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1st Build Thread Attempt - Cheap Suzi

Nothing to add except you made the right move on the factory intake pump and that the 1.6 computers are known to go bad.
My wife was even like "wtf is that noise" with the "Most Plus" inline pump. :lmao:

A computer may or may not solve this new issue, but jamming wire into the connector harness side to keep the pin in the computer connected isn't a fix so at least it'll take care of that.
 
So is the motor revving out along with the tach? Or the motor falls flat and just the tach jumps?

Does it do this in every gear after 2,000 ripppm's?
 
So is the motor revving out along with the tach? Or the motor falls flat and just the tach jumps?

Does it do this in every gear after 2,000 ripppm's?
No, it honestly feels like the key is being turned off and on really fast. It doesn't rev past 2K ish if there's a load on it.

Free rev, it'll run to 5k or and start breaking up.

It does it in every gear.
 
Didn't read the whole thread.

How does the ignition figure out the crank is spinning? Sensor reading a tone ring on the crank or is there a distributor it reads? I had a fucked up distrbutor that would make the engine cut out at speed under load.

Throw a wide-band in the exhaust. That'll tell you if it's fuel or ignition.
 
I'm not exactly sure. It has a crank position sensor but it only uses that to count misfires.

Myron thinks it could be the distributor, and I can see that with the way the tach acts erratically. I wish I knew how to test it.

Of course, I bought a parts engine the other week that came with a harness, computer, etc. It's a 1996, which has a different distributor than my 98.
 
It runs fine again. :laughing:

Unplugged the distributor to check the plug. Plugged it back in and let it run for no real reason at all. Walked up to it and gave it a rev and it was fine. Drove it around for a while and it was good.

The only other thing I did was put my hand up behind the dash by the computer. No real reason for that either lol.

Who knows.
 
Here's a final pic of how the shitbox turned out.

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I've had a MSD 6AL ignition box that I had in my old Toyota sitting on the shelf for years, and after a NYE escapade including too many wobble pops and relentless disregard for the amount of RPM the engine was turning, I thought it'd be a good idea to install it, just to have the rev limiter.

I'm only mentioning it here because it is a question that gets asked quite a bit on the Samurai FB groups, so here's a quick and dirty rundown of how I wired it.

The majority is self explanatory, hot to hot, ground to ground, switched hot, coil positive and negative, but what about the purple and green coming off the MSD box?

Under the rotor is are two electronic pieces...you need to bypass the igniter. Unscrew the red and white wires from the igniter cut the eyelets off, these will go to the purple and green coming off the MSD box. The green from the box goes to the red and the purple from the box goes to the white.

The picture of the distributor should explain what to do.

Its nice to have control over the limiter again!

Hopefully someone in need will find this info handy someday.

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Thanks for that writeup it cleared up a few issues for me. I've installed a supercharger on the 1.3 so needed a better ignition so I installed an MSD 6AL, followed the included instructions, the Sammi fired right up and idled nicely. But any throttle and it would pop and backfire. Talked to MSD tech couldn't figure out a solution so they had me ship the box back. Got it back a week later with a note saying nothing was wrong with the box. Hooked it back up triple checked the wiring, it fired right up but had the same issues.
I came across this writeup which solved my problem. The MSD instructions indicate to attach the purple wire from the box to the + red wire on the pickup and the green wire from the box to the - white wire on the pickup. Seeing this writeup you show the opposite wiring setup so I swapped the wires and whatta you know problem solved, runs great now.
 
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Thnks for that writeup it cleared up a few issues for me. I've installed a supercharger on the 1.3 so needed a better ignition so I installed an MSD 6AL, followed the included instructions, the Sammi fired right up and idled nicely. But any throttle and it would pop and backfire. Talked to MSD tech couldn't figure out a solution so they had me ship the box back. Got it back a week later with a note saying nothing was wrong with the box. Hooked it back up triple checked the wiring, it fired right up but had the same issues.
I came across this writeup which solved my problem. The MSD instructions indicate to attach the purple wire from the box to the + red wire on the pickup and the green wire from the box to the - white wire on the pickup. Seeing this writeup you show the opposite wiring setup so I swapped the wires and whatta you know problem solved, runs great now.
Hell yeah man! I couldn't find much info on wiring this when I did it, so I figured I'd pass along what I figured out.

I'm curious about your supercharger setup. Whats are the details?
 
It's a Camden roots style charger, I'm currently running 12 lbs of boost on propane. Been hammering on the poor thing for 2 years. It's starting to use a lot of oil so I'm building up a 1.3 for the charger to swap in. Forged rods, forged 8.0-1 comp pistons custom ground cam, ported head, ARP studs, ect. Hoping to have the engine done this month. I'm wanting dial the boost up to 18 - 20 lbs with the new engine.
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Why sc and not turbo? Seems like the poor thing would be using as much h power to spin it as its making :laughing:

20 psi would probably be getting pretty hot with no way to intercooler, no?

Still neat though.
 
TC is terrible for off roading all the power is up high the charger makes power down low right off idle. I've used both and prefer the charger. I live in AZ and have driven the snot out of it in over 120° days with no heat issues. With the cooling effect and high octane,110 of propane I shouldn't have heating issues. Even with the worn out smoking engine it's the fastest Sammi I've ever driven I can actually keep up with traffic.
 
Put about 70 road miles on it yesterday, worked great!

I'm running 4K RPM to do 60 mph. It definitely doesn't struggle to maintain speed. I'm barely touching the throttle to hold 60.

Should I worry about running 4K RPM for an extended period of time? I'm not sure what's safe on these little engines.
 
Put about 70 road miles on it yesterday, worked great!

I'm running 4K RPM to do 60 mph. It definitely doesn't struggle to maintain speed. I'm barely touching the throttle to hold 60.

Should I worry about running 4K RPM for an extended period of time? I'm not sure what's safe on these little engines.

Eh, it’s a bit high but might be okay. At least until the block cracks between cylinder 1 and 2 and eventually kills it. :flipoff2:

It’s a Samurai. I think you have a “right” to be driving slow. :laughing:
 
Put about 70 road miles on it yesterday, worked great!

I'm running 4K RPM to do 60 mph. It definitely doesn't struggle to maintain speed. I'm barely touching the throttle to hold 60.

Should I worry about running 4K RPM for an extended period of time? I'm not sure what's safe on these little engines.

Is that 60 mph by GPS or dash?

You're 5.29s and 6.5 cade I'm guessing? Makes for a pretty low high range, even with 37s apparently.

4k is probably on the high side for cruising, but I doubt you'll hurt it. There's a pair of 4.88 3rds in MD in here right now if highway cruising is a priority.
 
Is that 60 mph by GPS or dash?

You're 5.29s and 6.5 cade I'm guessing? Makes for a pretty low high range, even with 37s apparently.

4k is probably on the high side for cruising, but I doubt you'll hurt it. There's a pair of 4.88 3rds in MD in here right now if highway cruising is a priority.

60mph by GPS, the dash reads about 5mph slower than what the GPS says.

Maybe when I break the t case I'll go back to something with less under drive in high.:laughing:
 
60mph by GPS, the dash reads about 5mph slower than what the GPS says.

Maybe when I break the t case I'll go back to something with less under drive in high.:laughing:

Trail tough/Sumo 6.4 gears are slightly taller. Not sure how much real world difference it makes though.
 
Can already tell these tires are going to work much better than the MTRs. I hated those tires for anything other than driving on the road.

Measured for bump stops so hopefully i dont wreck another set of springs. Im thinking something progressive so next time im pissed tight and decide to jump it in the dunes my teeth dont get knocked out.:homer:

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Got the bumpstops on. At ride height they sit about 2" from the pad. I was worried that not having much uptravel would have them bottoming out on every bump but they don't hit (or you can't tell) while driving. Even bombing through the ditch from the road at a decent speed there's no hard jolt. It did limit my flex a little bit but now at least my springs won't get fucked up and it'll keep my tires out of the fenders.

Was drinking and grilling Ssturday night and decided to jump it repeatedly over my driveway, which was a good test for the bumpstops. I also found out it does awesome brake stands with the 16v, and that the new tires get super sticky when hot.😐😝

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Oh yeah, threw on a steering stabilizer. It drove really well before so I don't think it made much of a difference. I may remove it, I dunno yet.
 
Went wheeling Saturday, nothing too extreme. Samurai had to yank a Jeep and a Mountaineer out of some mud holes in the trail. The new engine rips, much more power than the 1.3.

I need to raise the idle or something. Its so easy to snub this thing out compared to the 1.3. Even climbing over rocks going downhill i had to refire it a few times because i couldnt run all 3 pedals at once. The old 1.3 would crawl anything in low and 1st without having to add throttle.
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Went wheeling Saturday, nothing too extreme. Samurai had to yank a Jeep and a Mountaineer out of some mud holes in the trail. The new engine rips, much more power than the 1.3.

I need to raise the idle or something. Its so easy to snub this thing out compared to the 1.3. Even climbing over rocks going downhill i had to refire it a few times because i couldnt run all 3 pedals at once. The old 1.3 would crawl anything in low and 1st without having to add throttle.
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Did you check compression on all cylinders?
 
Went wheeling Saturday, nothing too extreme. Samurai had to yank a Jeep and a Mountaineer out of some mud holes in the trail. The new engine rips, much more power than the 1.3.

I need to raise the idle or something. Its so easy to snub this thing out compared to the 1.3. Even climbing over rocks going downhill i had to refire it a few times because i couldnt run all 3 pedals at once. The old 1.3 would crawl anything in low and 1st without having to add throttle.

You're running the stock 5 speed, 6.5s and 5.29s?

I'm shocked to hear the 1.3 crawled better. Both of my 1.3s wouldn't crawl for anything. I've never had low axle gears in a samurai though. I'm hoping the 4.88s I have will make a big difference.

My 8v was night and day better at crawling than my 1.3.
 
Ever since I got this engine running, it's had a decent ping under hard load/accel. I don't know why fixing it wasn't higher on my priority list.

Pretty sure it's timed on #1, not 4 like it should be. No big deal though. I didn't throw a timing light on it but the distributor was all the way advanced. Like I've always done on these little 4 cylinders, I backed off the timing and slowly advanced it until it had good/smooth power without pre detonation.

It runs even better now. The symptoms I thought were a bad distributor seemingly were being caused by the timing being so advanced. It even feels more powerful on the low end. I wonder if that'll make the crawling feel better now?
 
Ever since I got this engine running, it's had a decent ping under hard load/accel. I don't know why fixing it wasn't higher on my priority list.

Pretty sure it's timed on #1, not 4 like it should be. No big deal though. I didn't throw a timing light on it but the distributor was all the way advanced. Like I've always done on these little 4 cylinders, I backed off the timing and slowly advanced it until it had good/smooth power without pre detonation.

It runs even better now. The symptoms I thought were a bad distributor seemingly were being caused by the timing being so advanced. It even feels more powerful on the low end. I wonder if that'll make the crawling feel better now?

My samurai was 160:1 on 37s with the 8v, so a little lower than yours. But it would literally idle up a wall. In fact I remember breaking my clutch cable one trip, trying a steep climb, thinking I was going to flip over, so I pushed on the breaks as hard as I could and it not stalling :laughing:
 
My samurai was 160:1 on 37s with the 8v, so a little lower than yours. But it would literally idle up a wall. In fact I remember breaking my clutch cable one trip, trying a steep climb, thinking I was going to flip over, so I pushed on the breaks as hard as I could and it not stalling :laughing:

What set up was that to get the 160:1?
 
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