ROTM: Toyminator's 1989 Pickup (1 Viewer)

[toyminator]

ROTM: Toyminator's 1989 Lexus V8 Powered Pickup

When I picked August for my rig of the month feature I thought that my complete overhaul of my truck would be finished - I thought wrong. As they say, a project is never really finished.

I originally bought my truck back in 1995. I used it to make my daily 70 mile round trip commute to work.

CURRENT SPECS:

All Pro Off Road SAS front spring hanger kit
All Pro Off Road front 5" springs
All Pro Off Road Hi steer kit
All Pro Off Road Rear 56" long 5" lift springs
15x9 Progressive somethings aluminum wheels
37/13r15 Interco Super Swamper Boggers
All Pro Off Road Sliders
All Pro Off Road Front tube bumper
Lexus 1uz-Fe V8
Lexus A340E Auto Transmission
Inchworm Gear Pre-runner adapter
Dual 23 spline gear driven transfer cases
Marlin Dual transfer case adapter
Rear V6 3rd member 5.29 gears with Detroit Locker
Front FJ80 Hi Pinion 3rd member 5.29 gears with ARB air locker
Afco 2 core aluminum radiator
Bed bobbed 14"
Hanemann Fiberglass front fenders
1995 4Runner front clip/headlight conversion
1995 4Runner bucket seats
Steering box moved 2" forward
Budbuild dual t-case crossmember
Flowmaster 40 series muffler
Homemade ubolt flip
Bilstein 5100 series 12" travel shocks
Trail Gear Front shock hoops



NEAR FUTURE UPGRADES:

17" Allied beadlock wheels
39" BFG Krawlers or 40" swampers
1999 4Runner rear Axle
1992 FJ80 Landcruiser front axle
FJ80 Longfields
Rear disc brake conversion

This is a pic of the truck right before is was disassembled for the current overhaul

 

[toyminator]

Here is how it looked the day I bought it.

Circa 1995 pic. (no digital cameras then. had to scan in real photographs. LOL)

It served as my daily commuter vehicle for about 3 years and another 100,000 miles. I did some light local wheeling.

 

[toyminator]

I had a couple of my buddies with 83 Toyota's that were lifted and locked that I tried to keep up with but it just wasn't happening. In 1998 I bought a used Pro Comp IFS lift kit and installed it. The first time I took it out wheeling, with 31's I jacked up my steering really bad on a rock pile. It was so short lived that I never even took pics of it that way. I was contimplating getting an earlier model truck when one of the 4x4 mags came out with an article about a solid axle swap done by All Pro Off Road on Jon Bundrant's late 80's 4Runner. I was hooked. I bought all the parts from them (they didn't have it in kit form then and cost twice as much as it does now). and did the work with a buddy over the course of a couple weekends.

Believe me. I've already heard all the comments on how I have the truck supported. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

[toyminator]

I had some pics of the axle housing mods I made but I lost them. Again, no digital camera's in the 90's

Yes, I painted the knuckle balls. They were pitted really bad so I had to put some filler and fill prime on them. Never had an issue with them since.

 

[toyminator]

Here it is in 1999 after completing the solid axle swap

Tried to show some flex in my front yard but I didn't have a front driveshaft yet an I didn't want to tear up the yard.

 

[toyminator]

Some wheeling pics from back in the day

3-4 years of wheeling in the midwest without body protection and this is the result. Trees bite hard.

 

[toyminator]

This is where the 1st major overhaul took place. I had a buddy that wanted to try a bed bob and he talked me into letting him experiment on my truck. There were a few other things I wanted to do so I decided to redo the whole body. I wanted to learn how to do body work anyway so I figured whats the harm in learning on my trail rig. I installed Hanneman fiberglass fenders. The fit like dog poop out of the box so I spent a lot of hours making them look good. I also got used doors, hood, and bed from my local parts guy.

I had more pics of the bob job by my GF at the time deemed them unimportant and erased them. Damn digital cameras.

 

[toyminator]

I also converted the front to the 1992-1995 4Runner style grille and headlights. (Pics also erased....damn digital cameras....damn ex GF's)

 

[toyminator]

overhaul complete.....sort of. I slapped it all together to make it to a wheeling trip and never installed the sliders or bumpers that I already had. Big mistake....But thats another story.
The Weld Super Single wheels are one of my favorites but they ended up being the incorrect offset so they didn't last long. I had also bought a set of 37/13/15 boggers really cheap and wanted to try them out. They are not nice to stock birfields by the way

 

[Combat Chuck]

Your buddy did a clean job on the bed-bob. Nice rig!

 

[toyminator]

Misc wheeling shots

 

[toyminator]

Ok. Fast forward to a couple of years ago. My 22re had just clicked over 250,000 miles and was tired. On the midwest sometimes wheel speed is necessary because the rocks are wet and muddy and my 4cyl just didn't have it. It was either a rebuild or upgrade. I was contemplating installing a Ford 5.0 from a wrecked parts 88 Mustang GT that I got cheap when I stumbled upon a Lexus SC400. I bought it for my GF but it had a few mechanical problems. I was looking on some lexus forums for help fixing the problems when I saw that the Lexus engine was a popular swap in Australia and New Zealand. I have to say that until then the thought of a Toyota v8 had never occured to me. Its just that American mentality that only the "big 3" make v8's. Oh well. I starting researching it and found that it could be done with all bolt on stuff. I started looking on craigslist and found that I could get whole Lexus parts cars for under $1000. and some of their shipable parts sell for lots of money on Ebay. All in all I acquired 3 parts cars, all for $600.00 or less each. 2 LS400's and 1 SC400. There are slight differences in the 2 versions of the 1uzfe, all of them external. Researching other swaps told me that there are components of both versions that are needed to make this swap using all toyota parts. For a solid axle truck the SC400 version is the most desirable. for IFS then the LS400 is what you want. I will cover the other differences later on.
I started this swap last year. Yes its been a while but I've had a lot a crap going on and...well you older guys who own homes will know what I'm talking about.
Here we go. It could probably have been done in a couple of weeks if I had the time.

Here is the doner car. Its a 1992 SC400 It had 95,xxx miles on it as was owned since new by a middle aged woman. Very well kept car. I was lucky and scored one without traction control. The traction control adds more junk to the engine and complicates the wiring integration.

 

[toyminator]

Out comes the tired 22re. ran perfect, just tired.

I went ahead and cut off the rest of the remaining IFS crap that you can't get too with an engine in it. I made new motor mounts anyway.

I also decided to move the steering box forward while I had the chance.

 

[toyminator]

Its a tight fit. Dementionally the engine is big...as big as a big block Chevy.

I read several build threads with this engine and have seen just about as many motor mount designs. Most of the people were trying to make engine side mounts to fit the factory toyota truck frame mounts. The angles make it kind of a challenge. The Lexus uses a simple design and I saw no reason to re-invent the wheel so I just got a custom Urethane mount (Since nobody makes one for the Lexus.) and made the frame side mounts. It turned out to be really easy that way and the design allows me to adjust the height of the engine if I need to.

The Urethane mount

 

[toyminator]

Here is the mount I made. It's kind of crappy looking but you can't see it once everything is in place anyway.

This is where I discovered that the engine side mounts on the LS400 are different than the SC400. The LS400's stick out farther and won't fit betweent the Truck's framrails. You could still make it work if you mount the engine up high enough.

Here are the mounts with the motor in place.

 

[toyminator]

It takes a bit of finesse to make eveything fit. I knew I had to get it as close to the firewall as possible to still have room in front for a radiator and cooling fan.
I used a BFH to massage the firewall a bit.

Side to side is also a very tight fit. I ended up offsetting it about 1/4 of an inch to clear the steering shaft. The exhaust manifolds are a different story. The LS400 manifolds won't work at all. They stick out way too far. The SC400's fit between the framerails but the 3 bolt exhaust pipe flange was too big to clear. The Lexus design connects the CATS directly to the exhaust manifolds with the 3 bolt flange and then to the exhaust pipe with a 2 bolt flange. since I wasn't using the CATS (they wouldn't fit anyway) I modified the exhaust manifold and welded the 2 bolt flange from the CAT to it. Sorry no pics of this. I am told that Tundra exhaust manifolds will work too but they also need to be modified. I bought a set of headers for a Tundra to try them out. The passenger one cleared fine but the drivers side wouldn't clear the steering shaft no matter what I did. I'd have to cut the driver side header up and make a custom pipe to clear the steering. I'll save this for a later project.
While the engine was out I cleaned up and painted the engine bay.

 

[toyminator]

Many of these swaps use either the W56 transmission or the R151 (there are bellhousing adapters for both) but I decided to keep the automatic. Inchworm makes their Pre-Runner adaoter to convert a 2wd Tacoma to 4WD using a standard Toyota 21/23 spline right side drop transfer case. Since the lexuse uses the same A340E transmission it will bolt right up.
Here is the adapter. Its a 2 piece unit. Its basically Advanced Adapter's Chevy TH350 to Toyota transfer case adapter and then there is a machined adapter to connect the adapter to a Toyota transmission.

Transmission with the output cover removed. The shaft has to be cut near where the splines end. Unfortunately I was too anxious to get it together so I never got pics of it cut. The instructions that came with Inchworms adapter are for the Toyota version of the tranny, which uses a different output than the Lexus version so the measurments are not the same. It was pretty easy to just measure where it needed to be cut though. Remember, measure three times and cut once, or in my case measure about twenty times.

Here is what's going in. Dual 23 splines

 

[toyminator]

Here is the motor installed. I removed the core support so I could install it all assembled. I had already done it once before when I converted to the 4Runner core support so it was a no brainer. It did suck cutting the welds that I made after putting it back together. This time I got another doner support and made it bolt on instead of welding it.

The drivetrain is long with the dual cases. I had to cut out some of the floor and the horsecollar.

I'm going to use the shifter out of a 2000 4Runner because it doesn't have the 4wd shifter built into it like the 90-95. I couldn't use it anyway. The SC400 shifter hit the dash so I couldn't use it either. It ended up fitting almost perfect. I didn't have to cut any metal. I welded some nuts to the underside of the floorboard to make it easier to install and remove necessary.

I ende dup using a Budbuilt crossmember and modified it to work. If I had it to do over again I would have probably used Front Ranges. Its a different design and would have been less work but I already had the Budbuilt. The mounting location is about 5 inches behind the factory location. I added a piec of metal each side of the crossmember to utilize the factory bolt holes on the frame. I also made some mounting points to use the slots cut out on the crossmember.

For the exhaust I decided to run dual 2.5" into a single 3". I wanted to run true duals all the way out but the fuel tank location would have made me have to run them both down the drivers side and I saw no reason to do that.

Finished exhaust pipe. I got the rest made with single slip over 3" pipe that I have clamped together just not welded yet.

Relocated the Lexus computer up higher than the stock truck unit.

 

[toyminator]

Here is how I routed the fuel lines. The Lexus feed comes from the drivers side of the engine so I had to get it from the passenger side of the truck over to the feed line. I ended up using a combination of 4cyl and v6 factory feed lines to come up with the correct length. My truck was a 4cyl, which places the fuel filter at the engine. The v6 places the filter along the framerail so the fuel lines are completely different. I just re-bent factory Toyota stuff that I bought new.

Cooling issues are what seems to be the biggest challenge with this swap. Many of them I noticed that they tried to use the factory radiators, which are much smaller than the factory Lexus one. I could have had a custom aluminum one built but they get really expensive when you have them custom built. I Ended up getting an Afco 2 core unit from my local race car parts shop on sale for $125.00. I forget the dimensions but I made sure it fit between the framerailsand wasn't too tall. I'll try to get the dimensions and post them later.
My goal was to make it fit with enough room to fit and electric cooling fan set up as a puller. Even with the engine mounted as far back as possible you only have about 5" from the front of the engine to core support. To fit my radiator I had to cut a section out of the original front crossmember. I had a new plasma cutter I wanted to play with anyway. I sectioned it out and put in some 1/4" thick angle iron. I still have the square tube from the SAS welded below it so it should be as strong as it was before.

It fits.

More re-assembly

I had a bit of an issue with the shifter linkage. I am using a shifter from a 2000 4Runner. For whatever reason the travel distance from park to low is 4 inches in it. The Lexus only travels 3.5 inches so the gear positions weren't lining up right. The Lexus shifter would in no way work so I had to play around with the lengths of the pivot piece under the shifter and on the tranny so the gear positions matched. It was aggrevating the crap out of me so I didn't take pics but I'll get some later. Aslo, after cutting and re-welding the linkage from the lexus I discovered that the linkage from a 2000 4Runner was the perfect length. Live and learn.

The fan comes really close to the front of the engine. This is why careful planning is necessary if you want a puller fan.

I got a whole upper intake from a JDM Toyota Soarer (Its what the Lexus SC400 is called in Japan). I bought it mainly for the factory EGR bypass stuff the the Japanese engine doesn't use. It also had a Toyota emblem instead of the Lexus one.

I haven't decided which one to use yet.

I found a new cheap 40 Series Flowmaster on Craigslist instead of using the Borla I had. The Borla was one of a set and I did't really want to use a high dollar muffler on a trail truck.

Going with a K&N open filter for now. I'm not a big K&N fan or even an open element fan because I think they allow too much dust to enter the engine but the factory air box was going to be a headache to fit the way I wanted it to. That will be a later project.

Ran the 2 rear O/2 sensors through the floor.

I made a battery tray for the drivers side. I made it so I can use the factory clamp.

 

[toyminator]

Instead of tackleing the wiring on my own I chose to have a friend who knows what he's doing handle all of that. I can do just about anything mechanical but wiring is like a foreign lanquage to me. I could have struggled my way through it but the stress would have taken a few years off my life. I provided factory wiring diagrams for both vehicles and let him work his magic.

It turned out great and i was extremely happy with the results.

I don't have any pics of the harness being built but its basically a separate harness that can easily be removed if I roll the truck and have to junk it. Here are some pics of the wiring.

The Lexus car ran this loom across the the front of the engine at the oil pan but I wanted to keep it out of the mud and water so I had my wring guy run it across the firewall.

Here is a short video of it running. I can't seem to embed it so here is the link.





YouTube - 1uz Toyota
















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