one of the toughest rearends for dragracing. So i would hope this tranny will take some abuse from me, lol.

also another bit of info the bp from the Kia uses a BP05 head, which is the same as the Pro-BP, so i'm using the BP10 ECU from the protege.

The 95 Kia BP I opened up had the forged crank and a mbsp. My opinion:
The 95-97 1.8 Kia is basically a 95-8 1.8 Protege engine; however some of the small internal parts - such as valvetrain components,etc - may not be mazda made....

The tranny is interesting; I had heard before that it is different from the Protege's....

To sum it up, I like to look at the 95-7 1.8 Kia Sephia as a 90-4 Protege platform with the OBDII 95-8 Protege engine.

Yeah from what I've read and what i've learned from diggin around in my engine is they're the same as the protege's, and being that i got my engine out of a 97, it has solid lifters like the 97 proteges, but as for the rest of the valve train i really didn't notice any differences between the BP05 head i had from my 91 Protege engine, and the BP05 head on my Kia engine. And on the transmission side by side to my EGT tranny, the cases are exactly the same, just bigger axle shafts. The only differences i've noticed is that it seems to have a taller 1st and 2nd gear, but that could be the fact that it's been 5 months since i've driven the MX with the EGT tranny and this is the first week to get it back on the road.

That's awesome guys, thanks for the info.

that is a lot of useful info, right now a kia tranny seems more interesting to me. anyone else have info to back this up, because im sure the kia trannies are more available then the pro-lx or EGTs.