Thread: A word on the Isuzu 3.9l 4bd1 and 4bd1t

These are terrible engines... they are noisey eat gearboxes and weigh a ton they shake everything to pieces, dont meet emission control requirements, burn oil(when they arent leaking it more frequently both), slip liners, shed front pullys and launch fans into radiators. They put the center of gravity so far forwards in the vehicle it becomes almost undriveable unless you pile the weight on the back (notice the spares on vehicles that have them are generally on the rear door) and it puts your steering camber out as the axle sags in the middle trying to take up the weight.

IT causes premature rust in the front of the chassis which is very notable in one case I saw recently (dobbos county) where the excessive weight has caused fatigue fractures in the front end that has increased the surface area that rust starts on. the owner only had it a few weeks and the front aluminium bull bar fell right off. The Australian military intellegently (remeber Military intellegence is an oxymoron they had them made with the isuzu to start with) elected to get the chassis galvanised at the factory as part of the design process thats how serious a fault this can be.

the heads crack, the blocks warp and become porus, they dont rev very well and have a limited usefull rev band when it comes to producing torque, the valves go out of adjustment faster than a cheap porn stars cloths come off and then they leak oil, no strike that they dont leak oil they are very good at contaminating oil and then sieveing it onto the ground through the rear main seal. This also conveniently destroys the clutch. and they rust Dont ask me how as covered as they get in their own oil they still manage to rust.

short of welding it to the chassis rails you have no hope of holding it in place using rubber mounts for longer than about the first start up. They require super exotically clean fuel and ultra expensive oil that you have to change every 5000km and the coolant is the same but you change that every 10000Km.

they burn up startermotors and overheat everything in the engine bay leak coolant and jam thermostats every other time so it overheats and requires a complete rebuild every other day or so. Thats not a cheap process. There are no parts available for them anywhere so these have to be custom fabricated.

Dont go looking for an isuzu engined rover or one to install in your landrover. Its bad, just dont, look at how unpopular the landrover perentie is to the general australian public. Its the only landrover to exclusively have the isuzu 3.9l in it and how many of them do you see around? None.... Marketing doesnt lie people no one wants the isuzu 3.9 because its a dog of a motor. Even ex military landrover collectors dont have them theyd all rather have antiquated IIA landrovers or III's the very few that have gotten their hands on them have gone and fitted other things to try and limit some of the problems like big aircons to try to keep the engine cool and to drown out the noise of it.

how many american landrovers have the Isuzu 3.9? almost none Id bet theyve all got flashy v8s and superchargers

ditto the europeans and the brittish and FFS the british built the vehicle in the first place surely they'd be aware of what goes well in a landrover.

Its not even an Australian engine, how unpatriotic are you putting a jap motor in a british vehicle...huh?

Trust me Im a regular poster on AULRO.com, australias best source for all the goss and technical knowledge on landrovers with about 6500 posts to my credit and Ive been thanked more than 300 times (cheers all who have) for my posts to mainly technical areas.





































The fact that Ive written this to try to disuade everyone from buying an isuzu powerd rover so they become an unwanted commodity thus drop in price untill I can afford one played no small part in influenceing the content of this post

Gee....maybe I better get rid of mine. Oh well...down the tip with it. can't give something so bad to anyone!

AS IF!!!!