Outer Limits 4x4 Board

How hard is it to fit a v6 3.8 commodore engine in the zook.i missed all the articles on otis,and i am very keen for some power,i also have a v6 and t700 lying around out of a vp.would it be worth it.

an ecotec weighs in at 195kg. at least twice as much as the g13. enough reason for me to think itd be less than perfect.

munga wrote:an ecotec weighs in at 195kg. at least twice as much as the g13. enough reason for me to think itd be less than perfect.

it's not an ecotec engine, it's just a normal vn v6 motor. Power to weight ratio 1.3 Vs 3.8 No comparison I don't think the extra weight is a huge factor considering the power output compared to the iddy biddy 1.3 milk carton!!!You can buy a coversion kit to fit a hilux which is quite a bit heavier than a zook.

Search is your friend.

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... ghlight=v6

good luck with rego in perth.

cheers

good luck with rego in perth.


My Brother inlaw is a vehicle engineer,No probs if it is done right.

ecotec was a generalisation. buy a hilux. stop ruining zooks.
theres guys with twincam headed turbo 1.6 vit engines pulling more power than a stock 3.8 holden v6, and still half the weight over the axle.
talk to gutless when he gets back after the long weekend. he has fitted a 3.8 in his sierra ute. works well, no doubt about it, but i dont see it being the easy way to big horsepower..

dont like hilux's
dont like turbo's
already got a 3.8 v6 engine and box
haven't got a 1.6 turbo vit engine
do you think otis is ruined

hey mate ive got a vp 3.8lt with a turbo 700 and a hilux transfer case with rockhopper gear and hulux diffs 4.88 and front and rear air lockers, and i have just supercharged the v6 its not hard to do but theres alot of mucking around involved and there a fair bit of money to spend on wiring it up exhaust adaptor for the transfer case fuel pump then u need powere steering becuz the front will become heavy u need a good radiator and besthing to do is put it in the back and stuff so yeh not hard but time and money

suzy wrote:

munga wrote:an ecotec weighs in at 195kg. at least twice as much as the g13. enough reason for me to think itd be less than perfect.

it's not an ecotec engine, it's just a normal vn v6 motor. Power to weight ratio 1.3 Vs 3.8 No comparison I don't think the extra weight is a huge factor considering the power output compared to the iddy biddy 1.3 milk carton!!!You can buy a coversion kit to fit a hilux which is quite a bit heavier than a zook.

The problem is in the balance, especially a shorty.
You'd need to essentially mid-mount an engine/box that big, placing the setup as far back as you possibly can, then you run into problems fitting the TFR in there somewhere.
I dropped a 1.6 Gemini engine (featherweight by comparison) in one a few years back, and while it was a very rapid car, even after various supension revision and A LOT of dicking around it still did not handle well. Launches were a thing of the past as it would land very hard on the front and was very tailhappy even on dry tar, fun for a while, but you couldn't actually drive the car fast.
I have a 1300 now and just beat it to death.

I think dropping such a massive weight over the front axles is just an alround bad idea, especially when there are so many suzuki based power options availible
the buick V6 is a suss motor anyways, I've never liked them.

I agree, the beauty of a zook is light weight and good balance, but when you whack a big cast iron boat anchor over the front axle, that is gone out the window. Sure, it goes like stink, but it handles poorly and is badly balanced. Also the v6 commo motor is pretty average (i work on them for a living) and not realy that great a donk. Keep it light and balanced and it will be so much better to drive offroad and on-road too. Also with that power and torque, you will be adding to the stress down the driveline, so then your transfer and diffs will be feeling it more and more. Something like a 1600 injected bit engine, with a bit of work, would be a more balanced rig, and turbos arent that bad in the end, a low boost early spooling turbo with transfer gears will work just as well IMHO and be nicer, and probably an easier conversion to do. Oh, and i dont realy like otis, there are many zook on this board that i rekon are better setup than it too. Power is great, but if it ruins the balance of the rig overall, it will be fixing one problem and creating another at the same time.
Layto....

lay80n wrote:I agree, the beauty of a zook is light weight and good balance, but when you whack a big cast iron boat anchor over the front axle, that is gone out the window. Sure, it goes like stink, but it handles poorly and is badly balanced. Also the v6 commo motor is pretty average (i work on them for a living) and not realy that great a donk. Keep it light and balanced and it will be so much better to drive offroad and on-road too. Also with that power and torque, you will be adding to the stress down the driveline, so then your transfer and diffs will be feeling it more and more. Something like a 1600 injected bit engine, with a bit of work, would be a more balanced rig, and turbos arent that bad in the end, a low boost early spooling turbo with transfer gears will work just as well IMHO and be nicer, and probably an easier conversion to do. Oh, and i dont realy like otis, there are many zook on this board that i rekon are better setup than it too. Power is great, but if it ruins the balance of the rig overall, it will be fixing one problem and creating another at the same time.
Layto....

I agree with all of this. Except the handling thing. I used to drive mine on the road all time with the V6. The front diff has been moved forward however. but there are great amounts of modifications required to squeeze a commy V6 in.

I am currently fitting a 1.6 baleno motor to my other zook. I have made it a little more difficult than most 1.6 swaps, cos I am using the vita g'box, and transfer, but it is already shaping up to be a much easier ( and more legal) conversion.

I would definately recommend doing a EFI 1.6 swap before going down the V6 commy path. Better alround package for a little zook.

JMO
Pete

when my engine goes.. are there many 1.6L engines you can get from wreckers that can be easily fitted into a sierra?

Or is it best to go for a new one?

1.6 vitara engine is the easiest. There are adapter kits available for this, and it is less than a days work.

Its a zook. They were simple when they left the factory floor, and thats the way they should be. Keep it simple and you will enjoy the relatively trouble free zook driving experience. Go over the top, and you will spend every second weekend fixing your broken mongrel zook

1.6 vitara engine

How much are they worth?

can you get them from wreckers?

cheers

1.6 Vit engines are available from the wreckers as both carbied and EFI, depending on where you live i would suggest bug\dget for $750 for carb up to $1,500 for EFI.

Commodore V6 in a Zook, has been done before in stretched wheelbase vehicles and long wheelbase, possibly not such a bad thing in either of these but in a standard or colse to standard wheelbase this would be a very unbalanced car.

are fuel injected better? and why?

Yes. EFI is better. Is is more reliable fuel delivery system. It is regulated by an ECU and can give better fuel economy, and more power due to its precise method of fuel delivery.

It will also run on steep angles, as there is no fuel bowl to flood, as in a carby setup.

It costs more for an EFI motor tho, so you need to wiegh up if you need these features or not.

Pete

Not to mention if you go the 1.6Lt G16B Efi route you can add a Toyata Supercharger designed to work with 1.6L Toyotas if you want it to get more juice

If you can get a hold of a suzuki GV or XL7 V6 (2.5, 2.7) even better. Its all alloy and is out of a 4wd (sump clearance and is designed to get wet and dirty) and best of all it's still a zook.

One of the other issues with adding substantial power/torque to sierras is that becuse of their light weight/comparably smaller tyre, they have limited ability to put down the added power.

this is part of the reason why joey (SR20 into LWB) went to a lwb/auto was to try and generate more traction.

It becomes very difficult to "load up" and as such you tend to get lots of wheelspin and a pretty ineffective car.

sure, it might be a bullet on road, but when it gets technical, it is not hard to get outdriven by something with much less motor that can expoint morelimited traction.

Often, in order to exploit the power and load the engine up to provide some "sensitivity", bigger and bigger tyres are fitted, necessitating heavier diffs etc and at the end of the day, it would have been far easier (and cheaper) to start with a bigger car in the first place.

Just my 2c worth.

Gwagensteve wrote:One of the other issues with adding substantial power/torque to sierras is that becuse of their light weight/comparably smaller tyre, they have limited ability to put down the added power.

this is part of the reason why joey (SR20 into LWB) went to a lwb/auto was to try and generate more traction.

It becomes very difficult to "load up" and as such you tend to get lots of wheelspin and a pretty ineffective car.

sure, it might be a bullet on road, but when it gets technical, it is not hard to get outdriven by something with much less motor that can expoint morelimited traction.

Often, in order to exploit the power and load the engine up to provide some "sensitivity", bigger and bigger tyres are fitted, necessitating heavier diffs etc and at the end of the day, it would have been far easier (and cheaper) to start with a bigger car in the first place.

Just my 2c worth.

WTF

redzook wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:One of the other issues with adding substantial power/torque to sierras is that becuse of their light weight/comparably smaller tyre, they have limited ability to put down the added power.

this is part of the reason why joey (SR20 into LWB) went to a lwb/auto was to try and generate more traction.

It becomes very difficult to "load up" and as such you tend to get lots of wheelspin and a pretty ineffective car.

sure, it might be a bullet on road, but when it gets technical, it is not hard to get outdriven by something with much less motor that can expoint morelimited traction.

Often, in order to exploit the power and load the engine up to provide some "sensitivity", bigger and bigger tyres are fitted, necessitating heavier diffs etc and at the end of the day, it would have been far easier (and cheaper) to start with a bigger car in the first place.

Just my 2c worth.

WTF

Hmm, i think he means get a hilux and then do the commie eng.

Gwagensteve wrote:One of the other issues with adding substantial power/torque to sierras is that becuse of their light weight/comparably smaller tyre, they have limited ability to put down the added power.

this is part of the reason why joey (SR20 into LWB) went to a lwb/auto was to try and generate more traction.

It becomes very difficult to "load up" and as such you tend to get lots of wheelspin and a pretty ineffective car.

sure, it might be a bullet on road, but when it gets technical, it is not hard to get outdriven by something with much less motor that can expoint morelimited traction.

Often, in order to exploit the power and load the engine up to provide some "sensitivity", bigger and bigger tyres are fitted, necessitating heavier diffs etc and at the end of the day, it would have been far easier (and cheaper) to start with a bigger car in the first place.

Just my 2c worth.

Do you convert Japanese brochures for a living??????

Other than the typo's (sorry) I still reckon this makes sense. An "overpowered" light car is not necessarily better to drive off road is the point of what I was trying to say.

Gwagensteve wrote:Other than the typo's (sorry) I still reckon this makes sense. An "overpowered" light car is not necessarily better to drive off road is the point of what I was trying to say.

ahhh so high horsepower light 4wds arnt good?
lol
look at all the buggies comin out of the states

its all about balance

push your front diff forward lots

and cut out most of the firewall and jam the motor back as far as you can get it

You don't have to explain balance to me redzook, I build SPUA cars.

The buggies being built light and powerful are primarily designed for very high traction surfaces, and are mostly tall geared autos (powerglides mostly at around 2-2.4:1) to load up the motor.

A relatively low geared suzuki with, say 140kw and 300nm will be difficult to get to hook up on anything other than very high traction surfaces. Joey's SR car was notoriously difficult to get to generate traction through a manual and twin lockers, even with 3.9 diffs and a 1.0litre case. This was most often noticable on greasy hills.

The way to avoid this is to build a big suzuki, a heavier car that can generate more ground pressure, perhaps something similar to Otis.

My point is by the time you have done all of that work, it might be easier to start with say an old hilux that is a much easier car to put a commdore V6 into and already has the axles etc you need to support that motor.

gez people love to bitch


keep at the topic at hand

Gwagensteve wrote:You don't have to explain balance to me redzook, I build SPUA cars.

The buggies being built light and powerful are primarily designed for very high traction surfaces, and are mostly tall geared autos (powerglides mostly at around 2-2.4:1) to load up the motor.

A relatively low geared suzuki with, say 140kw and 300nm will be difficult to get to hook up on anything other than very high traction surfaces. Joey's SR car was notoriously difficult to get to generate traction through a manual and twin lockers, even with 3.9 diffs and a 1.0litre case. This was most often noticable on greasy hills.

The way to avoid this is to build a big suzuki, a heavier car that can generate more ground pressure, perhaps something similar to Otis.

My point is by the time you have done all of that work, it might be easier to start with say an old hilux that is a much easier car to put a commdore V6 into and already has the axles etc you need to support that motor.

Wonders will never cease ... I agree with steve again ... it's like the 3rd or 4th time this year ..

By the time you go Shackle reverse, with a yota diff on yota spings, add in a yota T/Case, strecth the wheelbase to that of a lux, then pay the medical bills after your engineer has a heart attack etc ... why not start with a vehicle that has those things from the factory ...
Most likley the heavier vehcile will have a chassis designed to cope with additional power, enabling it to be put to ground more effectively.

As for the buggies .. why not throw in a comparision to F1 vehicle's .. they have about as much in common.. An 800Kg F1 car can effectively harness 700Hp .. as it was built from the ground up with that in mind ..

DRV11T wrote:If you can get a hold of a suzuki GV or XL7 V6 (2.5, 2.7) even better. Its all alloy and is out of a 4wd (sump clearance and is designed to get wet and dirty) and best of all it's still a zook.

wots one of these worth ? and wot gearbox's are available ?