I recently bought a 94 sidekick with a fivespeed and four wheel drive.  I want a Samurai, but the Samurai is not fast enough for the interstate traveling I do on a daily basis. But I really like how the Samurai bodies are designed and how easy it is to find parts for them.
So my idea is to find a Samurai and swap out at least the engine.(A little more power)  But I don't want to stop there... I want to be able to run 70 mph.  So the idea of swapping out the drivetrain and suspension while i'm at it. From what I can tell from what ive read is that the Sidekick is built a little heavier so everything should be sturdy for the Samurai.  Also I think ifs on a Samurai could be cool.  And everything should be sturdy enough for checking cattle and driving in the pasture for coyote hunting. 
I would have a Samurai that could run 70 mph easy, it also would have a little wider stance. 

Has anyone done this before?

Anyone know of any obvious drawbacks/problems I do not know about?

A lot of people have done the 1.6l swap, which is what you are looking at.  In fact, a 2" lift with 30" tires and a 1.6l makes a great adventure rig.

I understand that a lot of people have done the engine swap. I guess my real question is if anyone has ever taken the ifs from the sidekick and used it on a samurai chassis?

i dont think your going to be finding much. its sort of backwards from what everyone is doing. most swap the samurai front axle under the sidekick to get rid of the ifs.

what is making you want the samurai? half the reason the sidekick can do 70mph is the fact the body is slightly more arodynamic.

also the fact of doing the body swap would be really time consuming and will cost alot to do. sidekick parts are atleast where i am, WAY easier to find parts for. just the fact there are more around.

really building a soft top sidekick sounds to be more what your looking at for what your asking.

Not to mention the Tracker has a wider frame, so it would take a lot of modification to put the IFS setup on a Samurai.  It would be a neat project though.

I had considered this while back because i wanted a highway cruiser sammy that could explore the back country too. I had a rusty tracker and a 90 Samurai sitting round. So I placed the Sammy body onto the Tracker frame. Not a great fit... it would need new body mounts (obviously) and the rear cargo area would need to be clearenced around the frame as it kicks up in the back. But it would be less complicated than trying to fit the Tracker suspension to the Sammy frame... well at least it seems that way to me.

In the end I changed the plan as I do often but here are some shots of the 2 together.

Interesting beginning.

Blake from Minnesota did that...

Check some of our 'Zukfari stories and look for the IFS Samurai buggy in the pictures.

-ERic

Well I guess the next question for me would be is what kind of highway speeds can be acheived with a samurai after the engine swap?  I definetely have my heart set on a Samurai.  And I dont live too far away from Samurai Salvage in Iowa, so my expierience has shown me that its actually easier to get sammy parts around here. 

most ive heard is 70. remember the solid axle and the lift and tires make it unstable at speed especially with cross winds.

If you Think 70 is fast I would love to be able to tell you how many times and how fast I have towed my m100 trailer that weighs in at 1200 lbs with all of my camping gear for prolonged periods of time in my red samurai with a 16 valve a 4 to 1 transfer with my street tires 30x9.5x15 for mileage but I would more than likely be called a liar.

It all comes down to HP. RPM's and final drive gears.
Stock gearing and tires with an engine capable of say 120hp and 7000rpm red line and viola you will be at 70mph easily...
  Can you say RX7??...Boxcar...

For what its worth, I was running 60-65mph in my sami with a tracker 16v, 31" TSL's and stock 3rds.  What I dont know is if my transfer case is stock or not... its the only thing I have not been inside yet.  My RPM's where at 3200.