Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

I might have reached the end of the road for my 660 motor. It's a great motor, and there's nothing (much) wrong with it at the moment, but I fear I'm outbuilding it.

Despite figuring out how to drill holes inside holes and cutting material thicknesses down wherever possible, my junk is getting heavy. The biggest problem, really, is my desire to run my Q78's. On steel beadlocks, they are seriously heavy and you can feel them sapping power. As you'd be aware, I've coiled the rear (more weight ) and I'm going to coil the front (more weight ) but what that allows is better handling and the ability to take bigger hits - so more speed is possible. I could lean on the tuning, upgrade to a cappuccino or K6A motor, but the gearbox is also going to get marginal with more power heading in to it- it's 1.0 sized, and I'd really like an Auto.

So, I'm playing with post AT10 motor swap ideas.

Rules are thus: It needs to be cheap, available and come with an available, short, 4 speed auto. I can't deal with a 3 speed, or I have to regear my diff$ or tran$fer. I won't swap into something that has to have a manual.

It needs to be native RWD, or available in a RWD version.

Absolutely no carbies.

It needs to make power. I'm looking for over 100hp/76KW. I'd normally say 100HP is the useful limit for a sierra, but with 78's, coils and 100" of wheelbase, I reckon it can handle more than that. I dunno, maybe even 150HP or more is feasible.

It would help me if it was weird and/or factory turbo.

It needs to be newer than about 1986 so if I want to engineer one into a newer car I can.

I'm open to buying a whole car to do the swap if it's cheap enough.

Here's some ideas:

Series 4 Mazda RX-7 13B "6 port" rotary and jatco 4 speed auto
Pro: Revs, 117Kw, native auto, EFI low COG
Con: fuel consumption, exhaust noise and heat, finding a good clean one- heavily absorbed into tuning culture.

Volvo B230/turbo
Pro: Cheap (really cheap) plenty of power, especially in turbo form. Garrett T3 turbo (or later a Mitsu T04) Great auto. Look like a good fit.
Con: Really heavy. (175KG ) Did I mention heavy?

BMW 318 (heaps of variants)
Pro: Great auto. Lots around. Strong.
Con: Stodgy to drive unless I find a 16V one. complex efi once you get to E36 (post 1991)

CA18/DET Nissan
Pro: Powerful as a turbo. Strong auto. Lots available. possibly more reliable than the SR20 (more stable valvegear), and more compact.
Con: Old. Often driven very hard in import cars and come out of very tired, smashed 180SX's with P plates on them. Hmmm.

SR20 Nissan
Pro: Everywhere. Powerful. Very powerful and with a huge midrange, as a turbo. (140 odd kw stock) Good auto. lots of experience with tuning them around.
con: similar to CA (but not as old) Very bulky, much more so than the CA18 common too.

4AGE 88kw/100kw/GZE/20V
Pro: Powerful. Everywhere. Sound lovely with a deep, hollow note under power - nicely distinctive. Lots of variants. Lots of revs. Reliable.
Con:No easy way to run a 4 speed auto. No native RWD auto. Commonly swapped. Expensive for desirable variants.

H20 V6 Vitara
Pro: It's a 6, It's a suzuki, and it comes with a AW-4
Con: Not a great fit. Hard to find. Marginal power compared to other options here. (100kw) complex. limited tuning culture so expensive parts.


What have I forgotten/not considered? I'd love an alloy scat V4 or a hemi midget motor or a LS7 but let's be sensible. This is an unengineered, $1K clunker. Bring me your weird ideas.

PS I'm not crazy about a G16 baleno/AW-4. Not quite enough power, too common, and not really even that cheap. It's a great swap, just not a great swap for me.

Steve.

I dont know anything about them personally, but what about a Mazda MX5 engine, the earlier ones range from 90kw - 100kw and were available in auto (but apparently not very common). I imagine they would be quite light too. I remember years ago my friends Dad had one and it reved quite high, no idea on torque range etc though.

Brendan

I think Ross has benched his mazda (BPT ENGINE) project and all the hard work was done. He had even sourced the 4 spd auto bell housing. I think he had pressed the mazda brand out of the rocket cover as well.

Ross has a BP-D engine, the Group A homoglation motor - forged stuff, turbo etc. I agree it would be a cool option, but they are not easy to find, cheap, or have a native 4 speed auto. (They weren't native RWD either, so there's going to be an amount of engine mount, sump, oil pickup, and accessory work to do, along with getting the right converter, flexplate, starter, loom, ECM, Trans control (unless it's run full manual)

A cool option, but a bit more work than I'm looking for. Probably more power than my running gear could handle too.

"Other" B series motors are a possibility though. I'm sure they were used in 2WD utes and vans, so there are possible options. Ross needed an AW-4 gearbox to make his conversion feasible; I don't.

2.6 EFI Isuzu +auto is another option - these are tough and grunty motors.
I've also seen a RWD 3SFE 2.0 toyota motor from some kind of hilux ute. These are a great motor - cheap, powerful enough and very available (it's the late 80's camry/celica motor) but I'm not sure what variant used this motor as it was news to me - I thought hiluxes were 3/4Y, 22R or 3RZ only. The 3RZ appeals as an option, but might be a bit dear. 110Kw and 240Nm or something is right on the money though.

Steve.

Down market ( well at least from a BP-D anyway ) B series are cheap and readily available.

The 1.8 BP engine used in the later 323 1.8 litre is a great engine and cheap. Normal wreckers price for an engine and full loom etc etc is approx $500 and if you get an accident right off in excellent condition. Sump is transverse but not majorly so and the engine was used in north south applications so facility for mounts is on the block already. This is the engine family for the MX5 and developments and is well known as being a gem. Sister org made the mistake of buying one for knock testing and had to mix kero into the fuel to get it pinging away reliably.

Turbo variants or just manifolds etc are are also available. Also lots of quality bits - forged pistons etc etc in the aftermarket.

MX5 auto goes on with flex plate and converter.... but its to an A44Dx auto so its long as you know. Still there is the Volvo A44 which has a flange output......

Still rotary Zooks are cool and the rev capability makes gearing much easier. Short compact design, allows the motor to be set back.

What's the criteria ?

Ross- I don't have anything against using a B motor, really, except to fit my "minimal stuffing around" criteria I'd need to find a complete MX5/auto combination - not all that easy/cheap. I don't really want to dig around sourcing all the bits and assembling something.

As for criteria, that's one. As I said, I'm looking for over 100Kw or over, just because I like the sounds of a nice, round number. It doesn't need big torque - my gearing will take care of that, so a rotary is possible, additionally because it will need to spin 4K or so on the highway with my current gearing.

From my understanding, the only rotary that fits the bill as a complete assembly is the S4 6-port atmo engine and jatco(?) 4 peed auto.

Steve.

Oh well......

I'd suspect the rotary path is not going to be a cheap one if you want EFI.... as it going to put it into the lower volume/later model/more sought after category. The good ole 13B is now very long in the tooth.... suitable but no efi and old and used the 3 speed Jatco which had a band for second gear - have to be real careful if you have grunt as it wasn't hard to rip the facing off. The five speed manual however is almost indestructable...... and did come as the TQ version as well - but probably impossible to find nowadays.

i had a single rotor "6.25B" ( half a 13B ) in my LJ for awhile and it was very very cool and absolutely tiny - even in the LJ the engine compartment looked empty. Being a single rotor the usual crank flex at high revs of the twin rotor engines wasn't an issue so it just kept on revving.....

Good lightweight CRD engines are going to be out of the price bracket...... and with parts costing a @#$% fortune.....
SR20DET are also good engines once you fix the camshaft lube issues ( easy ) but in demand so.....

Overall for sheer availability / price / quality then a Toyota engine would be hard to beat. Sort of "traditional" but practical

Ok here's weird......

run a transverse engine north south....lock the diff - drive to the transfer case by one of the half shafts.
Lots on nice little FWD powerplants out there....

There's nothing weird about a 3RZ-FE motor. I reckon they rock. I had one in a company car dual cab hilux and the thing absolutely flew when it was unloaded. Really revvy and seemed to have good power through a big rev range.

I wouldn't hesitate to go a the 3rz in the LWB. Looks like the exhaust is on the other side of the engine though, which may complicate some things....

Late 90s Prado RV they came standard with a 4spd auto gearbox (or manual) according to some websites. something like this vehicle: http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/pri ... 6796586AAE

What about 3rz + auto, move cab back 6-10 inches, IFS Prado/100 series/Pajero front, and Off Road Race the Pig!

mightymouse wrote:Ok here's weird......

run a transverse engine north south....lock the diff - drive to the transfer case by one of the half shafts.
Lots on nice little FWD powerplants out there....

This is a cool idea Ross, but has very serious gearing implications. There are some great fwd motors out there, but few of them can tolerate a 12,000 rpm cruising speed.

Dank- I know how good the 3rz is, but i think an engine and gearbox set will be out of my budget- commercial vehicle motors are always in strong demand.