J18A Powered 1994 Suzuki Swift Sedan
Built by Kevin Armstrong & 'Dave' Crawford.
July 2006
My exsisting swift shell wasn't straight so i decided to buy another car to base the project on. I stumbled upon a working 1.6Glx sedan swift, it was manual and that would save us alot of trouble in the future. The car was stripped and the engine sold on to provide extra funds for the project.
The engine n harness were acquired but no 1.8 ecu could be sourced on the island to use the coil packs etc from the original system, so Dave came up with the idea of using the 1.6/1.3 baleno ecu(which many suzuki 'men' and supposedly top electricians said wouldn't work) and splice the harness into the exsisting 1.6 harness.
So after removing all the original 1.8 electronics from off the engine(only keeping the sensors). WE fitted the flywheel which was a lightened and balanced item i got from Dave, the clucth and pressure plate setup was a mixture of 1.8 and 1.6SOHC parts(which by the way are the same).With that done we moved on to other thngs.
Instead of lifting the engine into the engine bay then bolting up the box we decided to remove the box n fit everything up first, Good thing we did. By the looks of the things the box would have fitted the 1.8 with no problems but it wasn't to be. the box wasnt going down meeting the block flush, so time to take measurements it was later discovered that the 1.8 Baleno and 1.6Swift box both had the same lenght input shaft but the lenght of the splines were different with the 1.8 ones being shorter. So out came the grinder to grind down the splines equal to the 1.8 ones. Tried refitting the box again and it was perfect, and here i was thinking smooth sailing form here on now car should be done by weekend, yeah rite!!
Upon lowering the engine n box into the engine bay it was clear that the engine wouldn't fit the way we had planned without major mods. With the gearbox taking it's original posistion(using a 1.6 swift in an original 1.6glx sedan) the engine would hit the chassis rail. So the chassis had to be persuaded to go back 1 1/2 ", So we had to use a BFH(Big Fucking Hammer) a Hilti(Pablo's idea) and a torch to get the inside of the chassis back the required amount. Finally the engine would drop into the engine bay with the box bolted up.
NB.The engine can fit in the engine bay without mods, but because we didnt want to alter the gearbox position and cut and weld axles with did the above. Also instead of beating the chassis you can cut out the chassis and box it.
With the engine 'fitting' in the engine bay in the correct position 2 of the 3 swift mounts bolted right up, the 3rd had to fabricated. An old engine mount bracket from a 85-87 fwd lancer was used, that was extensively modified to work as the 3rd swift mount. Now a bracket had to be fabricated and weld to the chassis to bolt the mount unto.The bracket was made up of 3x11/2" hollow section and 1/4'' steel plate.Now with the engine finally mounted it was time to do the electrics but first we had to fit the distributor for the 95 efi system to work. What we did was remove the CAS and got a alloy bushing made to reduce the size and bolt the distributor into the solt, Very Simple.
The original idea was to use the car exsisting harness and splie it with the 1.6 baleno engine harness, but with the shell having power windows etc it was proving difficult due to the fact the schematics where lent out n never returned. So i was stuck at that point for about 2weeks with no 'suzuki man' on the island having the schematics or either not willinig to lend us. I had to resort to the internet to try and find some info. Luckily the guys on
http://www.Clubaleno.co.uk pointed me in the right direction and i got the complete manual for every Baleno.
Now with the shcematics in hand we started doing the wiring but 3 wires were still at large and we didn't know where they were suppose to go....by now i was getting cruel as fuck. So the decision was made to strip the Complete harness from the car and use a Complete car Harness from a sedan Baleno(by doing that some weight was saved with the baleno harness cause it uses smaller wires compared to the swift). After a day of installing the harness and fitting back the interior together the car was ready to start. With the first swing of the key it rumbled to life.
Spec:
1840cc engine
Intake Cam timing advanced
1600 swift 3.7:1 gearbox
B16 honda 4-1 extractors (awaiting Aerio 2300 extractor)
2 1/4 exhaust
Nothing else done to the engine
130hp @5200 rpm
113lb/ft@2800rpm
Rite now Ecu is the 'limiting' factor original system limits at 7200rpm mines is 6500rpm.
Thanks To Dave, Pablo and Jerome even though he aint do much.....
Bigger things yet to come......One thing i can stand about it, is that is FWD with so much low down torque.......
ps.document contains some grammatically errors but...i think you will understand.
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you guys are SOOO cool..I have been considering an2.3 in a gti shell..and swapping a H series in as a rwd rearenge setup (use th H20a block, then fit th H27a internals and a turbo charger...hehe horsepower in a "2litre turbo" street legal 900kg or less car)
