2.4l toyota diesel into a zook?

[Roffy88]

Hey guys
Ive just got myself a 89 swb sierra, (after writing of my 100s cruiser) this is my 1st time fully rebuilding a Suzuki into a decent 4wd rig. i was thinking about engine conversions and read up abit on here and was thinking about buying a hilux and using its engine and diffs. has anyone done this before or is it worth doing? i wouldn't mind using the 5 speed manual out of the hilux aswell. i just thought using a diesel its less to worry about in the water, but are the power gains much better then the 1.3? If this is not a wise move any help would be great. all i need is a shove in the right direction and it should get the ball rolling.
thanks, chris

[V.W.Dave]

Welcome mate, If you have a search around just about every engine and every diff has been put int o a sierra. There is nothing that has not been tested or forced to work.
Here are a few extreme builds and a few dailys for you to look at.

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=136911" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=216563" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=168546" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=211462" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 16&t=70878" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=215005" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=217641" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopic ... 6&t=194163" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


To answer your question yes it can be done but You will end up with a front heavy with very short tail shaft and way to long of a front shaft. In doing that you will take away from everything that makes the Suzukis so great how light they are. Your main problem is your starting with a SWB and that will limit you with your engine options.

The Lux diffs are always a great idea as the suzi diffs are like toothpicks at the best of times. The money you will spend on making the suzi diffs stronger you could have a so much more in a Lux or any Yota diff.

Look for a good 1.6efi out of a vitara. Slap your yota diffs under it and drive.

HAve a look in the sierra bible you will find everything you need. And more

I am sure plenty of other people will pipe up and tell you a 100 different ways you can do it and that is the other great thing about a Sierra they can be built into just about anything and to any kind of level of 4X4.

Start a build thread and let us all see what you do with it.

[Roffy88]

Hey dave,
thanks for your help mate, ill start that build thread up straight after chrissy, when i finally have some money to spend on the zook. Definitely stick with the hilux diffs, and ill have a look around for that motor and see what i can find. when using the hilux diffs, you can use the hilux springs aswell? thinking about going hilux springs with drop shackles.
cheers, chris

[Gwagensteve]

Buy a hilux if you want a hilux engine, gearbox and diffs. The end result of a sierra with a complete hilux drivetrain will be a cramped, uncomfortable, draughty, wobbly and too short hilux.

It won't be more capable than a hilux because of the small amount of weight you loose in the process will be cancelled out by the too-tall centre of gravity and the too short wheelbase.

Suzukis work best when kept low and light. The lower and lighter the better. It's hard to do that with hilux axles and even harder with a big lump of diesel in the front of it.

Much better to sell the hilux stuff and spend it on a 1.6 EFI motor and a pair of front doubletoughs.

If you haven't built a sierra before, build a sierra keep it simple, and enjoy the huge capability of a light, small car with good power to weight and a wide useable rev range. They are as far as you could imagine from a 100 series to drive - make the most of that.

Steve.

[joeblow]

The Lux diffs are always a great idea as the suzi diffs are like toothpicks at the best of times. The money you will spend on making the suzi diffs stronger you could have a so much more in a Lux or any Yota diff.

damn your full of shit alot of the time! toyo diffs are for people who either can't drive or don't gear thier vehicle correctly. too much weight for no real benefit.




and X2 with what g-man said.

[AFeral]

Fitted a toyota hilux turbo diesel to a lwb sierra. It fitted kind of. Would not do it again. Was working for a shop and this is what the customer wanted. From what I seen, before finding work else where. The conversion looked like more work than it was worth. Tight fit all round. Would go a suzuki 1.6lt 16v or 2lt 16v engine.
Feral

[Kitika]

If your going to fit a cast iron lump in the front of a zook put a 253 or 308 or something there so at least it'd sound good before breaking the chassis. I'm pretty sure a 1.6Vit motor has more poke on paper than the diesel motor and has a useable power range (unlike any possible diesel you could fit in the zook).

[V.W.Dave]

The Lux diffs are always a great idea as the suzi diffs are like toothpicks at the best of times. The money you will spend on making the suzi diffs stronger you could have a so much more in a Lux or any Yota diff.

damn your full of shit alot of the time! toyo diffs are for people who either can't drive or don't gear thier vehicle correctly. too much weight for no real benefit.




and X2 with what g-man said.

The front cromy cvs are good the rears are crap. It is near impossible to make a bullet proof rear end using a zook diff. And when you step up a little in power and tire size forget about it.



Quick BloJob start a thread on AZ before retari does it first....
Go back to your over engineering shed.

[V.W.Dave]

Hey dave,
thanks for your help mate, ill start that build thread up straight after chrissy, when i finally have some money to spend on the zook. Definitely stick with the hilux diffs, and ill have a look around for that motor and see what i can find. when using the hilux diffs, you can use the hilux springs aswell? thinking about going hilux springs with drop shackles.
cheers, chris

Forget the drop shackles. Every one wants them till they have them. They can be set up right but its not worth the little they give. I am running lux springs but I have had to do a lot of work to get them to fit. Once again you are limited starting with a SWB. Lux difffs work well with zook springs. You really need to figure out what your wanting the zook for? Is it going to be a toy or a daily driver. Is it going to be enganeered? How deep are you pockets on this build?
If it was going to be a daily I would stick with the zook diffs Do a RUF using 2" lifted springs 2" body lift and some 31s power steering
It if was going to be a toy but still on the road i would go the lux diffs (bundy rear end) SUA RUF 2"springs 2"shackles 2"body lift on 32 or 33s redrill the springs to move the diffs out as far as possible with power steer.
If it was a weekend toy the ski is the limit. I have 60 sieries cruzer diffs lux rear springs in the front, 06 IFS lux springs in the rear.
Or you could go Coily???

Just remember if your going to put the lux diffs undr it be sure to find a good bundy rear housing as you will need the offset diff or you will need to move the rear diff wayyyyy back to help with your drive shaft angles

[Gwagensteve]

It is near impossible to make a bullet proof rear end using a zook diff. And when you step up a little in power and tire size forget about it.

Nonsense.

I've built four or five (or something) EN-26 axled Vitara rear based full floaters and they have proven to be VERY strong. No problems with 35's, lots of gearing, and lots of hate. Lighter, probably stronger (in the axle) than a hilux, better geared, and smaller diameter centre.

I can assure you it's far from "near impossible."

There's no need to run a housing designed for huge GVM just to get a strong axle, especially when it's a semi floater. It's such a silly idea. Much better to have a light housing with a strong axle, and nothing but drive load on the axles.

Steve.

[Drew]

The 2.4 i wouldn't use as they are heavy & underpowered .

The lux box/transfer is actually shorter than the sierra gearbox/jackshaft/transfer.
as well the output is better suited to lux diffs.

Vitara based diff sounds great but how much is it ??,
when i looked at diff upgrades it was cheaper for me to go hilux.

[Breaker Brother]

I agree with the yota Diesel, if you want a Diesel, a VW 1.6 or 1.9 is your best bet, but hard to find over here.

There's a huge range of aftermarket stuff for the toy axles, with gears from 3.2's all the way through to 5.29's, Most of the extra mass in the Toy axles is in the brakes, When upgraded to later Hilux/Surf/Cruiser brakes you'll also have awesome breaks that you won't be able to crawl through like you can with the Suzi brakes.
Also there's a lot more choice when it comes down to wheel combination's, every size and offset imaginable is available off the shelf.

The extra track width gained "Legally" by using the toy diffs is another bonus, with Suzi diffs your stuck with +25mm of track increase
Extra track = More articulation and stability.
High steer is also an option.
You can also get them in a high Pinion.

The fact that it's not a floating axle is a moot point in such a light car
If it was a 4000lb rig with 500hp and reduction gears then I might be concerned.

Also a point of note, the Floating axles to which you refer arn't "Floaters" they're a semi floater as they have a drive flange.
A "Full floating" axle has splines on both ends

[CanberraMav]

This opinion on zook diffs being good always seems to come from down south.

Zook diffs are crap. No 2 ways about it. If you drive mud etc then maybe not so. In all other applications they are too weak. I would bet my nuts that you guys would break over and over again with the tracks that most people in Canberra and Sydney drive these days. (On 35's or bigger and specially if you were running stickies)

Just because you guys are Suzuki "purists" is not a reason to mislead people.

[V.W.Dave]

The lux box/transfer is actually shorter than the sierra gearbox/jackshaft/transfer.
as well the output is better suited to lux diffs.

This is true, But its much wider and it is about 160mm taller. It would need a major body lift or some big time tunnel work.

You can get toyota flanges for the sierra transfer from just about every good 4x4 shop.

[sloshy]

You all have no faith, I'm building a 84 sierra with a toy 2.7 3rzfe hilux g52 box, duel transfers and 60 series diffs with rear steer, it all fits fine, no body lift and a 107" wheel base

[V.W.Dave]

You all have no faith, I'm building a 84 sierra with a toy 2.7 3rzfe hilux g52 box, duel transfers and 60 series diffs with rear steer, it all fits fine, no body lift and a 107" wheel base

But I bet yours is not going to be a daily driver. And I never said it couldn't be done and with a 107" wheel base you could fit just about anything he is 87" little different

[Roffy88]

This all sounds good, thanks for the advice. what i want to build is just a weekend toy, and maybe if im good enough a registered comp truck. iv worked out how to load pics up on the computer so ill start a build thread shortly. so any advice on building a decent rig, would b great. im fully stripping it down to the chassis and starting from scratch. If anyone has done this build up before nd id say a few of you have, advice or pics would be awesome.
cheers guys
roffy

[Gwagensteve]

I'm far from a suzuki purist, but a dumb heavy axle is a dumb heavy axle, regardless of who makes it. I've built a Sierra basde car with MQ axles, and we had two in the club at one stage. The went quite well and were very stable, but both their owners now run cars with suzuki diffs.

I'm amused that when those of us running custom/built sierra axles mention them the "you only drive mud" and "if you drove rock you'd run hilux" etc comes out. Bollocks. However, you guys "up there" seem to be able to drive around with rock anchors under your cars. Big diff housings don't work down here. That's not being a purist- it's maximising what's good about a sierra - the clearance and light weight of their diff housings.

We drive all sorts of stuff "down here" and we break all sorts of stuff all the time. We were taking out sierra front axles every trip until we went doubletough and now nobody has taken out a front axle since.

We went out with some guys from another club the other month and they're not running DT's... sure enough, they took out a CV.... with 31's.

Once we were all DT front, we started taking out rear axles, or R&Ps - and the floater has fixed those problems.

Of course if we ran rock though, an EN-26 axled floater wouldn't be enough though, a 1040 (or whatever) semifloating axle would be much better, but maybe it wouldn't matter that the car was heavier or that the housing was hanging down.

Should we start taking out floater axles, we have the option of 300M (trading off some surface hardness for tensile strength) or, failing that, I'd be using land rover diffs long, long before I used hilux.

PS - yes, the rear axles I make are full floating. They have splines at each end.

Anyway, this is way off topic, but the reason I run Suzuki based diffs is the same reason a 2.4 diesel is a bad idea for a sierra.

Steve.

[Black Bull]

To wade into the argument here, Suzy diffs are good if your focused on running low weight etc etc, But for pure bang for buck a Hilux/Budera diff is hard to beat in a light rig like a Suzi.
Stock rear axles are more than enough to handle 35's
Add a Air Locker and a decent set of aftermarket gears and you should have years of trouble free wheeling.
If weight is an issue, on the rear go a disc brake conversion which will shed about 5KG.

The front diff, Much the same, Go a High Pinion center out of an 80 series and you've got no front tail-shaft angle issues, High steer costs are about the same as a Suzy and Chromo CV's are plentifull and getting quite cheap. also of course you've got much larger brakes as Breaker Brother stated and can go bigger if you choose, again if weight is a factor, Trail Gear and Poly performance do crawler brake kits for these axles which can shed up 10Kg.

The best part is you can go into just about any wreckers or Junkyard anywhere in the country and canabalise parts from 40, 45, 55, 60, 70 & 75 series cruisers, Hilux's from mid 70's up until 97 or so as well as Bundera's
No custom made parts. and can be built in stages on a budget.

[redzook]

The Lux diffs are always a great idea as the suzi diffs are like toothpicks at the best of times. The money you will spend on making the suzi diffs stronger you could have a so much more in a Lux or any Yota diff.

damn your full of shit alot of the time! toyo diffs are for people who either can't drive or don't gear thier vehicle correctly. too much weight for no real benefit.




and X2 with what g-man said.

i agree with the first part you said but the second is just silly. i musnt be able to drive or must have my car geared all wrong

37" tires that runs high traction rock what gearing do i need to run? obvisouly in your eyes the diffs are plenty strong enough so i just need to gear it right then i will be bullet proof

have you got the weight difference between hilux diffs and sierra/vitara diffs? wouldnt be any more then say 40kg

do you build a custom vitara rear diff to offset the different width to the front sierra diff?

[supazuk]

i have a geared and twin locked sierra with stock diffs and in 120,000km
and 4 years of ownership have only broken 1 cv although my rear diff isnt
real flash at the moment but i havent had a look at it yet.
most of my 4wding is expo stuff and ya have to have a bit of faith in your setup
when traveling where i do. i am never in a hurry and am not into flogging the sh#t out of cars. i also beach launch a heavy 5 meter boat with my sierra
with no issue


back to the original question.
i met a fella a few years ago in Jabiru that had a VW 1.6td and it was a great
conversion, he was able to cruse at 120kph and for what he used it for it was
great however he did say that it was a bit fast in lowrange, i didnt ask him
what he did with the gearing.

[Drew]

After breaking the t50 after 8 years of solid use it was a better option to go lux box/transfer than 2wd lux or supra box/jackshaft/sierra transfer.
If i fitted a stronger box & redid the jackshaft,When the power was increased the sierra transfercase housing would of been the next weak point.

It already a 1in bodylift, the tunnel was widened to suit (pretty easy job on a sierra). Moved the eng back, fitted the box/transfer made a new crossmember.
Then a dual adapter turned up in the forsale section so it all came back out, eng put back to where it was, fitted the box/duals , changed the crossmember again.
Now the lux gearstick comes out the stock hole,just need to cut new shifter holes for other sticks.

It was allways a daily & will be again when its back together
will get some time to finish it soon i hope

Cheers Drew

[v840]

Post pics when you're done Drew. Will be great to check your beast out.

[V.W.Dave]

.

hahah i love it.... I know you and I don't get along but yahh anyway.

I love the picture of the outback fuel station.
Did you pick up a candy bar, a pack of chips and a snow cone for the kids while you in there paying the clerk.

[supazuk]

that is driving home from the nearest supermarket to me. i carry 10 x 20ltr
jerry cans of fuel and used 5, plus a full tank. now can you see why a reliable
car is so important to me and how dodgy stuff can cost ya life

[flyinwall]

has anyone ever thaught about a kia sportage rear diff as they are supposed to be as strong if not stronger than a hilux diff and i think they are a bit wider as well and they are factory 4.778 ratio and setup for coils (dont know if they would be any good just thinkng out aloud) and they are the same wheel stud pattern

[Drew]

I should do a members page one of these days

hopefully i still have some build pics around somewhere,lost 3 harddrives in the last couple of years.

Not sure about kia diffs ,they would deny warranty when they started whining, claiming not covered if driven at high speed (100kph).

[flyinwall]

the kia diffs are actually a mazda unit just like the rest of the drivetrain sportage front diffs are the same as used in mazda rx8 rear diff

[Drew]

Are Kia diffs Mazda built or Mazda designed ?
the engines are based on Mazda design,

[mrRocky]

might i suggest doing some driving before going down the heavily modded road.
I have broke 7-8 front axles in about 4 years of wheeling with 31"s , lockrites, 6:5 reductions and 1.6
Personally i think driving it standard lets you see what area's of the suspension and chassis can be improved to drive things easier and minimise breakages. I have some chromo's in the shed ready to go in and they will be fitted soon, but previously where my car would hop or spin the wheels causing an axle to fail now i can idle up basically everything without having to get on the go pedal. Playing with springs, shackle angles, shocks and running a 3/4 elliptical setup are things i have done to minimise the need to go down the axle swap path