Hello all,
I am wondering if anyone has done a diesel swap in the newer trackers? I saw that acme adapters in Oregon has conversion kits for 1998 and before. I want to put the 1.9 VW diesel in.

I have had three different Suzuki 2.0 motors in it, and every single one has broken the new timing chain guides. I just broke the third timing set because the top guide snapped off yet again and got stuck in the pully of the cam chain. The company supplying the timing equipment has warrantied the whole timing set every time it broke and this is now the third time. With the last timing set I got about 20K out of out after rebuilding the motor. I would assume it was not holding appropriate oil pressure so the tensioner was not working right. It's just weird that three different oil pumps would have been bad on three different engines.

Any info on either would be awesome!

Thanks!

I think you could do that diesel swap if you wanted to. There are only small differences between those generations. One way you could do it is get the transmission and t-case from a 98 and older vehicle. In reality, you probably only need the clutch belhousing to bolt to your 2.0 transmission. ...and then use the ACME adapter for the 1.6 engine. There was also a number of 1.6 liter trackers and vitaras made in the early years... that may be another way to get the parts.

Hope that helps. Call Jeff at ACME and ask him.

-Eric

Cool! Didn't think of that. I hadn't thought about it to much yet, but wanted to hear opinions. Thanks for that quick response. I recently had the timing chain break in telluride Colorado on top of black bear pass.
Still trying to locate a decent tdi engine.

Just my opinion - but - if the vehicle is going to be daily driven & see any significant highway usage, you're going to be quite unhappy.

First - the gearing is going to be way off - you're taking a vehicle with a powertrain designed for a high revving, medium horsepower gasoline engine, and mating it to a diesel which produces way more torque, but in all likelihood (I don't have the numbers for the VW engines) less horse power, and peaks at way lower rpms, and you're going to have very limited gearing choices to correct this.

It's been my experience (which has been on factory diesels, which would supposedly have been close to ideally geared, rather than swaps) that small automotive diesels are woefully underpowered, to match the horsepower of the 2.0 J20a engine, you're going to need a turbo diesel upwards of 2.5 litres - without horsepower, it won't accelerate the way you're accustomed to - you're going to find overtaking on a two lane (one in each direction) an absolute nightmare, and also merging on an onramp.

To touch briefly on your timing chain/guide issues - three different engines, three different oil pumps, and what sounds like three timing sets from the same source - doesn't that tell you something?

Direct question - what sort of gasket was supplied for the upper tensioner adjuster - metal or fibre?  Have you ever seen the original gasket - it is a one use only metal gasket and it has a metering hole to control oil flow out of the tensioner.

Second question - where did the top guide break - right where it was folded?

I just want to give you a couple of things to think about.

I swapped out my "new Murray brand replacement radiator" five times over an 18 month period before I asked for a refund and took the money and bought another brand of radiator (which I have had zero problems with since installing it).  Each time one went bad they "warrantied it", but  I still had the pleasure of pulling the bad one and installing the "new" one.  That was 6 hours plus of my life I'll never get back.

Point being, I don't care how good a company backs their warranty, if they aren't there actually providing the labor each time their product fails... they can shove their product and their warranty.  If their product is bad, you are still stuck with the labor.  That

Don't change engines... just buy a quality Japanese timing chain set, gears and tensioner kit.