Scott Gomez

Project Suzushi (Japanese for "cool") is a totally owner-specified conversion, designed to provide a trail-worthy vehicle for western rock-crawling while still retaining roadability for everyday use.

Here's how I installed my boneyard Mitsubishi Eclipse seats. If you're going to do this, when you find yourself a pair try to be sure to get the mounting hardware and inner seat-belt ends (the buckle ends) with the seats.

Drum brakes suck. Although the Samurai uses oversize drums and discs for a vehicle of its size, the drums are always a PITA.

Nothing like starting off a project in a major way. After spending over a year now reading the pros and cons of the various types of lifts on Off-road.com's Suzuki Pages and the Suzuk4x4 mailing list, I made the decision to lift my Samurai via a spring-over-axle conversion.

Sometimes things just get to be a pain in the butt. The interior of Suzushi was one of them. Although the carpet kit was in tolerable shape, it was constantly collecting things.

There's never enough storage space in a Samurai. The rear "bed" area measures just 35?" x 35?" x 13?" (between the wheel wells) and that's without the rear seat. There's no center console, a tiny glove box and no trunk.

The center console layout is shown at right. The speaker is one for a cellular phone. The mic clip is simply trapped between the rubber boot for the t-case shifter and the Durabak bed-lining.

After taking some heat for a while on the mailing list (Hey! It came with them, OK?!) and waiting for some good weather, Project Suzushi has lost the chromey go-fasters. I'm glad I did it, too.

It was time to get rid of the flimsy stock bumper on my truck. The end-caps were falling off, it was dented and twisted, and there simply was no hope of making it into a strong winch mounting point.