Diesel_Zuk
Well-known member
The door cards match, but they still look like they could use a cleaning!
Looks really good overall though!
Looks really good overall though!
Back To My Roots: A Suzuki Samurai Project
- Thread starter stuntnuts
- Start date
I finally got my hands (literally) on a Jimny MOMO. I got it on ebay, from Thailand, and it got here in 3 days. It is far from perfect, as it has a lot of fraying in the stitching (which they all seem to have), but the leather isn't too bad for a 30 year old wheel. A quick treatment with black shoe polish and it looks pretty good. It came complete with the appropriate hub and the Jimny horn button, which I plan to swap out with one of these:
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. It's a much more comfortable feel than the stock Samurai Spaghetti-O wheel provided:
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. It's a much more comfortable feel than the stock Samurai Spaghetti-O wheel provided:
![[thumbsup]](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f44d.png "Thumbs up [thumbsup]")
cygnus x-1
Well-known member
Diesel_Zuk date=1605825039 said:
The attention to detail is impressive!
About those door cards; last spring I replaced the seats in my Samurai with some from a junkyard Forenza. As is usual with junkyard seats they had a few stains that I thought would be nice to clean up, so after too much internet searching I discovered this stuff called Folex, that's supposed to be good for stain removal in carpet and fabric. Turns out it's available from Home Depot so I picked up a bottle to try out. Sure enough, it does a fairly amazing job removing stains. It probably won't work on everything, but it does seem to work well for the typical dirt/grease/food stains.
Anyway, the main reason I'm posting here is to ask the following: Is there any reason a '00-'01 ABA would be better/more desirable than a '97-'99 ABA? I ask because I'm shopping for one to rebuild over the winter, and the older engines are slightly cheaper and there are a couple available close by. This would be replacing the 1.6NA/TD in my Samurai. I really only care about the mechanicals, as I'll be using Speeduino for fuel injection and timing.
C|
cygnus x-1
Well-known member
stuntnuts date=1606336017 said:
Ok, that's kinda what I thought. It seems there are some differences between the OBD1 and OBD2 versions, but nothing that would matter for me.
Found one from a '98 Cabrio for $250. No idea if it runs though; seems the car didn't come with a key. I'll most likely do a full rebuild anyway so not too worried. If the bottom end is good enough to use as is I'll consider that a bonus.
C|
cygnus x-1
Well-known member
stuntnuts date=1606342564 said:
Yeah I'm looking at a stock rebuild and no more. Even at that it will have nearly double the power of the stock Suzuki engine.
That will be plenty for me. If I was using the factory EFI I would definitely go with the OBD2.Hopefully it will be ready for pickup Friday, since that's a non-work day for me.
C|
It's been a couple of months since my last update, my excuse is winter. There wasn't a whole lot happening recently, but I do have some things that I want to get to before spring. Here's the Samurai all snuggled in for a long winter's nap. I've got it on a Battery Tender Jr, so it's ready to go whenever, and I plan to pull it into the driveway and do a full heat cycle a few times over the next couple of months to keep everything fresh.
One of my biggest pet peeves in my engine bay is the butt ugly Fox exhaust manifold. It is rusted to hell and looks like it has been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for 40 years. It is regarded as the go to manifold for VW engine-swapped Samurais, however, so I'm stuck with it. It really ruins the appearance of the engine bay, so I recently started planning to make some sort of heat shield to hide it a bit and tidy things up.
Instead of building from scratch, I figured I'd try the parts bins first. I knew for sure that factory Fox exhaust manifold heat shields were guaranteed to be NLA, so I didn't even bother looking for those. Then I started thinking about other 2.0L's and their heat shield options. ABA's were tin and ugly, probably also NLA, and most likely wouldn't fit anyways, so I scrapped that idea. Then I started thinking about later model 2.0L's, the AEG for instance.
After researching, AEG's have what appeared to be wonderful donor heat shields. Aluminum construction, not the thin sheet metal that their predecessors were made of, and readily available. After more research, I found out that there were two types of these. One type had a large EGR unit built into it and the other type (non-California emissions type) did not. I found one on ebay for under $40 shipped and grabbed it.
The only issue I found was that the big rabbit ears on top of it were designed to attach to the AEG intake manifold. Seeing that my intake manifold was ABA, I'd have to make some adjustments. The ABA has a separate intake manifold support made out of black painted steel (also note the ugly Fox exhaust manifold and the pre-planned threaded holes for said heatshield):
The first step was to cut the rabbit ears off of the AEG heat shield:
From there I had to "machine out" some of the material so that I could incorporate the ABA intake manifold support bracket, which I intended to retain:
I also had to remove a portion of the bottom of the wrap around area, to clear the Fox exhaust manifold, because this heat shield was designed for a transversely mounted exhaust manifold:
I cleaned it up, ordered the correct bolts, and installed it:
As you can see, the ugly eye sore that was the Fox exhaust manifold is now nicely hidden for the most part and really cleans up the engine bay. I'm hopeful that it also keeps things a bit cooler under the hood, as a bonus.
While researching exhaust manifold heat shields, I also came across this, so I picked it up for "future development". It is an exhaust manifold and heat shield off of a Mk6 Jetta with 2.0L engine. These are a dime a dozen, so readily available it's scary, and will benefit this setup in the future. The exhaust manifold bolts right up to the ABA head and the heat shield mounts exactly the same was as the AEG one does, and I've already done the "machining" on it to fit. My custom downpipe would have to be slightly reworked, due to the flange placement, but I'm not envisioning too many headaches. It looks super cool too, with the hole in it for the O2 sensor:
At some point, if I keep this Samurai forever (the plan), I fear the very hard to obtain Fox exhaust manifold will fail. It was hard enough to find one when I was doing the engine swap, in 5-10 years from now, they will be extinct. I'm going to pack this away now, so when the day comes that I need a new manifold, this one will be waiting for me.
One of my biggest pet peeves in my engine bay is the butt ugly Fox exhaust manifold. It is rusted to hell and looks like it has been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for 40 years. It is regarded as the go to manifold for VW engine-swapped Samurais, however, so I'm stuck with it. It really ruins the appearance of the engine bay, so I recently started planning to make some sort of heat shield to hide it a bit and tidy things up.
Instead of building from scratch, I figured I'd try the parts bins first. I knew for sure that factory Fox exhaust manifold heat shields were guaranteed to be NLA, so I didn't even bother looking for those. Then I started thinking about other 2.0L's and their heat shield options. ABA's were tin and ugly, probably also NLA, and most likely wouldn't fit anyways, so I scrapped that idea. Then I started thinking about later model 2.0L's, the AEG for instance.
After researching, AEG's have what appeared to be wonderful donor heat shields. Aluminum construction, not the thin sheet metal that their predecessors were made of, and readily available. After more research, I found out that there were two types of these. One type had a large EGR unit built into it and the other type (non-California emissions type) did not. I found one on ebay for under $40 shipped and grabbed it.
The only issue I found was that the big rabbit ears on top of it were designed to attach to the AEG intake manifold. Seeing that my intake manifold was ABA, I'd have to make some adjustments. The ABA has a separate intake manifold support made out of black painted steel (also note the ugly Fox exhaust manifold and the pre-planned threaded holes for said heatshield):
The first step was to cut the rabbit ears off of the AEG heat shield:
From there I had to "machine out" some of the material so that I could incorporate the ABA intake manifold support bracket, which I intended to retain:
I also had to remove a portion of the bottom of the wrap around area, to clear the Fox exhaust manifold, because this heat shield was designed for a transversely mounted exhaust manifold:
I cleaned it up, ordered the correct bolts, and installed it:
As you can see, the ugly eye sore that was the Fox exhaust manifold is now nicely hidden for the most part and really cleans up the engine bay. I'm hopeful that it also keeps things a bit cooler under the hood, as a bonus.
While researching exhaust manifold heat shields, I also came across this, so I picked it up for "future development". It is an exhaust manifold and heat shield off of a Mk6 Jetta with 2.0L engine. These are a dime a dozen, so readily available it's scary, and will benefit this setup in the future. The exhaust manifold bolts right up to the ABA head and the heat shield mounts exactly the same was as the AEG one does, and I've already done the "machining" on it to fit. My custom downpipe would have to be slightly reworked, due to the flange placement, but I'm not envisioning too many headaches. It looks super cool too, with the hole in it for the O2 sensor:
At some point, if I keep this Samurai forever (the plan), I fear the very hard to obtain Fox exhaust manifold will fail. It was hard enough to find one when I was doing the engine swap, in 5-10 years from now, they will be extinct. I'm going to pack this away now, so when the day comes that I need a new manifold, this one will be waiting for me.
cygnus x-1
Well-known member
stuntnuts date=1611263196 said:
That alternate manifold is interesting. I'll need to redo my downpipe (again <sigh>) for the ABA swap, so I might look into this. The Fox manifold has better outlet positioning, but that mk6 looks like it might flow a bit better.
C|
I figured I'd tie up another loose end over the winter, so I ordered a new Borla muffler. If you recall, I fabricated a new stainless downpipe, cat, and midpipe over the summer, but reused the existing aluminized muffler and tailpipe:
I decided it was time to make the exhaust system 100% stainless, so I climbed under the sleeping Samurai and tore the existing stuff off:
I selected a 2" diameter inlet and outlet Borla ProXS muffler, part number 40344. The new case is a tiny bit smaller than the existing unit, also the existing diameter is 2.25", so the Borla is smaller in all aspects. I have no idea why the previous owners selected such a large muffler for a replacement unit on the original 1.3L engine, which only used 1.5" diameter tubing from the factory, but whatever:
That's it for now. I've got to revise my midpipe a bit and order a new clamp and some tubing for the new tailpipe. I'm excited that I have an excuse to get a little bit of seat time at the TIG bench, as well. Stay tuned...
I decided it was time to make the exhaust system 100% stainless, so I climbed under the sleeping Samurai and tore the existing stuff off:
I selected a 2" diameter inlet and outlet Borla ProXS muffler, part number 40344. The new case is a tiny bit smaller than the existing unit, also the existing diameter is 2.25", so the Borla is smaller in all aspects. I have no idea why the previous owners selected such a large muffler for a replacement unit on the original 1.3L engine, which only used 1.5" diameter tubing from the factory, but whatever:
That's it for now. I've got to revise my midpipe a bit and order a new clamp and some tubing for the new tailpipe. I'm excited that I have an excuse to get a little bit of seat time at the TIG bench, as well. Stay tuned...
I got the midpipe reworked to fit the new Borla last night. I basically cut the back half off of it and just rewelded in a new straight portion, without a coupler, that was a bit longer:
Midpipe and the Borla installed:
It's resting on a jackstand while I figure out the rear hanger and tailpipe. I just ordered the materials to build it and I'm trying to determine how I want the exit to be. I'm debating between a standard straight back tip or a 45 degree turndown, leaning towards the turndown. There's a really cool Jimny owner in Indonesia that I follow, who has this style exit and I really dig it. Should I replicate? Keep in mind, this is going to be a tiny 2" diameter tube, so it will look different than his...
That's it for now. More updates once the materials arrive.
Midpipe and the Borla installed:
It's resting on a jackstand while I figure out the rear hanger and tailpipe. I just ordered the materials to build it and I'm trying to determine how I want the exit to be. I'm debating between a standard straight back tip or a 45 degree turndown, leaning towards the turndown. There's a really cool Jimny owner in Indonesia that I follow, who has this style exit and I really dig it. Should I replicate? Keep in mind, this is going to be a tiny 2" diameter tube, so it will look different than his...
That's it for now. More updates once the materials arrive.
