[Gwagensteve]

zookiebrat, all due respect, but this is an upside down build. Asking about suspension and axle detail when you either won't disclose or don't know what engine and critically gearbox you're going to run is pointless.

Changing the engine in a sierra bound by a few parameters.

A) Is the gearbox that comes with the motor any good?
B) how much torque does the engine make?
C) Will it rev?
D) Is it heavy?

There's a really good reason why the G16B is so popular. It's light, it offers only a moderate torque increase so it doesn't smash driveline, it revs plenty, and it comes with gearboxes which fit, an critically, with available automatics, both of which are WAAAY over engineered for the motor that's in front of them (AW-4/Trimatic)

If you tell me you want to put 500kg in a tray back sierra (including yourself and all fluids/barwork/etc,) your planning sand work and some distance work, an then you're looking at a 200Nm motor, I'm going to tell you you need a hilux. You're never going to have a happy time holding the sierra driveline together.

It doesn't matter what you do for brakes, steering box, whatever, the car was designed for 450kg payload and 100Nm. Exceeding that will eat into reliability. Sure, you can systematically beef up everything, but if you're telling me a vitara floater is too much work, you're telling me that mystery motor you're going to run is going to need to put our pretty close to stock 1.3 torque or your going to have an unhappy time.

Anyways, IMHO if you want quality advise, I think you need to disclose the engine and especially the gearbox you are planning.

Cheers

Steve.

[missmyljdaze]

^^^
What Steve, Rocky, and Fan said.

A Sierra doesn't even need mods to perform in sand - which is where they excel due to their light weight.
Only thing better is an LJ50, however the fun factor seriously declines if you are in a hurry to get anywhere on the highway.

Best bet for sandwork is going wide track, auto, G13 motor.

Add on your power steering and wide rubber, [actually, with cheese-cutters on proper offset rims you wouldn't even need power steering]
Hook up decent transmission cooling, simple engine cooling mods [viscous fan, re-core, new or maybe an uprated radiator], maybe an oil cooler.
Possibly mount the trans cooler, oil cooler and A/C behind the cab so the radiator doesn't get choked by them.

Keep suspension mods easy - RUF the front, fiddle with springs and shocks.
Chuck in decent soundproofing, aircon,
When you are back in town - drag your son out to visit Rocky and a few of the mob, check out their rigs and pick their brains in person.

The fellas will point out the mistakes they have learnt from and stuff to avoid - which will save you a heap of time, money, effort and disappointment.

Being ex-FIFO, I know how annoying it is when valuable RDO's get chewed up by minor hassles, let alone avoidable mistakes.

stephen

[zookiebrat]

Sorry for the late reply and Thanks Steve and Stephen for you replies. I've been way too busy but will try and catch up with Rocky when I'm free.