Hi, im looking at building an offraod Suzuki 4x4.  what are the features and best model to go with?

Whats you all opinions?

LJ, SJ, Samurai, Sidekick??

which ones have a rear seat? can one bolt in any of them?
i need one for my kids to sit in.

   If you plan to take your kids offroading, I would recommend a 4 door Sidekick.

I yanked out my backseat, it's hanging in my garage on the wall. I would stick with a hardtop or a tintop if you're looking to put a kid in the backseat.

Well, i will be building a cage and all that stuff as well.  just trying to find the right vehichle as far as running gear, motor and drivetrain. then also availability of aftermarket stuff. looks like the sami's are pretty widely used.

There are plenty of Sammy VS Tracker threads floating around, but they are both great 4x4 vehicles.  How many mods are you looking to put into it, and what type of wheeling do you want to do?

Is this going to be a Trailer queen or a drive 400 miles round trip sort of vehicle?

well type of riding will be mud. and smaller hills, mods im looking at 33-35" tires. lift to make room for tires. lockers front and rear. hy steer, roll cage, maybe dual t cases. something along those lines.

i have a sidekick that i mostly use in mud and daily driving. i have a 3" calmini suspension lift, and 31x10.5 tires, and it does better than most 4x4s ive driven, despite only having 31's. 33's are big for any suzuki, and i dont think you should go any bigger than that unless you make it wider and longer (unless its a 4 door kick, then just make it wider.) the ifs on the sidekick does great on the road, and you have one less differential dragging through the mud since its tucked up higher. even though i prefer sidekicks, if i were rockcrawling i would get a sammy instead, but i think the sidekick is a better mud truck anyways. just my opinion.

For mud and smaller hills, you might do well with a Tracker or Samurai on 31's.  The Tracker will give you a bit more grunt though.    Once you start going into the 33-35 range you might have to start looking at putting in heavy duty drivetrain.

And 33's aren't to big, I want to go to 35's on mine.    But I don't really want to pay for 35's... so I'll probably stick with 33's.   

i didnt say they were TOO big, but they are big for a suzuki. i think the center of gravity would be too high without using wider axles, and a longer wheelbase would probably help too. honestly, i wanted 33's on my kick, but i hate body lifts, and that seemed like the only way for me to get it high enough on my budget. just my opinions.

i have a 2dr kick on 33" bfg mt's, welded rear, and a rear cage. works great int eh woods.

I can understand that.  I went with the 3.5" BS wheels and cut into fenders rather then lifting it higher.  But I really like the low slung look. 

You can build/replace parts of the Suzuki axels to handle 33 and above, but you should try it out with 31's first to see if you even need to go bigger.  It is a lot of fun to throw these things around with the smaller tires on them. 

my trackick has 33's and a locked rear, we had a zuke only wheelin weekend and i went everywhere the samis in my group went. didn't have to use the winch at all. i beat on it pretty hard and didn't break anything.LOL
just plenty of body damage as the trails were pretty narrow.

i am sure what ever you choose will do the trick nicely.

the samurais have what looks like a lot stronger market for parts and the lifts are pretty cheap to.  There are countless ammounts of lifts available for the samurai. and you can always put bigger axels on them to, such as toyota 79-85 axels. give it a real wide stance.  samurais are my number 1 pick, but thats must my opinion.  All the other suzukis are great rigs, and they all have there ups and downs.

Millski