Thirst for Power: 16v Samurai Build

Redneck Rigger

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Location
Lawndale NC
The swap has been done, but I might as well start from square one...

A little backstory on the zuk:
My cousin bought it off craigslist, from a guy in DanvilleV irginia for $1300. Windjammer, bikini top, bootyfab lift shackles, nearly bald 31" bfg all terrains, primer, pure stock 1.3L. It would barely pull 31's with the anemic 1.3 and stock gears, so he purchased a set of Walmart cheapo 235 wranglers. He used it briefly, then traded it to a coworker for her Mercedes 300SD. She used it briefly (girled it up in the process), and then traded it to a used car dealership in Shelby for a Saturn.

Now here is where I pick it up. I get a call from my cousin saying he saw it for sale there. I go up there, take a look at it, and drive it home for $1100 two days later (the cheap tires are still nearly new at this point). It was overheating , badly, had "scoot about" wrote on the tailgate in pink and purple marker, 4 cheapass computer speakers hooked to the radio, a tigger doll hanging from one side of the windjammer, a piglet doll on the other side. To beat it all, the passenger side seat had been removed, and a seat out of a minivan was just sitting in the passenger side, not attached in any way, shape or form.

I went through the cooling system, replaced a few hoses, water inlet o-ring, and stuck in a spare samurai radiator we had laying around. The old one felt like it was full of cement. I Installed a junk passenger side samurai seat out of the parts pile, why should I have all the fun? Gotta have room for the the bitches I can pick up in this ugly pimpwagen! :flipoff2: It became my DD while I was having gears installed in the rear axle of the zj.

Here she is back drivable and clean shortly after I purchased her. Nevermind my younger brother being a jackass, this was on an eventful day. :D

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The whole family. Mine, my dad's, my younger brother's.
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At exactly this point, is where I fell in love with it.


Got a little creative with a dozen or so rattlecans one morning after work.
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Cosmetic mod to the piss-ant 1.3
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Doing a coolant flush on my samurai and my good pal Tim's
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Camping up on Mt.Mitchel with the crowd shortly thereafter
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NC80 on the camping trip-
Myself-
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Nick-
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Ian-
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My buddy is doing a 3RZ swap in his right now! 1.6 is awesome for stock tires
 
Got a little too brave one day at Lake Houser. Hit a motorcorss ramp in one direction two or three times and got some decent air. Decided I wanted to be a badass and hit the same ramp backwards...
Got some decent air, yeah, and whiplash. Lawn-darted it at 25+ mph, ruined what was left of the OEM front bumper and bent a front leaf spring. Drove on the broke spring for quite some time, well, here until a month ago actually.
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My buddy Nick, Brandon (who's 4dr eventually, after much of his frustration, became the 16v motor and harness donor), and myself on the way to Uwharrie last thanksgiving weekend.
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gald to see someones getting some work done on their samurai haha....if i ever get the time to get mine back together we'll have to get up and go ride, shooting for december at this point haha
 
Some video from Uwharrie.

Lake Houser
 
Photos of the CV Carb adapter I brewed before the last Thanksgiving Uwharrie trip, made a similar setup for Nick's. Oem carb took a crap, impossible to repair.

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gald to see someones getting some work done on their samurai haha....if i ever get the time to get mine back together we'll have to get up and go ride, shooting for december at this point haha


Yessir we will. Not sure how I'll keep up on 235's, but I'll damned sure try!:D
Holler at me if you need a hand!
 
My buddy is doing a 3RZ swap in his right now! 1.6 is awesome for stock tires

That's gonna be a lot of juice in a zuk! I considered several swaps, 20v4age, sr20, 4.3 chevy, 1.8 zuk, but wound up going the 16v route because there was so much documentation on it, and I wanted to keep it as light as reasonably possible. That and the 16v only costed me a little bit of labor in trade:D , and I had an entire vehicle to pull parts from. That's what sold me in the end.
 
Donor tear down! I did all the wiring myself, created an removable "engine only harness" to help should I decide to swap for different fuel management at a later time, or decide to swap the engine and harness to another chassis, and removed all the carb'ed 1.3 related harness from the samurai. There are only 6 wires that connect to the oem harness for +12v run, +12v start, +12v memory, Tachometer, and CEL. These were all done with bullet connectors and leftover plugs from the sidekick harness to make removal easy should I decide to do so.

I used the manual located here and made changes as i saw fit to reach my end goal, as these instruction mounted the new ecm in the oem samurai loacation, and integrated the harnesses, which i had no desire to do. http://www2.izook.com/wp-content/te...ng Diagram and Instructions for 92-95 16v.pdf

Stripping down! Unplugged the basic engine harness from the kick'
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Pulled the 16v (I'll spare the minior details) and all the accessories
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Went through the process of labeling what engine wiring was left for my own benefit and help keep me from getting confused. All of the remaining wiring was integrated into the chassis and underdash harness, basically looked like a rats nest. Bagged remaining ignition components.
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Remaining harness that need to be dissasembled :eek: Took the harness apart starting at the ecm plugs by removing pins, traced wires, removed them, bagged them together in groups, and then labeled their position on the ecm plug and what sensor or plugs they terminate at. Reused the kick' fuse panel to provide my addition fused connection for the ecm mem power, fuel pump, and my radio. Tons of space still left in the panel should I decide to add more circuits.
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Harness dissasembled, all necessary wires/plugs bagged and tagged
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If Im doing the 16v swap, may as well do power steering too. Did this a little differently than most. I opted out of a power steering box wedge/plate mount for several reasons, one being I'm a cheapass, another being that I didn't want to wait on shipping, and another that I really didnt like the amount of threads holding the p/s box in after using on of the adapters.

So, i drilled a through hole the frame large enough to create a 7/16 tapped hole, and then enlarged the hole on the oustide of the frame to be a tight clearance fit on a 7/16 bolt.
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Then I threaded 3, 7/16 grade5 bolts from the outside of the frame into the inside, and welded the head of the bolts to the outside of the frame, creating a stud that the secured both the inside and outside of the frame rail together. I'm ashamed of these welds, but that's what too much :beer: on a Saturday will do to me.

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Mounted up the steering box with Nylocks

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Rag joint would no longer work since the kick' steering box sits at a slight angle compared to the samurai box. Shortened the steering shaft, cut one of the universal joints off of the kick' shaft and replaced the rag joint with it.
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To keep form having to use an insane amount of lift, I swapped the 1.3 oil pan and pickup onto the 1.6 16v.

Adapted the pickup tube by cutting the 1.6 tube about 1" from where it meets the oil pump intake on the block and welding the 1.3 tube onto it.
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Drilled and tapped a 1/4-20 hole on the #4 main bearing to mount the pickup tube to. Cut a small slit in the mount for the 1.3 to give me a little more angle, welded it, little red loctite, and mounted it up.
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Completed pickup tube swap

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Little addition to the oil pan for possible future "upgrades"

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Oil pan painted the same color as the exterior and bolted up

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Slid the new motor into place, no hiccups. Used the Trail Tough adapter kit and pass side frame end motor mount bracket. Installed a stage 2 low range clutch kit and had the flywheel resurfaced.

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Broke numerous motor mounts with the 1.3, wound up going the old dodge 318 motor mount route then. Re-used then for the 16v. They lowered the motor just enough to clear the hood. No body lift or hood modification needed.
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Yessir we will. Not sure how I'll keep up on 235's, but I'll damned sure try!:D
Holler at me if you need a hand!
Yeah I will for sure if I ever know when I'm actually working on it haha, usually just 30 minutes here and maybe a couple hours there....in all honesty, I had just as much if not more fun on the bald 31s as on 36s now
 
Yeah I will for sure if I ever know when I'm actually working on it haha, usually just 30 minutes here and maybe a couple hours there....in all honesty, I had just as much if not more fun on the bald 31s as on 36s now

That's kinda what I'm after. The zj is only on 33's, but after installing the limited slips and gears, for the most part its just point and shoot. Removed a lot of the challenge and a lot of the fun. Right now, the zuk is SUA on OME springs and .5" lift shackles. I'm going to leave it there in the interest of good sport, step up to 30"-33" tires and generous fender trimming. I don't want to alter the way it handles too much and get rid of alot of the initial fun like in the zj. It's just too much damn fun as it is, and the 16v just made it stupid fun.

If I want to go big, i can always do more work to the zj or I'll probably honestly get another zj. My unibody is beat to hell now, and a motor swap on an obd2 is a pain to get inspected.
 
That's kinda what I'm after. The zj is only on 33's, but after installing the limited slips and gears, for the most part its just point and shoot. Removed a lot of the challenge and a lot of the fun. Right now, the zuk is SUA on OME springs and .5" lift shackles. I'm going to leave it there in the interest of good sport, step up to 30"-33" tires and generous fender trimming. I don't want to alter the way it handles too much and get rid of alot of the initial fun like in the zj. It's just too much damn fun as it is, and the 16v just made it stupid fun.

If I want to go big, i can always do more work to the zj or I'll probably honestly get another zj. My unibody is beat to hell now, and a motor swap on an obd2 is a pain to get inspected.

yeah cant go wrong that way....im actually almost thinking about selling mine after i get it back together and right and get another one and just put in back on yjs and 31s....i had a lot of fun with that
 
Once again, moving the power steering pump was an afterthought. Ian had an adapter to mount the pump higher on the motor. I took it, did a little measuring, little cutting and welding, and wound up not needing the adapter after all. Little welding with my rigger up tig setup.
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Power steering cooler robbed of a zj at the junkyard. I love these things and they're dirt cheap.
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Removed the fuel pump assembly mounting ring from the tracker fuel tank and welded it to the samurai tank. (after filling it up with water) Extended the fuel pump bracket about 1" to use on the deeper samurai tank.
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Ready to mount up
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Now for the fun stuff. I got so involved with creating the new harness, I didn't document much of it, just got a few basic pictures.

Decided the mount the ecm behind the dash on the drivers side, similar to its original location on the sidekick. This also ensured the the original wires from the sidekick would be more than long enough. Mounted it as high possible to lower the possibility of getting it wet. Drilled holes through the firewall and welded nuts to the backside. Reassembled the harness starting at the ecm, pin by pin. The only thing I regret about this is that after wrapping both the chassis harness and engine harness, its awful cramped back there. If I ever need to service or repair any of it, I'll need to remove the dash.
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The mess of wires in the engine bay, hell to sort out. The approx $300 to have this done is well worth the money, but I wanted to learn to do it myself. Stripped away all the wiring for the carb'ed 1.3 at the same time.
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Mounted the coil to one of the ecm bolts protruding through the firewall, and welded a stud for the lower mount.
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Completed engine wiring and cleaned up chassis harness
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Re-used the sidekick distribution block, really cleans things up.
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Detail of where everything passes through the firewall and coil mounting
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Had some issues where I had to extend the wiring on the fuel pump. To keep from having to drop the tank yet again, i cut the rear floor pan up. Its rusted all to hell anyway. Made a removable plate to go over it.

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Samurai problems, bent oem leaf springs...
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Old Man Emu replacements
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The best zuk shocks are cheap shocks...
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Front bumper build work. All done with an AC/DC stick welder with dry tig rig with the exception of the outer angled pieces

Mounts
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D-rings
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Complete, less turn signals and paint
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Installed, turn signals, and paint
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