MB OM617 powered Wrangler or VW TD powered Sidekick?

Kiwif150

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The Cherokee came out factory diesel here .... the early ones had a 2.5 VM diesel in them. As far as diesel in Suzuki the vitara (tracker) came with a factory Mazda R2 turbo diesel in place , they were very economical and got along the road pretty well. The smaller samurai here was popular in flatdeck and a few guys swapped LD20 nissan engines into them ..... diesel here is about a third cheaper than petrol.
 

homelessduck

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om617 xj is my vote. I have an xj that I will one day do this exact swap on.
 

Brighammer

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The Cherokee came out factory diesel here .... the early ones had a 2.5 VM diesel in them. As far as diesel in Suzuki the vitara (tracker) came with a factory Mazda R2 turbo diesel in place , they were very economical and got along the road pretty well. The smaller samurai here was popular in flatdeck and a few guys swapped LD20 nissan engines into them ..... diesel here is about a third cheaper than petrol.
Earliest(up until 94) had a Renault-sourced 2.1 turbo diesel. The J8S engine.
I have an 85 with one in it and its hard as hell to get engine parts here in the states(I can order anything I want or need from Europe or China though...). the 2.5 came in 95.

The 2.1 is pretty not powerful. Buuuut it is cool. And I get 21 mpg in my XJ. I got it on the road in July and have put 10k on it since then.
 

Brighammer

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I saw you mentioned expedition/overland type use.

I came across this thread when I first started thinking of a diesel swap after I discovered my new-to-me Mazda B2600i had a cracked head.
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/my-mazda-diesel-expedition-project.29762/

I found a Dodge Ram 50 for $900 400 miles away and bought it on December 28th.
I started driving my MazdaBishi around today. I'm pretty stoked on it.

My wife asked me to total up the cost of my conversion today. I'm sitting at just under $2000 including buying both trucks.


I have no regrets.

I'm a cheap ****** and any of the swaps(om617, kubota v-series, vw) that I looked at doing to other rigs(another xj, a 4runner, samurai or sidekick) I'd have that or more between an engine and adapters.

I also did a few things the hard way on my build. Mainly because of lack of research on my part.
 

Brighammer

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That's nothing to shake a stick at. Including vehicle purchase price that brings the swap right down into the cheap category. Lots of people pay that just for a drivetrain and pay that again in adapters!
Tell my wife that! Lol
That was one of my requirements for starting this project: I wanted it to be as damn near a bolt-in swap as it could be, because adapters are expensive, and so are new transmissions and transfer cases.

Our original plan was to save $$ throughout the year and get a brand new crate engine. But then that Dodge popped up on Craigslist and I knew what I had to do.

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saburai

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On another note, the guy who inspired me to diesel up my Mazda also has this: https://cdalejef.smugmug.com/Trucks/My-LWB-Diesel

I am not sure if he built it or not. But I think a lwb Samurai is pretty rad.

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I'm on south India right now and the LWB Sammis are very common, I'll snap a few pictures. If I could only figure out how to get one in my luggage...
 
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