[watermouse]

You mean the J20B. Totally different engine. Even the block and bellhousing pattern are different.

[fordem]

Nope - I mean J20A.

There is a "newer" version of the J20A which was used from 2005 onwards - it's used in the SX4 and the 2.0 NGV - easy way to tell which of the two you have is the location of the cam position sensor, early versions have it on the back of the head, driven off the exhaust cam, late versions have it on the top, near the back of the intake cam.

[fordem]

Double post.

[watermouse]

Ok,(getting a bit off topic now,) I was aware the early SX4 used the J20A but wasn't aware of those differences.
When did they move to J20B?
There is an SX4 awd sitting in my neighbours driveway which I have had a real close look at. Plastic Variable Geometry Inlet Manifold, VVT etc.
2010, J20b on the plate.

[henno]

There was a J20A for sale on here a while back that was out of an SX4 and the sump arrangement and all sorts were very much different to the version in the Vits/GVs.

[fordem]

I think the SX4 got the J20B in 2010, at least in the US, not sure about Australia.

Henno - transverse engines are set up quite differently to longitudinal mount - even when they are interchangeable - oil pump pickups, oil pans, intake & exhaust manifolds, sometimes the engine mounts. In most (but not all) cases you can swap the accessories over and drop the engine in - don't try this with Mitsubishi engines though.

[vet 180]

sideways wrote:

FWIW the Vitara manual is an Aisin Warner AR5, better known as the Toyota R15x which many people run behind 2JZs and 1UZs. As an example of a fairly similar engine/weight/use, Toyota used the R151 behind the turbo 22r Hiluxes in the U.S.

Turboing a car can be done on the cheap but it involves a lot more thought, experimenting and risk. It helps if your time has no value to you.

For a turbo J20a on the cheap I'd look at;

TD04l-13T (WRX/Forester turbo) good condition second hand $150
Oil/water lines and adapters $100
Steam pipe log manifold with home made manifold flange $200 inc machining, bolts and gaskets.
Intake piping (no intercooler, stock airbox) $50
Downpipe into stock/existing exhaust $100
Boost gauge eBay special $20

On top of that you'l likely need to upgrade the fuel pump, perhaps a new clutch ect.

Yeah you can do it cheaper with dodgy old T3s, J pipes and so on but the above is reliable and the turbo is modern.

That's the easy bit. From here it's a choose your own adventure, as I see it you have 3 options to get it running properly.



I think it's important for a Suzuki to have the right gear on sand, I don't think that's an issue in a manual J20a Vitara though. My Jimny (pre vvt) would have been much more capable for dune climbing as a manual because the auto has such wide ratios and the motor had such a narrow power band (4000+ or nothing). Your only option was 6700rpm (limiter at 6750) in 1st low at walking pace because it doesn't have enough power to pull a higher gear. You couldn't get a run up in second low and knock it back into first because it wont down shift until it's under 3000rpm so you're screwed either way. That's not to say it wasn't capable in dunes, just it could have been so much better.

Yeah the Jim could do with s 6speed auto. I drive a lot of bigger dunes where you need more speed and started out locking it into 1st high, but had the same issues you where having. On the first couple drives I tried sticking it in D low and it was terrible and the trans would hunt and you would get stuck. I went home and played with the gearing calculator and realized that 2nd low is a bee dick lower than first high and 3rd low was right in the middle of 1-2nd meaning I could change up as some dunes when in high range I would be hitting limited in first but still would bog going into second. So now I run low gears manually normally flicking between second and 3rd, but occasionally pop it back into first if I need that little extra at the top of a dune. If your having the same issues in low range then not much you can do need more torque.

[sideways]

vet 180 wrote:

Yeah the Jim could do with s 6speed auto. I drive a lot of bigger dunes where you need more speed and started out locking it into 1st high, but had the same issues you where having. On the first couple drives I tried sticking it in D low and it was terrible and the trans would hunt and you would get stuck. I went home and played with the gearing calculator and realized that 2nd low is a bee dick lower than first high and 3rd low was right in the middle of 1-2nd meaning I could change up as some dunes when in high range I would be hitting limited in first but still would bog going into second. So now I run low gears manually normally flicking between second and 3rd, but occasionally pop it back into first if I need that little extra at the top of a dune. If your having the same issues in low range then not much you can do need more torque.

Yeah, yours being a VVT has closer gearbox ratios, lower low range and a more flexible engine. A much better setup. 1st high and 2nd low are just way out of reach for mine on big/long dunes. For general sand driving it's fine. It's just big/full power dune driving that it makes hard work of.

Mine would hunt between gears pretty much anytime you were offroad, it's just tuned to upshift to early. The gearbox and engine in were very poorly matched, it desperately need a "power" button or just different tuning. IMO it shifts to early on the road too, it's like it thinks it's hooked up to a more powerful motor.

I agree, not going to 4th in low is annoying. It'd be much more annoying in yours with the lower low range. It's not the 4wd switch, I think the TCM knows from the VSS as it senses gearbox output shaft speed and there is a VSS input. I don't see why it would need both other than being able to sense low range. Could be something else more simple, it's been ages since I looked into it and that was just for my model with the stick.

[vet 180]

sideways wrote:

vet 180 wrote:

Yeah the Jim could do with s 6speed auto. I drive a lot of bigger dunes where you need more speed and started out locking it into 1st high, but had the same issues you where having. On the first couple drives I tried sticking it in D low and it was terrible and the trans would hunt and you would get stuck. I went home and played with the gearing calculator and realized that 2nd low is a bee dick lower than first high and 3rd low was right in the middle of 1-2nd meaning I could change up as some dunes when in high range I would be hitting limited in first but still would bog going into second. So now I run low gears manually normally flicking between second and 3rd, but occasionally pop it back into first if I need that little extra at the top of a dune. If your having the same issues in low range then not much you can do need more torque.

Yeah, yours being a VVT has closer gearbox ratios, lower low range and a more flexible engine. A much better setup. 1st high and 2nd low are just way out of reach for mine on big/long dunes. For general sand driving it's fine. It's just big/full power dune driving that it makes hard work of.

Mine would hunt between gears pretty much anytime you were offroad, it's just tuned to upshift to early. The gearbox and engine in were very poorly matched, it desperately need a "power" button or just different tuning. IMO it shifts to early on the road too, it's like it thinks it's hooked up to a more powerful motor.

I agree, not going to 4th in low is annoying. It'd be much more annoying in yours with the lower low range. It's not the 4wd switch, I think the TCM knows from the VSS as it senses gearbox output shaft speed and there is a VSS input. I don't see why it would need both other than being able to sense low range. Could be something else more simple, it's been ages since I looked into it and that was just for my model with the stick.

Yeah if I use D it just hunts and is useless in sand, literally bogs you to a stall even if you had momentum/speed. I do know from experience that it will hold in gear when you use them on the new set up, no idea pre vvt. I know for a fact as I was deep in the desert in 1st high. Had a couple of cracks at this dune, it was a tricky bugger for the jim as it was something like 100m 10deg slop, 20m 30deg, then back to 20 for a couple hundred meters then like 30 fo a blast and just keep going. Really difficult in the Jim as there is no down hill to gain momentum. I knew if I changed to 2nd it would bog as I was always climbing and as you said under 4000rpm your in trouble so just kept it in first and held it on the limiter in parts of the dune just to make sure iIdidn't loose revs or momentum, felt like an eternity although I am sure it was only 5-10 seconds.

[Jezza86]

sounds like something easily fixed with NOS

[Gwagensteve]

Jezza86 wrote:

sounds like something easily fixed with NOS

I completely agree, except that would push the torque waaaay past the autos torque ceiling.

[vet 180]

Jezza86 wrote:

sounds like something easily fixed with NOS

Ha funny you should say that, a guy I know in an XJ couldn't make it up big red so fitted nos he got up no issue after.

I personally wouldn't fit nos to the Jim, I spend hours out in the dunes on an average drive, I would be going through a bottle every drive. Would become very expensive. I would consider turbo though as I like the way the torque delivery is in the dunes

[Jezza86]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Jezza86 wrote:

sounds like something easily fixed with NOS

I completely agree, except that would push the torque waaaay past the autos torque ceiling.

depends how quickly you put the nos in, and how much gearing you have after the gearbox.

geard portals for example. even protects the axles.

[Gwagensteve]

I'm going to disagree with that. The reason the car needs more torque is to hold a taller gear to carry more speed up the dunes (to maintain momentum) In this case load on the auto is higher as torque is added. It doesn't matter how quickly it's in - once it's in, the auto is seeing the load.

If the car was heavily geared downstream of the auto, added torque won't help the situation - the whole point of adding torque is to hold a taller gear for more speed - therefore, we're back to the first problem.

My car is an example of this - it's so low geared I can't usefully left foot brake, it's hard to stop the car in low range, and it will bang all over the limiter in 4th low pretty much anywhere. There is no point in me adding power unless I make the gearing taller, and therefore that would add load to the auto. (not that it would bother my AW-4, but it's still an example of the effect of deeper gearing)

[Jezza86]

nos can control when and where the torque is. it doesn't have to increase the peak, but it can increase the usable torque range by increasing output at lower rpm's, allowing you to snap the next gear, or use high range without the aforementioned bogging after shifting up a gear.

in short, just like a isusu D-Max, you can have a flater torque curve that works within the limitations of maximum torque handeling capacity of the box.

not saying it wont overheat, more energy will mean more heat.

[Gwagensteve]

The Jimny auto box is already at its torque peak with an M13 behind it. I'd suggest it's why Suzuki have never fitted a bigger motor to the Jimny.

That being the case, No2 would only being added to maintain 110Nm higher into the power band. It would be such as small increase it wouldn't be worth it. - I don't believe torque falls away the badly.
It's my understanding that No2 should be added below around 3K due to stress on the motor (high bearing load due to prolonged periods at TDC.) Additionally, high torque loads at low RPM are really bad for autos.

All up, I reckon it's a really specific application for NOS.

[30ONA]

Does anyone have any idea what safe boost (daily driving) a J20A can handle with an aftermarket ECU and stock fuel system?

Running a bunch of assumed numbers and calcs, 500cc roots style supercharger at 5psi max, haltec ecu dunno tuned, no intercooler (for easier numbers, but I would include a small side mount in real life) results in about 20% increase in power. Does that seems reasonable.? Could the stock fuel system support that?

[ZUZUKI]

This is one of those pointless exercises.
Unless you have A LOT of time, money, emotional attachment blah, blah to your current car, sell it & buy something Suzuki already made - a GV with more power - the H25A V6.
If that is not enough, find an XL-7 & rob it of it's H27A.
If you want more than that, sell your car again, as you've got the wrong one.
A 10 x easier, more reliable, more everything result than trying to boost a J20.
Sorry to put a dampener on your ideas, but it just doesn't make sense.

Oh, and no, very, very unlikely that the stock fuel system has got +20% of headroom.

Rgs, Michael

[30ONA]

You don't need to put a damper on my idea. I can do that myself, I know it won't be easy or cheap, I just want to know can it work. I didn't ask should I do it.
Your saying the fuel system is unlikely to cope, so there is a chance, or are you guessing?

On the v6, they seem to be a problem engine, timing chains and many more parts that a4cyl. Do they swap easily or do you have to change wiring looms, ecu, bell housings etc? Sounds like a much bigger job to me. Also if I sold my car I couldn't afford to get another one worth all the same mods. So I'd be going backwards before going forwards.

[Joe]

V6 will bolt in but will need V6 gearbox and wiring loom, have a look on you tube the Arabs have heaps of boosted j20s over there so can be done

[Gwagensteve]

Everyone, including yourself is guessing. You know it's not going to be cheap, so invest in the idea - get the car on the dyno and confirm injector duty cycle at full load/high rpm, then you'll have a concrete answer. Whilst your'e doing it, put the dyno on and nice slow ramp rate and have a really good look at coolant and oil temperature.

Some cross checking of fuel pump part # with a late XL7 will tell you if the pump can supply ~140Kw worth of fuel, or provide a drop in replacement. Some more searching will likely give you an injector part # for your existing motor, and you might well be able to determine flow rate. I'd also do some cross checking with Kizashi J24 injectors. RRM offer a (slightly janky looking) turbo kit for the Kizashi J24 and claim 50% more power with apparently stock J24 injectors.

If you're already prepared to invest in aftermarket management and the dyno time to tune it, it seems a very small step to put bigger injectors in the car and/or a rising rate FPR and/or a higher flow pump. Almost every dyno power run I've ever seen has shown than the fuel system becomes the limiting factor on the dyno. In a 4WD, you're going to want a nice conservative tune which means on the richer side to try and keep the engine cool.

find a cross reference for the radiator between the 2.7V6 and the 2.0 litre. I wouldn't be surprised if they're different. You're going to be making V6 power at least with the J20 so you need to shed a v6 amount of heat. Likewise, intercooling will be critical. I don't know what a side mount intercooler is, but you're definitely going to want one, because you don't want to be adding heat to the intake side. I'd probably suggest a water/air intercooler because it can result in very short piping runs (such as sandwiching the core between the supercharger and the manifold) but you're obviously going to need to package a water pump and reservoir and radiator for the intercooler, which will be something like the size of an AC condenser.

Some other complications - Tuning and timing control is going to be fairly critical. These engines run 9.7:1 compression, which is relatively high (the H25 is 9.5) so with added boost, you may find the engine really requires exclusively 98 octane to prevent detonation. Obviously unlike a turbo, you can't knock boost right down - you're stuck at whatever the supercharger is producing, the limit would be to massively retard timing, richen the A/F and keep the boot out of it. I guess you could play with a bypass and clutch, but that's more complexity and messing around.

Boosting an engine which has a relatively small aftermarket following is always a bit of a leap into the unknown. Additionally, there's no boosted application of the block to compare to (bigger oil pump, oil squirters under the pistons etc)

There is a big, big difference between adding boost to a (petrol) 4WD compared to a (petrol) road car. When boost is added to a road car, the car typically already has adequate power to do the job it's designed to do. The boost is there for fun, and the car only requires boost for very short periods. My two boosted road cars are examples of this - I have an FG XR6T and a GTSR, and they're already fairly rapid and torquey in their unbolted application. I'm rarely deep into the throttle for more than 5-6 seconds, so it's easy to keep a lid on coolant and oil temperatures, for example. If I put a 3 tonne caravan on the back of the falcon though, and drove it hard, i might see the car on boost for long, long periods. It wasn't designed for that application.

With our 4WD's, we tend to do something like the 3 tonne caravan example. We take a car with marginal power/weight (like a J20GV) then load it to close/over GVM, then put bigger tyres on it, and then raise it, reducing aerodynamics. It's now significantly underpowered and typically operating out of it's intended rev range because of the messed up gearing. We do all that, then drive it up the beach on a hot day. We're already loading the engine up to the limit of it's capacity, then we add boost.

that's why there's apparently lots of power to be had by boosting small petrol engines. It's also why factory turbo petrol road cars can be "tuned" to provide heaps more power than standard- because the tuner is using up all the headroom the manufacturer engineered in for hot weather/bad fuel/full boost for extended periods*.

It's also why we've never seen a turbo petrol (actual 4WD, not an "suv") 4WD in the Australian market. Once you try and engineer enough headroom into the cooling systems/manage under bonnet heat in low range etc, you can't make them work with acceptable reliability.

*Interesting story about that. I was at the Bosch tech centre in Clayton many years ago when the BA XR6T had just some out. Bosch had been doing spark plug development for the car. They'd had them on the dyno on such slow ramp rates they'd got hot enough the back bumpers had melted off of them. That's manufacturer headroom. The rates were something like 100rpm per minute or something insane - literally like driving the car at maximum load for minutes on end. It's just not really possible in a powerful road car engineered for Australian conditions. But in a GV loaded for a camping trip on a hot day on a beach, it absolutely is.

I'm not telling you it's a bad idea, It's an interesting idea. I am telling you it's very, very expensive and time consuming to achieve in a 4WD with anything like factory reliability. You'll need to be prepared for setbacks, broken stuff and lots of head scratching. Will the end result be better than a V6 GV? Maybe, I'm no great fan of the H25, I don't think it's well suited to being a 4WD engine. Will it make any financial sense? None at all. The finished job will exceed the price of trading to a car which would do the job you wanted the boosted J20 to do. No doubt.

[Gwagensteve]

Joe wrote:

Arabs have heaps of boosted j20s over there so can be done

From what I've seen (and I might be wrong) it looks like their emphasis is drag racing up dunes and crackle bang tunes, less on longevity.

[30ONA]

Thanks Steve, good perspective thanks. I have it booked for a stock dyno run next week, but didn't know about doing the slow run to see the duty cycle. I'll talk to the tuner about it thanks.
I have seen electrically clutched sc, turn on and off like an ac compressor, thus only use it for short periods. Not many of those sc around though. Perhaps a selectable bypass on the intake could do a similar job.

[30ONA]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Some cross checking of fuel pump part # with a late XL7 will tell you if the pump can supply ~140Kw worth of fuel, or provide a drop in replacement. Some more searching will likely give you an injector part # for your existing motor, and you might well be able to determine flow rate. I'd also do some cross checking with Kizashi J24 injectors. RRM offer a (slightly janky looking) turbo kit for the Kizashi J24 and claim 50% more power with apparently stock J24 injectors.

Is there some free software or website I can use to compare parts from models?

[Gwagensteve]

Google?

I'm not aware of a free source of the parts software Suzuki use. I know Fordem has quite good access for cross checking part #, but it can be pretty time consuming.

You're the one paying for dyno time - tell the dyno operator what you want to achieve. A basic power run will give you injector duty cycle information (so long as that's being monitored via OBDII or similar scan tool) but as for trying to work out how much headroom you have in the cooling system etc, you'll need to talk to them about loading the car up and holding it or giving it a slow ramp rate to build heat. This isn't the way dynos are normally used, but it is how a 4WD is used, and that's what you're trying to simulate.

You can't draw air through a roots blower, if it's not spinning it doesn't pass air. Clutched superchargers are used with a bypass. I think this is how toyota setup some of their early blowers (4AGZE, 1GGZE) because idle control was difficult in the old days with limited timing control (distributors) and cable throttles.

[Joe]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Joe wrote:

Arabs have heaps of boosted j20s over there so can be done

From what I've seen (and I might be wrong) it looks like their emphasis is drag racing up dunes and crackle bang tunes, less on longevity.

Yeah but it fuckin looks cool