Thread: new 4bd1t - has anybody looked into these?

Laurie

I loooked into the Chinese 4BD1T copies being offered for sale here, before buying the Jap import engine that I have used in my Defender. They are not what they might seem to be: It has been alleged that: 1. The drillings on the block for ancilliary brackets etc are not in exactly the right places; 2. they are very heavy - much heavier than a genuine 4BD1t 3. parts are not necessarily interchangeable with factory 4BD1T parts. I was advised not to purchase and am glad that I did not

Christopher

I've had genuine Isuzu parts that were made in china.
It's quite possible there's a chinese plant out there using the original Isuzu tooling.
It's also quite possible there's another plant in a china across the road making poor copies.

I came across one of the chinese websites selling engines the other day - there was a notice saying that they were producing isuzu engines under licence, using isuzu's old tooling. Their engine listings showed all the superceded models - so maybe ISUZU gets parts and engine for older models made in china - as dougal suggests.

Of course - there was nothing there saying they were making the Cummins etc. engines under license

I think they are made by a Chinese company called DongFeng (or Dongfeng). I was told the engines are very heavy (even heavier than a 4BD1T) and set up so as to produce less power and torque than you might expect from a genuine engine.

Try a Google search of Dongfeng - you should find a fair bit more data.

I contacted Gilbert and Roach the other week about a part for my 4BD1-T and the person I was speaking said they still manufacture the 4BD1-T. I didn't go into it any further, so not sure if he was referring to the Chinese engines or not.

A mate who fixes buses mentioned that genuine 6BD1 parts are being discontinued.
But it seems the 4BD1T had a longer production life than the 6BD1's.

Take a look at their "products" page, see how many vehicles you recognise.
Welcome to Dongfeng Motor Corporation

I think this is the site I saw:
ISUZU 4JA1 & 4JB1 Diesel Engine - China diesel,engine,diesel engine in Motor & Engine

The factory was established by Chinese state-run firm & Japanese ISUZU, we adopt technology & equipements from ISUZU, and authorized to produce 4BD1, 4BD1T, 6BD1, 6BD1T, 6BG1, 6BG1T, 4JA1, 4JA1T, 4JB1, 4JB1T etc.

Note they don't make anything newer than the 4HF1 (which I believe has been recently supersceeded in the trucks). Power and torque specs are similar but not quite the same. E.g. my LR manual says the 4BD1 develops peak torque at 1900rpm - they say 2200. But there were a lot of variants of each engine...

And some specs are a bit hard to believe - e.g. 4HF1:
Isuzu says 88 kW / 285 Nm - the site above says 110 kW / 460 Nm !!!! Would be nice if it was true, but those specs are almost the same as the 4HK1-T - so I suspect they got a bit mixed up???

They say - no minimum order - so who is going to be first to buy one???