I'm shopping for my 1rst 4x4. Around my area, there is only 1 samurai available and I haven't looked at it, yet, but the one picture looks stock. Not sure about the condition. However, there are several Sidekicks available, 3 of them being 4door (which I think will be better for me).

With that said, buying a stock vehicle, I'm budgeting about $2000 CAD (about $1500 USD) for tires and lift to get it built up to a respectable capability. However, looking at the price of gears (almost $900 USD for 5:89's from Calmini) for the Sidekicks, I'm starting to worry about if modding a Sidekick up to par is going to be significantly more expensive that getting a Samurai up to the same level.

I was hoping to get some 31's or 32's on the vehicle initially - rather than having to get rid of smaller tires and lift down the road - and that that size would be good for quite a while.

The gearing is the sidekicks big drawback. 

I have both a Samurai and a 4door sidekick.

I'd say that it's allot cheaper to set up a samurai for 32".

no power steering, engine size, rust, ride, are all drawbacks of sammys as well......you can fit 32's on a sidekick for around 200 bucks, not to bad if you ask me........

-Lance

Solid front axle on sami is always a plus instead of IFS on a kick.

3 of them being 4door (which I think will be better for me).

With that said, buying a stock vehicle, I'm budgeting about $2000 CAD (about $1500 USD) for tires and lift to get it built up to a respectable capability.

I was hoping to get some 31's or 32's on the vehicle initially - rather than having to get rid of smaller tires and lift down the road - and that that size would be good for quite a while.

if you want the room, go with the 4 door kick, the front axle isnt a big factor until you go over 31's (which both trucks would need gearing in some way shape or form)
samurais have the smaller and carbed 1.3L compaired to the sidekick with a 1.6L 16v with EFI. so the sidekick has the samurai on that as well (to get the samurai to push some bigger tires the sidekick engine would need to be swapped...)

sidekicks do very well on a simple 2" susupension 2" body lift (or 3+3 if you want to go bigger) and 30's to 31's (but 31's start to effect the gearing badly)

if you want the best of both worlds a solid front axle can be swapped under the sidekick... (for under your $2000 budget for lift)

if you find an automatic 4door with the 4.62 diff gears (certain years/transmission/engines) then you can swap in the 5.12's from a 5spd truck and have propper gearing for 31's. thus no need for expensive gears.

Daily Driver, soft wheeler or hard core?

If your planning on trailering it to the trail or only driving local trails the Samurai all the way.  If you are looking for an adventure rig that will cruise down the freeway, go with the Tracker.

If your thinking about going with 35" tires and rocking the shazbot, your going to be spending money on Toyota axles and rebuilding your entire suspension anyway so you might as well just decide if you like soft tops or hard tops most and how bad you will feel when you hit a tree. 

If your thinking about going with 35" tires and rocking the shazbot, your going to be spending money on Toyota axles and rebuilding your entire suspension anyway so you might as well just decide if you like soft tops or hard tops most and how bad you will feel when you hit a tree. 

Haha. Great reply!

I have no interested whatsoever in trailering. I will barely have room to park the toy, let alone anything else, so I need it to be able to drive on the highway. However, as long as it can go 100km/h without too much trouble, that's enough.

I'm not sure I understand the gearing adequately. I know there are gears in the diff's as well as in the transfer case. Here's the options I have around here:

1993 Sidekick JLX 4-door automatic ($2500)
1993 Sidekick 4-door, manual, 270000km ($1300)
1992 Sidekick 4-door, manual, 120000km ($3500)

I'd prefer to drive a standard and always assumed that a manual trans and off-roading wen't hand and hand, but I'm curious about the gearing thing...

the automatic listed might have either gearing (5.12 or 4.63) someone might chime in with what it would have (cant remember off the top of my head)

im the same, id much rather have the 5spd. hence i have a 5spd. i like it on the trail. bit more control with it. an auto would be nice for someone in the rocks or just starting out. (less to think about, and it wont roll back on the rocks) but the GF drives mine fine from only knowing to drive stick for less then a year.

i have no idea what the kick does on the highway at 100hm/h but i know they will run 140km/h all day... 120km/h is around 4000rpm so they do rev high on the highway but still do well for gas mileage.

ive got the same problem with my truck. no room for a trailer and tow rig. so its got to do highway.

i bought my 90 kick with 288,000 from burnaby, bc (base JA, 8valve) with nothing wrong with it for $2000 2 years ago. they run strong well over 300 (311,000 on mine)

the 92 would be a great start to a truck if its been well kept.