How Loud is the 4D56 Engine in the Shogun Sport?
Looking at the first generation Shogun Sport it’s easy to forget that it is based off the L200 pickup and therefore has agriculture in it’s roots, read the online reviews and there are many comments about the agricultural drive and also how noisy the Shogun Sport is, so just how loud is the 4D56 engine under the hood of the Mitsubishi?
First of all it’s and old school diesel, the 4D56 can be traced back to the 1980’s in it’s belt driven form so unlike more modern day diesel engines it’s a old and somewhat noisy lump.
Upon cold start up is where you’ll notice it most, the puff of black smoke from the exhaust then gives way to the tell tale cold diesel rattle that, in enclosed spaces such as a warehouse [see video] is pretty loud!
The good news is that after a few miles this settles right down and even more so when the engine reaches full temperature.
Shogun Sport Road Noise
On the road the Shogun behaves much like many other 4×4’s of it’s generation, larger offroad tyres will make their presence known especially when new but you can always hear that old 2.5 working for you under the bonnet. Remember it’s agricultural roots and you can forgive the Shogun/Montero/Pajero for being louder than most – especially when you take it off road where the vehicle is far more comfortable and at home.
Off road of course is where the noise does not matter, power does and the 2.5 has plenty of it both in 2WD and 4WD.
The 4D56 is a reliable, strong engine as long as it is looked after, the 100k benchmark for high mileage is irrelevent with these old machines, sure, it’s good to get a low mileage example but we regularly see these ‘Montero’s’ in Spain with in excess of 300k kilometers on the click and they are still commanding high prices.
The Shogun Sport may get a bad wrap for it’s unique driving position, noisy engine and road holding, perhaps the ‘Sport’ aspect applies more to aesthetics than it does performance. There is no getting away from the fact though that these old Shogun Sport’s are very reliable, no re-calls from Mitsubishi and one of the highest ratios of vehicles still on the road to age and numbers produced [UK market].
Check out the video above and for more videos on the Shogun and overlanding Spain don’t forget to subscribe to the channel.
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