| My 87 Suzuki Samurai |
This page is all about my 87 Suzuki Samurai. I bought it off of Jason for $1100 in June of 2002. He got it in a trade for his Jeep... the guy gave him
this Samurai plus some cash for it. He'd only had it about 2 weeks when I was lucky enough to get it from him. He wanted $1500 for it, but the
transfer case screwed up in it when I test drove it so he took 1100... fortunately Nathan was able to take care of that problem rather quickly.
Anyway, this is no ordinary Samurai... the 1.3L 4 banger under the hood is farily new and only had about 40,000 miles on it according to the
records that came with the thing. However, I'm almost certain it was a junkyard motor so it's hard to say how many were on it. Probably still fairly
new compared to the rest of the thing, which had about 170,000 on it. It had a 4 into 1 header than ran down into a 2.25" turbo mufflered side
outlet exhaust. The 5 speed that was in it was pretty rough, but I've come to find that transmissions are a really common problem in modified
Samurais. I can't complain about the gas milage though, it gets about 25mpg on average. Unfortunately that gas mileage comes at a price; this
sucker was very slow and rather gutless, it would fall prey to the ice cream truck in a drag race and it tops out around 75mph (70 when you have
the top off).
The suspension had been redone and it had extra tall shackles; which gave 1 3/4" of lift over stock. It also had Rancho RS5000 shocks all the way
around. To complete the rig were a set of aftermarket steel rims (15"X7" and 30X9.5R15 Dakota RVT all-terrain tires on it, which were monsters
compared to the stock ones. Unfortuantely all the lift, big tires, and manual steering makes the wheel a bit touchy, and it rides like a brick wagon.
I picked up an 88 Samurai for a parts donor on 3/7/2005; junked it after stripping the engine, transmission, transfer case, and a few other odds
and ends. I should have kept the axles too but hindsight is 20/20 they say.
Below are a couple of pics of it the day after I bought it. As you'll notice after looking through newer pictures it looks much different now that I've
modded it more and painted it.
this Samurai plus some cash for it. He'd only had it about 2 weeks when I was lucky enough to get it from him. He wanted $1500 for it, but the
transfer case screwed up in it when I test drove it so he took 1100... fortunately Nathan was able to take care of that problem rather quickly.
Anyway, this is no ordinary Samurai... the 1.3L 4 banger under the hood is farily new and only had about 40,000 miles on it according to the
records that came with the thing. However, I'm almost certain it was a junkyard motor so it's hard to say how many were on it. Probably still fairly
new compared to the rest of the thing, which had about 170,000 on it. It had a 4 into 1 header than ran down into a 2.25" turbo mufflered side
outlet exhaust. The 5 speed that was in it was pretty rough, but I've come to find that transmissions are a really common problem in modified
Samurais. I can't complain about the gas milage though, it gets about 25mpg on average. Unfortunately that gas mileage comes at a price; this
sucker was very slow and rather gutless, it would fall prey to the ice cream truck in a drag race and it tops out around 75mph (70 when you have
the top off).
The suspension had been redone and it had extra tall shackles; which gave 1 3/4" of lift over stock. It also had Rancho RS5000 shocks all the way
around. To complete the rig were a set of aftermarket steel rims (15"X7" and 30X9.5R15 Dakota RVT all-terrain tires on it, which were monsters
compared to the stock ones. Unfortuantely all the lift, big tires, and manual steering makes the wheel a bit touchy, and it rides like a brick wagon.
I picked up an 88 Samurai for a parts donor on 3/7/2005; junked it after stripping the engine, transmission, transfer case, and a few other odds
and ends. I should have kept the axles too but hindsight is 20/20 they say.
Below are a couple of pics of it the day after I bought it. As you'll notice after looking through newer pictures it looks much different now that I've
modded it more and painted it.
Samurai Pictures & Videos
| Fixes, Mods, Etc. |
| BFG All Terrain TAs (32X11.5R15 ) mounted on US Wheel Series 7015X8" rims & 2.25" lift shackles (Summer 2005) |
Mud drag video from June 2005 (.MOV format 5mb)
Swamp run video from March 2006 (.MOV format 10mb)