Newbie here. - 1981 L200 1st gen Restoration

You will find the twin cam engines in early generations of Hyundai and Kias as they used Mitsubishi drive trains under license. Lantra, Optima - most cars built before 1991. If you can find an early Gen 2 truck (87-89) they were optioned with G63B engines - this is where you'll get the right type of 5 speed for your build, or the Sapporo but it has to have a 'narrow' block engine to suit the G63B/4G63. I'm not sure of what early Mitsubishi coupe and sedans made it into south america but you have options. Check out this site -

http://projectzerog.com/

And this guy - Jafromobile on youtube (this guy knows his 1G and 2G engines inside out)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVpbeTobo-c

Thank you so much man. U rock!

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Originally Posted by Mechanic

Thank you so much man. U rock!

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Yes. Yes I do :beavisbutthead:.... :lmao:Nah dude, it's all good. Project zero G is a really good site for 1G and 2G resource info and Jafro is the guy who has written the book as he has learned by doing it himself. His engine builds are something else - you won't see many people prepare an engine or cylinder head with the same level of detail as he does. His Hyundai Lantra is one crazy machine.

Hello again guys!
Well, things are preety slow here, but moving forward anyway.
I've just bought a 4g63 dohc 16v cylinder head! Its in really good condition but it has a few missing parts (Valve cover, one cam gear and cam rockers). Nothing serious, I'm going to complete it as long I'm moving forward through the project.
The front grill is almost finished too! That was a challenge since I had to fully reconstruct it manually and by 3D printing some sections.
I have a lot of pics of that Project but my last cell puts died so I'm still trying to recover all the data (that pics included) that there are in it.
Well, I just wanted to check in and update this thread. Leave you some pics of the head.
Any recommendations will always be gratefully received.
Cheers

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Welcome here Mechanic; you have been blessed with a cool toy; enjoy your photos... Say, what is the red button lever (for?) under the dash left side next to the hood release lever... I really like all the older styles & features of your truck; will it still be colored yellow when you finish..?

3DMechanicL200 :)

Don't worry about the cam gears, you can buy shiny adjustable gears pretty cheap but you really need to know what you're doing with timing adjustments on these heads. The valve timing on 4G63's are critical and one goof will destroy valves and potentially the engine. That being said, the extra cam will get your engine breathing like it has desperately needed it. I'd love to do this conversion but with some big ass 40mm bike carbs and a bespoke set of headers. Mitsubishi did do an old school twin cam engine on PHH carbs but not only are they rare but damned hard to fix if you are unfortunate enough to had a mechanical problem. Don't even mention the HKS aftermarket head unless you have bottomless pockets... Keep us up to date on he swap :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by xboxrox

Welcome here Mechanic; you have been blessed with a cool toy; enjoy your photos... Say, what is the red button lever (for?) under the dash left side next to the hood release lever... I really like all the older styles & features of your truck; will it still be colored yellow when you finish..?

3DMechanicL200 :)

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Hi! Thanks again for the warm welcome! That red lever that you see down there is a general current breaker, it leaves the truck without electrical power (same as if you unplugged the battery). About the color... to be honest yellow isn't my favorite, but is the original color of the truck wich was never repainted, so it has all the oem decals and wire brackets still pasted on the engine bay wich has no dents or rust, and the paintjob there is great. I was thinking about repaint it white, but i don't want to lose all those cool aspects that it still preserve until this day. Eventually, i'm going to restore the body with a new paintjob but, in answer to your question yes, i'm going to keep it yellow :) It may seem a stupid way to keep a "non conventional" color like this, but i'm preety nostalgic about those things and therefore i learned to be in peace with that screaming yellow (though i'll probably get a Little less intense yellow the day i'll buy the Paint).

3DMechanicL200 :grin:

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Originally Posted by geezer101

Don't worry about the cam gears, you can buy shiny adjustable gears pretty cheap but you really need to know what you're doing with timing adjustments on these heads. The valve timing on 4G63's are critical and one goof will destroy valves and potentially the engine. That being said, the extra cam will get your engine breathing like it has desperately needed it. I'd love to do this conversion but with some big ass 40mm bike carbs and a bespoke set of headers. Mitsubishi did do an old school twin cam engine on PHH carbs but not only are they rare but damned hard to fix if you are unfortunate enough to had a mechanical problem. Don't even mention the HKS aftermarket head unless you have bottomless pockets... Keep us up to date on he swap :thumbup:

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Hi again geezer! Yes! though i'd been around engines almost all my life, this one is totally new for me, so i intend to gather all the info i can before starting and be really thorough when putting toghether all the parts, specially the timing belt! Thanks for the heads up!
My father has some 45-45 dcoe weber carbs to put in, so i think i'm going to ask him to lend me a pair to fire the engine up at first, but the goal is to upgrade to fuel injection in one 2nd stage. I want to put a turbo in so i think that an injection managing is more simple and reliable than a carburetor. Love carbs though, specially that ones cause they have a lot of history in his days as drag racing tuner.
Mi younger brother is a freaking awesome mechanical engineer (all the brain-gen of the family went there), he is in the railroad business and made some really successfull repowering work on several locomotives. Several night ago we talked about the idea of designing our own ecu. Hahaha that is gonna take some serious time though!!! if we ever manage to achieve it, is a really ambiciuos project but this is for having fun, so, is there a better way than to do it with your little bro? i don't think so.
I didn't know about this dohc carb fueled head from old mitsubishis that you mention, but here the parts are really hard to find! (1 year to find this head, so picture that) i see YouTube vids about guys who buy this head for just 49 bucks, and here that is insanelly unreal, i was asked to pay 500 for a peeled block, wtf? but looking and searching things eventually appear, so... i have to be patient.
Thanks again for the good vibes and all the info. you're the best!
Cheers!

Quick questions!
The 2 litre 8 valve that came in late '70s or '80s sapporo/ galants is 88 mm. bore right? and the eclipse block is 85? Is this info accurate?
What about the crankshaft? is the 4g32 one compatible with the sapporo/ galant block. is the 6 bolt one? Lots of options! which one do you recommend.
I do not intend to gather 1000 hp or nothing like that, but i don't want to be limited either if i want to make things a little bit interesting in the future.
Should i get a sapporo/ galant block or an eclipse one?
Well, it wasn't quick after all. LOL

The old 2.0 was the 4G52 engine which was the same block design as the 4G54 engine but smaller bore. It had a different bore and stroke to the G63B engine. You are going to need the G63 stuff from mid 80's to early 90's before the crank went to a 7 bolt design which was used and borrowed all over the place (plenty of FWD cars had them including Hyundai and Kia who used Mitsubishi engines under license) The support for this platform makes it a prime candidate for building boost if turbos are your thing but there is some assing around to convert it to RWD. If you can find the intake off an early Kia Optima, the intake direction can be swapped to forward facing on the 4G63 head. The 4G63 swap has been done on a regular basis and there is s huge amount of info on the process on various sites. As for the 45DCOE's, they are not road car friendly. Only really work when the pedal is mashed to the floor and need a relatively aggressive cam to make them go as well.

My plan was to make a manifold from either a chop and weld approach or see someone about going new school and having a new one prototyped on a 3D printer before being cast in alloy. Bike carbs run rings around DCOE's for all round performance - power delivery, tuning and economy and can be had a lot cheaper than one set of DCOE's but the catch is a custom manifold.

All true about those 45 dcoe's, maybe putting just one for starters since i already have them. Not a bad idea at all about putting bike carbs, didn't know they were that versatile and reliable. Thanks again geezer for the info about the cranks. Now that you told me the names of that old engines (4g52 / 54) yes! It rings a bell. There are some of them here and there but, as you said, they are very rare and hard to get, almost here at least.

There is a 6 bolt crankshaft on sale for 6000 pesos (150 dollars). But i can't buy it just yet, (out of money with the purchase of the head). :lmao:

I was a regular poster on another Mitsubishi site and one of the members had done bike carbs on a 4G54. A quick youtube vid of it running 40mm bike carbs -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFunG5Ku-fI

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Originally Posted by geezer101

I was a regular poster on another Mitsubishi site and one of the members had done bike carbs on a 4G54. A quick youtube vid of it running 40mm bike carbs -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFunG5Ku-fI

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Niiiice

I think this was a good start for a set up but was rough and needed a plenum and remote air intake box. The member (supersan811) admitted that his manifold was ugly but functional. There is another video of it on the road and it goes like a bullet and sounds like a tuned Euro sports car (it's a Triton which is the Oz equivalent of a Gen 2 MM)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geezer101

I think this was a good start for a set up but was rough and needed a plenum and remote air intake box. The member (supersan811) admitted that his manifold was ugly but functional. There is another video of it on the road and it goes like a bullet and sounds like a tuned Euro sports car (it's a Triton which is the Oz equivalent of a Gen 2 MM)

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This afternoon i had the vague idea to keep the 4g32 with 4 40 mm bike carbs (like you suggested me) and some light tune (port polishing and a fine tune up) and keep the 4g63 apart, to swap it into a colt... It's an option.. colts here are cheap. What do you think? This way i end with a sporty truck for the daily drive and a lightweight 2 litre colt to have fun on weekends... Just a thought. What do you think?

Now I built a FWD Colt for a first 'real' project build. It was an auto (ok not a great start for a build platform) but I did get a cheap 1.8 Cyclone engine that bolted straight up to the lacklustre 3 speed auto - and it went like a box of hammers. Totally changed the torque curve and the auto seemed more willing to do it's thing. It torque steered like a goat on meth and humiliated most of the local Nissan owners club. I loved this demented contraption. The 2.0 would've definitely been my next weapon of choice but I'd have to go manual 5 speed if I ever got another chance to take this route and bike carbs would have to make it onto the engine just for the added fear factor.

:)) hahaha

Good night everyone! Today i recovered the data of my broken smarthphone so i have the grill's restoration process photos and i thought to share them with you, cool people.
Maybe this could be helpful for those who has the same problem that i had, and is having trouble finding this important piece which almost represent the whole "face" of the truck.

First with the help of friend who is industrial designer and specializes in 3D printing solutions, i made some tests to find wich kind of plastic i was dealing with.
For that i had to cut a piece of the grill. We determine that it was ABS or some variety of it (it disolves in acetone, it doesn't float in water and makes an orange flame with really black smoke when you burn it).

At first the grill was like this:
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As you can see, the lower lip was broken and twisted everywhere... So i cut it off with a dremel tool.
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It had cracks everywhere. This are just some of them.
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I sanded all the cracks and cutted al the uneven surfices with the dremel.
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Then i started soldering all the cracks and filling the smaller missing sections by melting ABS filament with a flat soldering iron.
Since this is the same, or at least, a very similar material which the one that the grill was fabricated, it fixes really easy and gains great strength, keeping the same flexibility of the rest of the grill, avoiding future breakages.
When done filling, dry sanded (400 grit), wet sanded (600 grit) to finish.
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More pics for other complicated sections:
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My friend copied, designed and printed the brackets and the lower lip that i'd cutted in the beginning. He did an awesome job.
Since acetone disolves this plastic you can use as glue for presenting important parts before start welding. Once done, weld and sand.
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Maybe i should done the hole by measuring it in the truck instead of copying the original one... but the truck is 80 km (50 miles) from here so... I decided to take my chances... If it doesn't match i'll correct it later.

Some of the lower lip:
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All in one piece, with no cracks and all sanded.
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Primer and wet sanded with a 1500 grit sandpaper:
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Painted with one coat of rust oleum trim and bumper matt black, re sanded and painted another coat.
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Well that's all, i hope you guys enjoyed it and find some of this info helpful.
Leave you a pic of my daily drive that i found in the phone :)
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I'll be updating as long as this thing moves along.

byeeeee!

That is excellent restoration work. I hardly ever see the MA grille'd trucks but the funny thing is they were very popular with farmers and were way more common than the regular 4x6 twin headlight trucks where I am (South Australia). Can't wait to see the grille fitted to your truck :)

Hahaha yes, here this truck is a very rare example, but the ones that you eventually see are twin rounds or single square ones. I don't remember seeing a 4x6 grilled over this areas. The truck itself (the 1st gen ones only) are really hard to find. And the ones that you cross are all devastated.

So i have a little time between dutyes and thought about sharing some pics about the "renovation" of the tail lights....

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It was dark when i installed them so i dont have a better photo tha that one...

Hi Mechanic, you still fixing your truck..?

Yeah, any update on this beautiful truck? I've got a 1985 one with a 2L 4G63 that I plan to restore.

This thread has gone quiet along with the original poster. Never know, they may make a return with a huge update...