Vivaspeed's completely unnecessary kei spec Jimny project

[vivaspeed]

So after many years of wanting a kei car of some sort and also a Jimny, and much exchange of banter and links between myself and my old fleet manager over many years about such vehicles, I became aware of a very cheap kei spec Jimny on Trademe.  I thought I'd keep an eye on the auction and see how it went - I didn't need it, but I would be interested for the right price.

Anyway, it was pretty rough - seller was pretty honest about the state of it - blown head gasket, cracked windscreen, and it was not in a condition to win any concours events.  It was in the top of the South Island so no way I could check it out, but it only came into the country in 2022, and had current reg and wof so I figured it couldn't be too bad.

I managed to win the auction for a very sharp price (after a painful '$10 increment every two minutes' bidding war with another bidder).  A price sharp enough to justify fixing it or even throwing it in the bin if it was no good.  The seller was a GC and managed to hook me up with his mate who was coming over to Wellington and could bring it over on the ferry for me on a trailer.

First impressions - pretty rough, the interior was disgusting but overall a solid car.  It was definitely BHG with water and clouds coming out of the exhaust so it got driven all of 10 metres onto the trailer.

Everything about it is so tiny, especially the engine - a baby 3 cylinder 660cc turbo K6A.  According to the internet they produce 47kW so this has now probably replaced my white Viva as being the least powerful car in the fleet.

Homeward bound to see what kind of junk I'd managed to buy.  Everything needed a decent clean and going over to understand how good or bad it really was.

Oh yeah, it also had three different air fresheners hanging from the mirror and a collection of tasteless stickers on the rear winder.

[vivaspeed]

I got it home and unloaded without any problems and dumped it in the driveway.  After sorting a few other things that needed doing, I thought I would move it into the workshop and start to clean it up a bit.  

Problem #1 - it wouldn't start.  Despite starting several times already that morning, it did not want to turn over.  It wasn't a starter problem and felt like a seized engine so I suspected it may be hydrolocked given how much water was coming out earlier. Cool. It could stay where it was and I'd clean it first.

What had I bought?

A 2001 Suzuki Jimny 'Land Venture' edition which is some sort of trim spec.  It seems to have better wheels than the standard kei spec Jimny, and cool green upholstery.  It also has cool checked floor mats.

 

The previous owner must have done some regular offroading because there was the remnants of a CB radio install, extra lighting and also a 12v compressor mounted in the back, and the bodywork was extensively scratched.

The bonnet is dented and scratched in a way I can't figure out how they did it, the roof has been resprayed a different shade of green and the original edges have got a lot of sunburn/clear coat failure.  The original roof rails have been removed leaving only their sockets.  The spare wheel cover is also dented which is a shame but can probably be beaten back into shape.

The other feature was an extensive amount of filth everywhere.  All the plastics, carpets and seats were disgusting.

Exhibit A

[vivaspeed]

I spent the whole afternoon cleaning it.

Started by waterblasting and scrubbing the outside, removed all the stickers and other shit from the glass.  It actually looked pretty good when it was clean.

The inside needed a decent vacuum and scrub of all the plastics.  The door cards had spilled drinks, one side had something resembling dried tomato sauce which had dripped down it, the centre consoles, dash and glovebox were also filthy and all got a scrub inside or outside of the car.

I really want to pull the seats and carpets out and give it a deep clean, but I'll leave that until it is running again.

We pushed it into the shed so I could look into why it wasn't starting.  Putting it inside next to my other 'small' car made me realise just how small these really are.  If you are space constrained, buy a kei car instead.  After all, that's why they exist.

 

[vivaspeed]

Now it was inside I could muck around with it.

First job.  I noticed the radio didn't work and the pocket in the second DIN slot wasn't mounted so that should be a quick fix.  A loose wire was culprit as to why it wouldn't work.  I found two screws to mount the storage pocket properly and reassembled. It's a JDM headunit so only receives one local station and doesn't have bluetooth - but plays CDs okay and also has iPod connectivity via USB so can play Spotify off my iPhone.

 

Second job - while pondering and procrastinating I thought I'd quickly clean up the headlights which were very yellow.  Here's the job 50% done for comparison.

Last job of the day - why doesn't it start?

Intercooler off, coils out, plugs out.  Everything is so tiny. 

Turned it over with plugs out and it was like a water pump - a lot more came out of the bores than I had imagined and I forgot how far it goes under pressure.  What's that smell?  Petrol.  That ain't water.

Not sure what was going on but it was a mix with a lot of petrol in it, and it evaporated/flashed off pretty quickly.  When I've got it apart I'll clean and check the injectors as well to make sure there isn't a sticky one or some other reason why it may have flooded with petrol.

After all that I rewarded myself with a cold beer and thought about what next.  Engine out over the holiday break (if not before) and see what is needed.  Parts will need to come from Japan but they appear to be readily available.  It can sit and wait for now.

 

[vivaspeed]

Having finished putting a new carpet in the white Viva, I could turn my attention back to this and get the engine out. I could have tackled the head gasket in-situ but decided to pull the whole lot out and see what else needed doing. Something was up with the oil as well, very fuelly smelling and higher than standard volume in the sump. Must have got a good dose of petrol through it - maybe a sticky/leaky injector? Interesting they run a single supply to the fuel rail with no return line so wonder if it has residual pressure which leaks via the injectors?

Everything was easy enough to work on, the extra height made it easier on my back leaning in to disconnect everything, and didn’t need to jack it up to get underneath.

Most of the heavy electrical stuff like alternator and starter was under the intake manifold and quite space constrained - even a 3/8” ratchet was a bit big - my hand can span the whole plenum for scale reference…

 

Got everything disconnected and out it came - of course I always forget to unbolt the lower flywheel cover plate when splitting an engine and gearbox so a couple of 10mm bolts needed last minute attention, no wires or hoses though!

I also dropped the gearbox out as well, decided to drop that out the bottom and risked it by not draining the oil out first. Well it got me… a small lake of delicious smelling gearbag oil needed mopping up (how good are painted floors!).

 

Engine out, mess all cleaned up. Will strip it down at some stage and see what’s wrong with it.

 

 

[Nominal]

It's been a year, any updates?

[vivaspeed]

Patience - it's a project...

[johnnyfive]

I ended up buying an auto one of these, has been interesting to compare some of the differences/similarities between kei spec and the big block 1300

[vivaspeed]

So, some progress so @johnnyfive is kept happy.  For some reason I lost about 6 months worth of photos off my phone when it got upgraded by work last year, so not much to show.

Engine came out Jan 2025 and it sat in my workshop for a few months because the engine rebuilder was a bit busy with summer race and speedway season and more important customers blowing their engines up.  I took it in about March to get stripped down and rebuilt.  While I was waiting for the engine rebuilder, I acquired all the bits I thought I needed.  The K6A motor is very easy to get parts for off eBay, Amayama, etc.

Stripped down, it had a bent rod, not sure how, maybe when it BHG'd or hydrolocked.  I managed to find one single NOS OEM spec rod on eBay in the USA of all places (Ohio I think).

It got rebuilt, and I brought it home again in about August from memory and promptly put it in the corner for when I was 'less busy'.

Fast forward to October and I thought I should do something about it.

Step 1 - clean engine bay before reinstallation.

Step 2 - invite a mate over to assist with reinstallation.  Make sure to put the engine and gearbox in and out of the car at least 3 times while you try to make the input shaft and clutch disc engage properly which you should have mocked up on the floor first.  Nothing a flap wheel on the die grinder couldn't resolve.

Step 3 - wait for at least 4 months, then plumb up and wire up everything that's left.  Order some new drive belts locally, and new injectors off Aliexpress.

Step 5 - fire it up, figure out why its running on only 2 cylinders - muck around with coils, etc and then it will run properly.  Smoke out the workshop and driveway while it runs in.  Road test with no bonnet, then reinstall bonnet.

Step 6 - Apply Suzuki specific high-performance sticker acquired in Japan.

 

 

 

 

[vivaspeed]

Part 2 of this update.

So while running it in and driving around the block a few times (*filmed on a closed road), I was only using light throttle and not really letting it come on boost.  But then bad things happened.  As soon you as you gave it more than about 1/3 throttle it made unhappy noises from the turbo and it seemed really flat, like the turbo wasn't spooling as it should, or something was leaking.

Back to the workshop to check over all the hoses, lines, etc.  Nothing obvious.  The engine itself is running sweet, idling nicely, cruising nicely on the road.

So today I took the front intake off the turbo, compressor wheel was spinning fine (didn't look at exhaust side - so I'm assuming that is spinning too).  Didn't have the necessary diagnostic equipment (a boost gauge and some tee pieces to see what the boost was doing) so just fiddled with it.  No progress, so took it for another road test and came back to a lot of green water on the outside of the radiator.  It has split the top tank. Yay!  It may have always had a split in it (hence original BHG).

Then I decided to go down a rabbit hole with on-board diagnostics so see if there was anything obvious with that, or to get a boost pressure reading from the ECU and sensors.  

This spec Jimny has an OBDII style connector port on it, so I mucked around with an old Android tablet and a China special ELM327 OBD dongle to get that going - except, this era of Jimny doesn't run OBDII, it has some proprietary protocol and you need an app called SZ Viewer to see it.  It would connect poorly, and the info on screen didn't give me what I wanted.  The scan refresh time was very poor and so after much mucking around, I gave up on that idea and went inside.

[vivaspeed]

So life got a bit busy and this thing was neglected for the last few months.

Things I have done however

1. Replaced the radiator with a new item - Fenix have them in NZ for a good price and they are the same as the 1300 model (thanks @johnnyfive for confirming that)

2. The windscreen was cracked and wouldn’t pass a WOF so I got that replaced, also quite easily available and got the auto glass people to fit it at home which was super convenient 

3. Ordered a whole lot of gaskets from Japan to sort the turbo issue out. Turns out it was just a blown exhaust gasket making the horrible noise, and that flat feeling under boost, well yeah that’s just a 660cc kei engine it seems. Was making a good 9psi, but that didn’t translate into rapid forward progress. Keep in mind my reference points are a Barra turbo Falcon and an Evo rally car… anyway, replaced a whole lot of gaskets with Suzuki genuine parts because the ones in the rebuild set were garbage.

4. Inspected and pumped up the spare wheel. Mint condition tyre from 2001, with not much air in it. I love the kei spec steel rims these came on in lower spec.

 

Just got to replace the bulbs in the reversing lights and we’re good for a WOF inspection on Friday.

[vivaspeed]

So yeah took this for a WOF on Friday and (surprise!) it did not pass.

Excess play in the front right hub but other than that it was good.

I have spent zero time on brakes or suspension so it wasn’t a complete surprise it failed in that area. In fact during my ownership I don’t even think I’ve had a wheel off it.

From a preliminary look at it, and the help of Google and YouTube it looks like a complete hub apart job and then replace top and bottom king pin bearings. Dumb.

The other thing which sucks a bit is there was green juice outside the engine block, and it looks like there might be a weep at the head gasket. That’s the new head gasket and freshly machined/assembled head. I thought maybe I could just crank up the head bolts and hope for the best, but they seem to be under the cams which probably means front cover off, timing chain off, cams out etc.

FUCK.

I suspect the rebuild kit head gasket is substandard so I may as well get the head off seeing how it’s going to be half apart and put in a Suzuki genuine one. 

I’ll get it WOFd and legal again, then see how bad the weep is. It’s not overheating and holds temp okay so maybe that’s how it will stay. Based on my driving experiences so far it won’t be used for long distance or high speed trips.

[Nominal]

Isn't there some thing about running water as coolant for a while with a new head gasket?

[jakesae101]

13 minutes ago, Nominal said:

Isn't there some thing about running water as coolant for a while with a new head gasket?

yea I was always told to run straight water for the first few heat cycles of a new gasket as the coolant can wick into the gasket vs water.

[vivaspeed]

I’ve never heard that before about running plain water, I thought it was more so you could sort out leaks etc before adding coolant 😂

It’s been through a few heat cycles before I replaced the radiator and then added more coolant so it’s not a first run/startup thing.

[vivaspeed]

Also I’m no materials expert, but why would coolant wick into gasket material but water wouldn’t?

[Raizer]

It's for old style gaskets that you retorque after however many heat cycles, something like glycol being more viscous than water and if it's gotten between the gasket and head or block it won't seal with retorquing.

[vivaspeed]

Yeah I wondered if that was the case, these are not ones you re-torque and from memory are modern style multi layer material. 

[vivaspeed]

Definitely had my days of doing old cast iron engine rebuilds and re-torquing the head, adjusting valve clearances etc after running in.

Modern Japanese is a bit different.

[Nominal]

Right, but still leaks coolant?