Suzuki Club UK

Great information again, what's this companion book sounds good.
A few more questions as you seem to enjoy them !!!
Was the Samurai in the UK only the Spanish one or did any Jap ones get in, did they have any diferent features. Did the Samurai sport have any other differences aprt from the grill. My friend un the USA had a Samurai but from looking a the boruchure avaialble to view on this forum it had the SJ interior.
Did the name change from SJ to Samurai to avoid the bad press with the roll over.
The SJ/Samurai history certianly is an interesting can of worms, I have a 1991 Samurai the log book says SJ1300 JX & VIN Plate says Samurai. When I googled the VIN it came up with Sj 413 Qbja Samurai S/t which I presume is soft top not sure on the other letters though or the JX

I don't know all of the suffixes because there are more variants of SJs than you can shake a stick at. Mine's a type 2 410 WVX, which is a metal dash, front disk, tin top with a sunroof. I know for sure that KJAs are long wheelbase dropside pickups

Suzuki SJ The enthusiasts companion http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0947981 ... 961&sr=8-1 its not comprehensive or overly technical but its a nice book.

The American samurai is different to the UK samurai, the American market labelled all 413's as samurai, after the roll over report sales all but stopped so the UK type samurai was either never made available there or was only available for a short time, the interesting thing about American SJ's is that some had air conditioning wheras it was never available in the UK, also they had an exhaust recirculation system to comply with californias harsh emissions criteria, this egr system isn't used in the UK but the exhaust manifold castings are shaped to allow this even though its blanked.
Yes the samurai was soley Spanish, Sammy sport is misleading and just means it has new updated decals, the grill can be either samurai type with the early ones having the traditional horizontal slates, and the newer ones with the mesh grill and 'S' badge
I'm not sure what all the suffixs are, Q - soft top, K - pickup V - hard top then BA - commercial, the J, JX, JA Refers to the trim level

Hi guys, a bit confused after reading all this as I have a 1989 sammy that is jap spec, so does this mean it is likely to be an import?

Dan

89' is before the santanas factory took over the production of the 1.3 so is probably Japanese & intended for the UK market, like I said I did most of it off the top of my head so expect some exemptions, is yours a samurai or a samurai sport? And what suffix does it say on the vin plate Vse?

There's some interesting reading ther luke, however I'm a bit confused by some of the statements about the US Samurais though? The most common ones over there are the later type like we have here in fact I'd prob say 90% of them if not more are. hence why nearly All the aftermarket parts are designed for the later chassis with outboarded spring mounts and the wider axles. They had Samurais while the UK was still selling new 410s and 413s also not all uk Samurais are Spanish built like 410s and 413s they were built in both Spain and Japan and it will be very rare to find ones that are 'grey' imports as far as I'm aware

Here's the US and Canadian timeline for sjs for you pulled from pirate 4x4


* 1982. SJ-410 arrives in Canada. Basically the Samurai style vehicle that we have the love/hate relationship with. These beasties have the narrow track frame (front springs inset under frame rails in front), a 1.0 liter 4 cylinder engine (aluminum head, iron block. Want one? No seriously...), 4 speed manual trans with first gear ratio of about 3.15:1, 4th is 1:1. T-case is similar is design to a Samurai case BUT has a different casing, more squared off, no 4x4 switch, small flanges. Body styles are hard top (i.e. V), Pickup (K), LWB and normal soft top. Axles (4.10:1) are narrow to match the frame, differentials are same as LJ-80. Quick ratio upgrade is to get 4.56:1 ratio diffs from an LJ and plug them in. No parts interchange between these axles and the Samurai. T-case ratios are 1.58:1 in high, 2.56:1 (or so, bad memory, sit! stay!) in low.

* 1982/3. Same as above, newer style t-case housing starts to appear - very similar to Sam case with exception of 4x4 switch. Same ratios.

* 1984. Same as above except the t-case uses the same types of gear clusters as a Samurai case but with lower ratios (1.58, 2.5x). These gears are the ones used to make a "rocklobster" t-case (combination of these gears and Samurai gears to make a 1.58 high, 4.16 low t-case - web search for instructions). This may be the first "sanctioned" appearance of the SJ-410 in the US. Not 100% on that though.

* 1985. SJ-413 is introduced in Canada. Differences from a SJ-410: Samurai all aluminum 1300cc engine with Aisin carb and 5 speed transmission (3.652:1 first). Axles are changed to Samurai style diffs but with SJ-410 front brakes and 3.90:1 axle ratios. These diffs are intercahngable between Samurai and SJ-413). New Samurai style dash with no central console (the original style). T-case ratios change to Samurai ratios (1.409:1, 2.2x:1). Last year of pickup in Canada. US still recieves some SJ-410s, but not the SJ-413.

* 1986. First year of what we commonly call a Samurai in US and Canada. Canadian spec kept the Aisin carb (lenient emmisions reqs) while the the US got this fooked up Hitachi carbu-jector thing. Front spring spacing moved outboard of the frame approximately 2-1/8" per side, axles grew also to widen the track. US recieves soft top and hard top but not the pick-up or LWB versions.

* 1987-1988. Last year of LWB in Canada.

* 1988.5. First restyle of Samurai in North American market. New dash with a more car like center to house radio, heater controls, little cubbies, etc. Spring rates change (soften?). Canada gets the Hitachi carbujector.

* 1990. EFI on the 1300cc engine starts to appear (late 1990 I think).

* 1991. Last year for hard top, grille is restyled to two long horzontal slots.

* 1992. Last year of Samurai in Canada.

* 1993. Samurai is sold in US only without rear bench - to get around tighening security regs.

* 1995. Last year of Samurai in US.

Great info, tbh I don't know much about the US SJ only the stuff that I've picked up, I was under the impression that the us Sammy was just a 413 because the 413 was sold before the consumer union report, & I'm sure i read somewhere that the samurai was suzukis answer to the roll over report, hence the wider track. The other reason I don't know much about US Sammy's is that a propertion were made in canadas assembley plant (akin to our santana) so I dont know about plant specific 'vageries' with US stuff. As with the uk samurais being made in Spain, I stand corrected, I just didn't think they would produce the Sammy because it doesn't fit in with the Japanese legal definition of a 'micro car', I read that Suzuki GB worked in conjuction with the santana factory to produce some uk specific decals, if this is todo with the introduction of the Sammy sport i don't know,

I think it's quite hard to actually know exactly what has happened through the history of the sj series, there's been so many changes and variations over the years and they have been built in so many places that most of the info scattered around the Internet isn't 100% correct, trying to find out accurate info is quite hard. I think the majority of later Samurais were built in Spain (probably nearly all of them) but a lot of the early ones did come from Japan.

I think we should maybe start a thread where people list the year, model as it is on the logbook and first letters of the VIN so we can see if there are many late Jap built Samurais around?

Ok, so I dug my log book out and it is as follows:

Date of first registration: 07 07 1989

Model/Type: SJ 413VB JA SAMURAI

and the first three letters of the vin are JSA

Mine was registered Feb 1990 as sj413qb ja samurai with vin jsa.