Thinking of buying a Sierra with a Gemini deisel engine in it

all the electrical "gizmos"being the weakest point?? yet you blew a head gasket?? what electrical function did that??
the m13a would have to be one of the most primitive engines in a current model vehicle ive seen.
you cant trust those diesels mate, with all those pistons and the like, what you want is steam engine that produces rotary motion.


sounds like a pretty hard undertaking imo.

.........

And looked into the vw 1.9td conversion the kit sold over in the states won't work apparently because of the whole rhd and lhd, but there is a bloke trying to work around it

My understanding is that we never received the 1.9 Diesels with a mechanical pump - In Australia, they're all full electronic. If you read the acme site, you'll see that the electronic motors are a whole lot more hassle/cost.

I also recall someone on here saying that they were chasing a totalled caddy van to do this swap, but it ultimately sold for $6.5K.

In any case, using a late model 1.9TDi motor completely negates the reason the OP wanted a diesel - they will be far more electronically complex than the G13BB in the car, and parts will be very expensive and/or hard to get, (Hard to get if the OP swaps to a mechanical pump, for example, to get rid of the electronics.)

The next problem would be gearing the car down. Acme don't try and do this at all, suggesting (even recommending) a SPOA conversion and 32" tyres with stock gearing to get the engine in it's happy place on the highway. That's not a valid possibility for a Jimny - so you'd have to come up with a way of knocking 1000rpm or so out of the cruise revs through gearing. Swapping in an AW-4 auto might be possible with JR's controller, as they have a very tall overdrive. You'd need a trail tough jackshaft adapter, a complete vitara AW-4 with TCC, and then the appropriate parts from ACME to make this swap work.

All up, I'm guessing that's at the very least a $10K project.

Would it be cool? Sure. Would it grenade front axles/diffs etc if you ever tried to use it off road? Undoubtedly. The biggest issue though, is that you've traded the electronic hassles you're having now for masses of mechancial troubles - an untried swap, non AU delivered parts*, an unusual gearbox/engine combination, and over twice the torque that the driveline was designed for.

I think it defeats the purpose of the swap.

As an aside, I've looked into the power/torque of the older VW diesel 1.9's and I don't think they are better in any way than a G16B., barring fuel economy. Acme don't compare their diesel swaps to a G16B, only a G16A. Drop the G16B numbers into their table and the (older, mechanical pump) swaps just don't stack up. Sure, you can use an electronic motor, drop US$1200 on a tuned mechanical pump, put it all together, and apparently make over 200HP , or something, but again, that's defeating the purpose of what the OP wanted to do, once again, swapping troublesome EFI for a highly strung diesel.

*To get an electronic controlled VW motor into a suzuki requires, IIRC, using mechanical pump engine parts like accessory drives that were never available here.

Just some thoughts. Have a good look here: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/suzuki/9 ... d-3-a.html for some of the complexity of fitting a late model VW diesel.

Steve.