baleno advice

[jonfromhamilton]

Going to go look at a 1995 Baleno tomorrow, g16b manual.
any advice for me on what to look for to make sure the engine is in good knick?
thanks.
P.S car is on road but not registered

[Greg]

95 sounds old to me. I would have aimed for a coil pack engine.

[jonfromhamilton]

crap
thanks anyway you saved me a trip across town.

[Greg]

Coilpack means no dizzy vs firewall issues to sort out... I'm not sure what year is the changeover though.

[jonfromhamilton]

Yeah I have just been google imaging some pics of the engine and I remember Steve mentioning the problem with the dizzy and firewall "although back then I didnt know what a dizzy was so i took a mental note that a coilpack was better and didn't require extra mucking around.
do the vit conversions all require mucking around with the distributor too?

[Greg]

Vitara dizzy mounts at right angles so it misses the firewall.

Noel's coilpack fits with no dizzy issues.

Lukes dizzy fits with a fair bit of firewall work and an supermarket heater setup.

[jono165]

- A big thing to look for in all G16b's is that there isnt any coolant in the oil or vice versa, theyre prone to cracking heads if they get hot. Baleno's seem to be much less stressed than vitaras so i reckon the chances of this are less anyway. Just look for some evidence the cooling system has been looked after.
- Coil pack version is the most powerful of all the G16b's (by about 3kw).
- 1998 was the change over year for dizzy to coil pack. You can bolt a vitara cam, distributor and distributor housing to the baleno motor (bit of stuffing around and you still need to find G16b bits that others want)

[jonfromhamilton]

thanks Jon
I am back to looking for a donor but now shouldn't be too long as I'm going to go manual (for now) as this isn't a purpose built crawler it also my camping/desert crossing car and daily driver

[jono165]

Fair enough that keeps it nice and easy. It is possible to patch an auto in later, its just a lot of wiring. Mordialloc auto salvage had a baleno motor for $880 with loom etc a while back when I was looking at using a 3 speed. A whole car is preferable though as you can hear it running. If your happy to get one already out of a car you can try putting a wanted ad on autoparts.com.au which advertises what you are after to wreckers everywhere. I've had good success on there before and usually have 2 or more places get back to me.

[Matthew]

A bit off topic, but does anyone know how the baleno tr4 g16a differs from our fwd baleno g16b's.

The tr4 supposedly creates 85kw@6000rpm and 146nm@4500rpm vs the local g16b with 71kw@6000rpm and 134nm@3000rpm.