Keeping it stock.

[capslayer]

I ordered a 93 Super Exceed which should be here next weekend. Hopefully I'll be driving shortly thereafter. For the past 4 weeks I've been reading as much info from this web site as possible. There are a lot of topics, tonnes of opinions on everything. I've wanted a Delica for a long time now. I surf, snowboard, and in the spring, summer and fall I go away fishing almost every weekend. This vehicle will fit right into my lifestyle. I used to do a lot of off road driving. I currently own a jacked up F-150 with a 12000lb warn winch, 35" BFG mud terrains. In the past I've owned Toyota 4X4's. What I'm realizing is, of all the places I've gone in the past couple of years. I haven't really need four wheel drive too often. I certainly could have got by without the huge tires and lift on my truck. The Delica which is coming for me, sits quite low to the ground judging by the pictures. At first I was trying to figure out when I should plan on lifting the vehicle, but I've since decided that I am going to KEEP IT STOCK. I'll put some good quality BFG A/T's on it, and that will be about it. I can drive to every single place that I've been to this year. Why bother changing it? It will throw off the geomitry, the center of gravity, with bigger tires the gearing, and the fuel consumption.

This is just my opinion for now. I just thought that, everyone is so excited to modify their vehicles, I thought I'd write in and say, that I'm excited to just drive mine the way it is.

[Green1]

The one thing I would recommend is to crank up the torsion bars on it, they sag over time, and after 15 years the front end often sits low enough to hit many a rock on tame trails (I know I've plowed mine in to quite a few)
beyond that though, I'm going to put the biggest tires I can on without any modifications (about 30"), but that's as far as I plan to go too.

Unless you're pretty serious in to the off road stuff the lift won't help you any, and it will cause the vehicle to be more top-heavy. most rough trails can be handled pretty competently in the stock vehicle as long as it has good tires, and more importantly, a decent driver.

[jessef]

Welcome and wish you many Delica miles on your new ride.

In my experience with Delica's, I've found a sweet spot for stability/traction/ride comfort and fuel consumption.

The Delica's come geared for short-shifting/city driving (Japan) and actually benefit with larger tires to offset the gearing which in turn actually gives similiar, if not better, mileage than smaller tires. 30-31" diameter tires are a good compromise. With the larger tires, comes wider lip/rim which in turn widens the whole Delica footprint = more stable.

It all comes down to personal preference and how you drive.

I like the added lift so that I can crawl underneath if I need to fix anything and also for the articulation to go over little rocks and such.

After lifting a stock Delica 2" inches and putting on wider rims with new shocks, it turns a soggy-wet-noodle-feel of a drive to a planted-suv-type of ride.

Lifting it higher than 2" changes the geometry drastically and many modifications/$ have to be done to it. Under 2", it's golden. It's like they were made for that height.

Same with the Pajero's.

I bought my 1st one years ago and it was a 92.

In 93, Mistubishi left everything untouched except for two things :

1. 2.5L replaced with 2.8L engine

2. 2" Lift increase from previous year

Huge difference.

I'm sure they would have done the same on the Delica's since they come from the same batch/family.

Like Green said as well. A stock Delica is a very capable machine . Most of it comes down to the driver.

[Delicanadabc]

Hey

I'll pipe up here too...
The way I look at it and this: These trucks rock 4x4, and I am sure that the tires make a huge difference. But what I did was to put a a "milder" tire on my new truck. I have alway been a fan of the BF AT's but as the amount of off road I do in a year is less then 1500 km total I argue that I would go for better gas millage. That said I have a cabin down Lillooet lake road and need to get there year round. To Conclude I went with the Toyo's open country H/T (lt). They look like they will do very well on the dirt and if I need I'll simply slip it in to 4wd. For sure they appear to offer better on road specs than the BFG. I'll post more once I have more info.

Green 1 said it right: adjust the torsion bar.

Have a great day,
Daniel

[jessef]

The Toyo's are awesome. I had them on my Pajero and they are great in the winter/offroad.

[marsgal42]

One thought on this: you might think that everybody is itching to take their Delicas apart and rebuild them, but that's primarily because these are the people who report their modifications here. The rest of use them as they are and report our road trips. You could also get a very distorted view of Delica reliability, because few people post messages that their Delica is running correctly.

The closest I come to a modification on Gumdrop is PIAA headlights.

Welcome aboard, btw.

...laura

[BCDelica]

Welcome. Your right, stock Delicas are very capable; with torsion bars wound up and maybe the bump stops trimmed an inch to allow a bit more front articulation makes a difference on the front end. Original shocks will have to be replaced of course alos, but most dealers appear to do this. And don't forget protection, which as an offroader you likely won't, the air intake acts as quite the scoop for dirt, branches and snow (see skid plate discussion here).

Like a few other owners here, always carried along a 4 ton come along, couple of straps, shackles, shovel, and 2 pairs of chain chains; for those just in case. These of course are things you'd know, but our stock height Delica (all the above mentioned things and 30" BFG A/T) took us through amazing places without leaving us worried. At the same time humbling, more then once, a stock NA 4x4 traveling with us. And on many occasion they took hits well we moved through unscathed. A short wheelbase is amazing; one time after failing to pull out a quad cab, long box F250, on 33"s resting on both bumpers in the huge water bars up towards the Comox glacier on the first try. Was able to pull him out after plenty of digging, and drive the deep water bar without wheel slip (in 4wh) and touching a mud flap myself. Had to bring that up, a good moment for all Delica.

Regards,
KEv

[FalcoColumbarius]

Hey Capslayer, Welcome to our community.

I've know a few Delica drivers who have done mods for sport or for practicality. They all have their reasons. My reasons are to get to places that other vehicles cannot take me.

On the Miss Lil' Bitchi (my wagon):

• I have done a few mods, but not too much. As the others have mentioned, lift the torsion bars, it makes a difference. You can go to "West Coast Alignment" and ask for the "Marty Special", it will cost you roughly $120.00, they will adjust your torsion bars and align your wheels.
• She rides on Yokohama ATS Geolandars (235/75R15's). I think the diameter is slightly smaller than the originals, due to the speedo rating being consistently lower than the GPS and they are certainly wider than the recommended stock wheels (215 S R15s {no one appears to know what the "S" stands for outside of Japan}), however, they have served me well.
• Regarding lifts, apart from the torsion bars I have added an extra leaf in the rear suspension (Canada Spring), which has lifted the aft end about an inch. I have done this because I carry a fair bit of weight most of the time and also have a steel cargo bay unit for storing things inside the tailgate.
• The "Gopher Grille" under the forward end ~ primarily to stop branches, creatures & rocks from damaging the main engine radiator.
• Adjustable shock absorbers (Rancho) as the difference between smooth highway sailing and back country washboard is like night and day ~ I figure she will last longer if she isn't vibrating to pieces.
• Chains. I had a pair made for me at "Quality Chain", in Surrey. They measured the up Miss Lil' Bitchi, considered the turning radius of the front wheels and fixed me up with a set up not unlike what the logging trucks use (also had plenty of wisdom to impart). Don't waste your money at Canadian Tire.

The only practical reason I can think of for a lift kit would be for cresting hills, but the trade off with rising the centre of gravity & increasing the height I think not worth the bargain ~ that is my opinion. My truck is a "P25" (low roof) and has managed to creep under big branches or fallen trees and I like it that way. She also gets into most underground car parks, which is practical for me. The Delica is designed to take at least a thirty-five degree lateral list (otherwise it wouldn't be street legal in Japan) and I suspect you already know how important that can be in a back country scenario.

Happy trails! Falco.

By the way, you might find this list as a handy guideline when setting your new Delica up:
http://wikrad.com/delica/index.cgi?to_d ... red_delica

[fostlongstrider]

The tyre markings were used to denote speed ratings originally.
SR was standard tyre good for up to 113mph
HR was higher good for up to 130mph
VR was higher still for over 130mph
This was however in the UK,maybe Japan had the same tyre characteristics

Ian.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Cheers, Strider!

Yet it does not refer to the diameter of the tyre. I don't completely understand the metric style of explaining the dimensions of a wheel. I know that the "75" is a percentage of the "235", but could not SR be different diameters?

Falco.

[fostlongstrider]

It was originally the compound the tyre was made of and its heat dissapation characteristics,running at higher speeds more heat to get rid of.
The S,H,V seem to have been dropped now hence 235/75/R15.
75 being as you said the % of the tyre wall height of a standard 235 tyre,my last Rover in UK had 175/55/R13 tyres,almost like rollers.
It is the ply rating that is more important especially with vans,this is the strength of the tyre to cope with the weight.

Ian.

[capslayer]

Well, my Delica arrived 1 month ago. I've taken it up to Pemberton twice. Once to the Birkenhead river to go fishing, and the other time to go to Meager Creek hot springs. The drive through the snow was interesting. The Delica was no problem going uphill through 10cm of wet snow, but coming downhill was different. Didn't feel as stable as I would've been in my old Ford. Maybe a the wheel base had something to do with it. Last week end I went to Tofino with a couple of friends on a surf trip.

I still stick to my claim that keeping it stock is the way to go. Overheight for the ferry is anything over 7'. That is the exact height of my delica. If I were to lift it even 1.5 " I would be overheight, therefor costing me an additional 26 bucks.

I love these things the way they come.

[jrman]

[quote]but coming downhill was different. Didn't feel as stable as I would've been in my old Ford. Maybe a the wheel base had something to do with it. Last week end I went to Tofino with a couple of friends on a surf trip./quote]

Might be related to the "cab over" experience - takes some getting used to. I felt a similar feeling in deep wet snow last year in the mountains outside vernon. The front end felt heavy, almost as if it was pushing and not wishing to make turns - only noticed this on the downhills. Figured it was the combination of a front end heavy vehicle and me needing more time familiarizing myself with a cabover in the snow. I did have very good quality M+S tires - and have noticed an improvement now that I've got the front end cranked up. Understand you don't wish to do that - but it certainly helped from my experience. Sure love 4 low on the downhills though - 26km coming out of the bush above Lavington and I don't think I touched the brakes once!!!!

[jessef]

Downhill in the snow is 'fun' sometimes in these. Very short wheelbase for it's weight/height makes for some interesting dognuts if the brakes are applied too much

[loki]

I still stick to my claim that keeping it stock is the way to go. Overheight for the ferry is anything over 7'. That is the exact height of my delica. If I were to lift it even 1.5 " I would be overheight, therefor costing me an additional 26 bucks.

I love these things the way they come.

interesting, my super exceed with spoiler and 31" tires and torsion bars cranked back up is still under height on the ferry, I have measured and I'm about 1/2" from the 7' mark. If I ever lift it a bit I will either remove the spoiler to stay under height or put it on a hinge so it can come down before boarding.

as for the centre of gravity changing when getting bigger tires, I don't think it does much usually they get about the same increase in width as in diameter (ie when I went from 30" to 31" the width went from 9.5" to 10.5") the tires only give half of that increase in extra height (only radius applies), but you get the full amount of extra width of one of the tires in extra stance width (sure only half sticks out from the rim but you get the same in the other side too), unless you drastically chance the offset of the rims you get in the wrong direction (not likely to work anyways) therefore you go up say 1" in tire size like I did, you get 1/2" lift out of it and 1" wider stance, seems to me that would be more stable. I know this isn't 100% the way it goes across the board but it is an aspect of bigger tiers and lifts that people seems to forget.