Swap J20 for G16

[ywolfson]

I own a 2001 Grand Vitara 3dr with a G16. I'm looking to swap the engine for a J20 and wanted to hear from others that jave made the upgrade or that have a J20 standard
Are you satisfied with power and torque? maintenance issues?
For those that did upgrade, how easy was the swap? Will the manual gearbox handle the bigger engine?
How much does a used J20 run?

[Jordi]

Scottie will be along soon no doubt

He is on fitting a J20 to an SJ.

[ScottieJ]

If you have a GV already then I would be inclined to sell that one and just buy one with the J20 already fitted.

It’s not as simple to swap than you might think. You have to also swap rads, wiring, ecu and immobiliser, depending what gearbox you have you might need to also fit the j20 gearbox. They share the same bell-housing pattern but the j20 has a deeper flywheel with a different bolt pattern, so the bellhousing has to be longer. I was originally going to run my 1.6 vitara box (with cable operated clutch) and went to the effort of finding a baleno J18 flywheel to solve the flywheel issue but I still needed to machine up a spigot bush and I can’t remember but there might have been another issue. I’ve just decided the swap over to the GV gearbox with the bigger flywheel, bellhousing and hydraulic clutch.

The one thing I’m not sure about with your swap is the flywheel/clutch set up, is it a cable or hydraulic clutch?
There might be a flywheel available to make it an easy Swap onto your gearbox or you might need to get your flywheel machined to match the j20pcd and get a spigot bush machined.

As for the strength, all the vit and GV G16 and J20 gearboxes are the same, there’s just different bellhousing and clutch set ups.

Either way if I was you I’d just buy a GV2000

[ScottieJ]

So I've pulled out the laptop to find pics to explain the flywheel differences, I do not have one from a GV1600.

left G16 (cable clutch) middle j18 baleno, right J20 GV (hydraulic clutch)

The Baleno j18 flywheel is the same diameter and thickness as the g16 flywheel but as you can see it also has the protruding spigot bearing holder, I have a feeling that was part of the issue i ran into this was a while back.

Right, j20 flywheel, left G16 flywheel (cable clutch)
You can see the depth and size difference as well as the bolt pattern difference.

Not my pics but a machined G16 flywheel to run the J20 on a 1.6 gearbox with cable clutch.

and the spigot bush to support the gearbox input shaft,

I'm not sure if the GV1600 uses the same flywheel as the earlier G16 Vitara but if it does then these are the issues you have to overcome.

You could drop the whole J20 gearbox in as it should bolt up to your transfer box but as previously mentioned the bellhousing might be longer than your current gearbox and if it is it will push the engine forwards requiring new mounts.

[Jordi]

Knew he’d have a “rough idea”.

[ywolfson]

@jordi @scottieg

Thanks! will reconsider ...