Way back in spring of '86, I bought a brand new 4Runner. I traded in a worn-out 78 VW Scirocco on it, and left Bel Air Toyota in Maryland with a nice new truck. Fast forward 30 years, 270 some thousand miles, 1 engine swap and a completely new front suspension, and the truck is wearing down. The LC Engineering EFI-Pro motor is blowing so much compression into the block that oil is getting all throughout the intake, even gooking up the MAF box where the air filter is located. Its time for a new motor AGAIN.
I have taken this truck several times to Colorado to explore the high trails, and its become apparent that she needs more power. The 22RE under the best of conditions at 12,000+ feet altitude is probably running about 60-65 HP. The road out of Silverton, Highway 550, up to Black Bear pass for me is almost all first gear. I need something better. Jeeps in my club are having to wait on me, fer cryin out loud.
My wife has a 1999 4Runner which has been so totally bulletproof with over 250K on its clock that I started looking for a 5VZ manny tranny like her '99 has. I found a chap here locally who buys and repairs salvage vehicles, and he helped me buy a 2000 Tacoma through copart.com Its not simple, and it requires a bit of trust, but he knew the ropes and helped me get the deal done. I drove to some tiny little backwoods town in WV and picked up a nice Taco that had been rolled on its driver's side and towed it back to Huntsville.
(The image above is off the copart.com website - not sure how long it will remain available)
Thus began a long journey of discovery. I discovered that late 90s and early 2000 Toyota 4X4s are being bought in droves and shipped to South and Central America where they are cobbled together and resold. They dont have the ridiculous salvage laws that we do. The only reason my little Taco had not sold was because it was a rust belt truck with some pretty serious frame rust - which a lot of these Tacos had and actually were recalled for. I paidabout $2000 for the entire Taco, including all fees and diesel to go get it.
The 22RE came out.
I pulled the Tacoma engine, transmission and xfer case. What remains of the Taco is for sale on this board.
There is a lot to tinker with to make the 5VZ fit in the 22RE engine bay. The 5VZ as you find it in a vehicle usually has only a left rear lifting hook, so we had to make one for the right front. The fuel is on the wrong side, the clutch slave is on the wrong side, and the biggest problem is the exhaust. You pretty much can't route the exhaust on the passenger side of the old trucks due to the front driveshaft and the fuel tank. The oil pan in the Taco is wrong (front sump) and the dipstick has to be moved to match the rear sump. The early 5VZs have the rear dipstick hole plugged, but the later ones have only a blank boss there....so I hadta drill a hole in my block to install the dipstick. That was scary. But it worked.
The Yotatech forum has a huge 5VZ swap section with tons of tech. Some of it, I did not pay close enough attention to. I tried to fashion a crossover pipe using the 5VZ version of the R150 transmission out of the Taco:
After several attempts, we finally concluded this just wont work. The slave cylinder and the exhaust collector want to occupy the same space. So I got a bellhousing out of a 92 pickup, thinking an R150 transmission is an R150 transmission, right? Im sure some of you are laughing at me right now. Yeah, the R150 from the Taco has a slightly longer input shaft than the R150 from the 3VZ. Dammit. Now I had to find a good trans from a 3 liter truck. Bluetoy (Nick, the Toyota Whisperer) in Skyline fixed me up with one.
So, now we have the stuff that looks like it will fit, with a fabbed prototype stainless crossover pipe. I had to make or buy engine mounts. I wanted no hole in the hood, so John Griffin of Moto Farkles made me some nice 3/16 mounts that actually allow the original factory hood WITH the hood support web to close on the motor. Its close, but it closes. Time will tell if it will get hot enough to blister the paint. If it does, I have a nice hood scoop to put on it.
Back to the exhaust....I could have just bought offroadsolutions crossover pipe. Sometimes I wish I had. But what we are building is going to be much better. Its made of 2" stainless, with a flex joint. The flanges are custom made from 3/8 304 stainless. I was really proud of myself on these flanges - I took one of the stock Toyota flanges, and sat in my lazy boy with a dial caliper and drew the flanges using Draftsight (free CAD software, go to DraftSight they offer a free downloadable version of the tool, and its pretty easy to use). John took my drawing and cut it out on his plasma table, and it bloody well fit! The only adjustment we had to make was to enlarge the center hole slightly since 2" exhaust is slightly larger than the metric exhaust pipe Toyota uses.
We are remaking the crossover exhaust once more to get it exactly right, to hug the back of the engine and clear the IFS frame. No, my truck is not IFS any more...
Next time, the final crossover prototype...which John plans to copy and offer to others via motofarkles. The engine and trans will go in, and I can see how much tunnel I have to cut to clear the shifter. Then the adapter will go in and we can see how the Budbuilt dual case crossmember will fit and how much butchering we will have to do on that.
I have taken this truck several times to Colorado to explore the high trails, and its become apparent that she needs more power. The 22RE under the best of conditions at 12,000+ feet altitude is probably running about 60-65 HP. The road out of Silverton, Highway 550, up to Black Bear pass for me is almost all first gear. I need something better. Jeeps in my club are having to wait on me, fer cryin out loud.
My wife has a 1999 4Runner which has been so totally bulletproof with over 250K on its clock that I started looking for a 5VZ manny tranny like her '99 has. I found a chap here locally who buys and repairs salvage vehicles, and he helped me buy a 2000 Tacoma through copart.com Its not simple, and it requires a bit of trust, but he knew the ropes and helped me get the deal done. I drove to some tiny little backwoods town in WV and picked up a nice Taco that had been rolled on its driver's side and towed it back to Huntsville.
(The image above is off the copart.com website - not sure how long it will remain available)
Thus began a long journey of discovery. I discovered that late 90s and early 2000 Toyota 4X4s are being bought in droves and shipped to South and Central America where they are cobbled together and resold. They dont have the ridiculous salvage laws that we do. The only reason my little Taco had not sold was because it was a rust belt truck with some pretty serious frame rust - which a lot of these Tacos had and actually were recalled for. I paidabout $2000 for the entire Taco, including all fees and diesel to go get it.
The 22RE came out.
I pulled the Tacoma engine, transmission and xfer case. What remains of the Taco is for sale on this board.
There is a lot to tinker with to make the 5VZ fit in the 22RE engine bay. The 5VZ as you find it in a vehicle usually has only a left rear lifting hook, so we had to make one for the right front. The fuel is on the wrong side, the clutch slave is on the wrong side, and the biggest problem is the exhaust. You pretty much can't route the exhaust on the passenger side of the old trucks due to the front driveshaft and the fuel tank. The oil pan in the Taco is wrong (front sump) and the dipstick has to be moved to match the rear sump. The early 5VZs have the rear dipstick hole plugged, but the later ones have only a blank boss there....so I hadta drill a hole in my block to install the dipstick. That was scary. But it worked.
The Yotatech forum has a huge 5VZ swap section with tons of tech. Some of it, I did not pay close enough attention to. I tried to fashion a crossover pipe using the 5VZ version of the R150 transmission out of the Taco:
After several attempts, we finally concluded this just wont work. The slave cylinder and the exhaust collector want to occupy the same space. So I got a bellhousing out of a 92 pickup, thinking an R150 transmission is an R150 transmission, right? Im sure some of you are laughing at me right now. Yeah, the R150 from the Taco has a slightly longer input shaft than the R150 from the 3VZ. Dammit. Now I had to find a good trans from a 3 liter truck. Bluetoy (Nick, the Toyota Whisperer) in Skyline fixed me up with one.
So, now we have the stuff that looks like it will fit, with a fabbed prototype stainless crossover pipe. I had to make or buy engine mounts. I wanted no hole in the hood, so John Griffin of Moto Farkles made me some nice 3/16 mounts that actually allow the original factory hood WITH the hood support web to close on the motor. Its close, but it closes. Time will tell if it will get hot enough to blister the paint. If it does, I have a nice hood scoop to put on it.
Back to the exhaust....I could have just bought offroadsolutions crossover pipe. Sometimes I wish I had. But what we are building is going to be much better. Its made of 2" stainless, with a flex joint. The flanges are custom made from 3/8 304 stainless. I was really proud of myself on these flanges - I took one of the stock Toyota flanges, and sat in my lazy boy with a dial caliper and drew the flanges using Draftsight (free CAD software, go to DraftSight they offer a free downloadable version of the tool, and its pretty easy to use). John took my drawing and cut it out on his plasma table, and it bloody well fit! The only adjustment we had to make was to enlarge the center hole slightly since 2" exhaust is slightly larger than the metric exhaust pipe Toyota uses.
We are remaking the crossover exhaust once more to get it exactly right, to hug the back of the engine and clear the IFS frame. No, my truck is not IFS any more...
Next time, the final crossover prototype...which John plans to copy and offer to others via motofarkles. The engine and trans will go in, and I can see how much tunnel I have to cut to clear the shifter. Then the adapter will go in and we can see how the Budbuilt dual case crossmember will fit and how much butchering we will have to do on that.
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