The divide between you readers on the Kia Stinger is black and white. On one side, there’s plenty of you praising Kia for giving a sports-sedan a shot, are impressed with the power figures, and wonder why the domestics can’t crank out something in the same vein, power and performance-wise. The other half of you have more venom than a king cobra that hasn’t eaten in months lined up and waiting, looking for the first oil-starved turbocharger, major malfunction, or simply cannot bring yourself to believe that a Korean car manufacturer can make a quality product that’ll hold value and hold together longer than fifty thousand miles. While it’s too soon to tell about any kind of longevity, we’ve been interested to see what tuning shops can make the Stinger GT’s 3.3L twin-turbo V6 do. And we found a shop that has one of these five-door hatchbacks running numbers that are on-point nearly perfectly with a 1970 Buick GSX: 455 horsepower and over 500 ft/lbs at the wheels. Oh, wait…those Buick numbers are pre-SAE, at the crank. Sorry about that mix-up.
Hate me all you want, but the dyno doesn’t lie: Tork Motorsports’ Stinger has got something ready for the first idiot who wants to laugh at the name badge on the header panel. Keep in mind: these are just bolt-on figures. They haven’t started cracking into the tunes yet. Some feelings are about to get hurt in wholesale amounts with a Korean sedan, just watch. We can’t wait to see just how much these guys eek out of that engine!
I believe
I believe domestic brands should be making a spunky RWD sedan like this.
Can’t complain about KIA doing it when the people who brought the world muscle cars can’t manage this (aside from Cadillac).
It is easy to want to just joke about a fast Kia but the truth is there it is! I give them credit for building this car and that whole line of cars has gotten better than ever before.
Reminds me of how the 1990 Nissan 300ZX twin turbo decimated the American sports car market. Oh wait, that didn’t happen either!