as i have said i am wanting to swap a 4.3 liter into my 88 sammi. i am tryin to decide what tranny to use. also to anyone that has done this before or knows about it i would love some pointers and things to watch out for. any help would b great, thanks.

Are you planning on keeping the stock t-case?

i would like too. atleast till i find out if its stroung enough

The easiest would be to find a short automatic from a rear wheel drive vehicle.  As long as it fits in front of the t-case you can just modify the jack shaft to work.

That is a really big engine to throw in an SJ though.  Since your planning on swapping to Toyota axles you might want to just look at changing to a Dana 300 or something, swap out the entire drive train.

There are a few people that make parts to shorten 350 turbo transmissions and 2 speed powerglides for rear engine Dragsters that you could look at. (Econo Dragster Classes) Most of these are expensive but worth the money when it is what you have your mind set on doing. The biggest thing is to look into moving the Tansfer case back along with shortening the Transmission as much as you can without messing up the angle of the Drive shafts when you shorten and lengthen them. I personally have been looking into doing the same thing but have yet to put pencil to paper to figure it out all the details. I will watch your thread to see if I also can pick up something from others with the same Idea.

What's the motivation for such a Huge powerplant?

I myself love the 1.3 and I am still not above "warming it up", BUT you can NEVER have too much Horsepower! ( Ha Ha ) It is alot simpler to just install a bigger motor than build up a smaller motor. You can search this forum and you will see alot of different reasons for the different directions people take. Bottom line for me is you don't have to work it as hard with a calmer not as temperamental, bigger motor.

sammi88 , I just took a call from a "Gear Head" friend and he said there is a company in Florida that makes a complete "Kit" to do this type of conversion. I guess you can do a search for conversions and check it out. Good Luck !   Jluck, you might get some answers from their Website also.

sammi88 , I just took a call from a "Gear Head" friend and he said there is a company in Florida that makes a complete "Kit" to do this type of conversion. I guess you can do a search for conversions and check it out. Good Luck !   Jluck, you might get some answers from their Website also.

I don't see a web site mentioned to "look at" nor do I actually want to. was just wondering if sammy88 had one just laying around or something. this swap has been done lots of times usually with the same end result. a unfinished project or a front heavy four-wheeler that has to push its front end around everywhere.(the couple I've been wheeling around ended up being the laughing stock) not trying to be a jerk just trying to share my experiences. theres lots of other ways to up the power with out adding 500 pound of new running gear.
sammy88 was looking for "pointers and things to look out for" that is what I was trying to offer.

I know it's no call from a "gear head" but it is real experiences.

Ya, it's out there, but in my opinion it's going to be more trouble
than it's worth, and I too have only seen 1 V8 conversion, but it
was purely home grown from what I remember, but if you are hell
bent on total destruction......err conversion here ya go

http://www.suzukiconversion.com/

Wild

Well , I will consider myself "Told". I did not mean to offend or insult anyones intelligence on this matter, I will get back on the "Porch" and let the big Dogs have the Yard. I hope everyone here has a good and safe New Year. 

Not told, just that I have heard of a few of these but I have never seen one,
and I don't know of anyone here on the forum that has one either, so there
is probably a huge amount of fabrication and then that adds to the cost and
you might just end up with no Suzuki to drive, that's the real shame, but if
you have the fab skills and want to do this, go for it, I wouldn't of posted the
link if I thought it was evil to do that to a Suzuki, just trying to look out for
our Zuki brothers and sisters here

Wild

Sounds Good, we all need to be reeled back in to reality from time to time......Thanks