CX Racing Turbo for 1FZ-FE

[Kyle Wewe]

Ive been through all the old threads but can't find anyone that has actually bought and reviewed this Turbo set up from these folks. The price suggests cheap import, but still peaked my curiosity.

T4 T70 Turbo Intercooler Kit For Land Cruiser J80 1FZ-FE 1FZ 1FZFE

 

[sbman]

Yeah, the forum search really stinks. Use google search with:

cx racing turbo site:forum.ih8mud.com

You'll get decent results. The concensus seems to be, it's a collection of cheap chinese parts that fall apart in short order.

 

[Heckraiser]

CX has a rather poor reputation going back many years for cheap products that sort of fit and eventually fail. Back in my "import tuner" days, their manifolds and plain old headers were known to crack at the welds. I have used their intercoolers with good results.

-This kit in particular uses a junk Chinese turbo (call yourself lucky if it lasts 20k miles).
-The wastegate (also a cheap knockoff) vents to atmosphere, which is illegal (whether or not your local jurisdiction cares to check), and will result in lots of noise and terrible exhaust smells
-Intercooler placement is poor--charge pipe below the frame rail does not jive with off-road use, airflow to intercooler almost completely blocked by front bumper.
-No provision to maintain the factory MAF, so you'll have to rework the intake to figure that out on your own
-BOV vents to atmosphere (may or may not be an issue, but will confuse your MAF by allowing metered air out of the system)
-if you're dumb enough to run a 10psi wastegate spring out of the box, good luck!

I have not used this kit or even seen one in person, but my thoughts are that if you are building a turbo setup from scratch, the manifold may be a viable alternative to the treadstone manifold (which has it's own host of problems). The downpipe would also give you a starting point if you didn't want to fabricate the whole shebang from scratch. I would consider it a starting point, at best, not a complete kit.

 

[Rifleman]

Along with what the above poster listed as problems, i too see a few problems with this kit. If you have a front mounted winch then you'll have no place to mount the inter cooler. Next, it seems that once installed there isn't enough room to retain the factory air filter.

 

[junior80]

search facebook for the 1fz-fe turbo land cruisers page. Lots of great info and members that are nothing but helpful. The general answer to the cx racing kits is more or less, Don't waste your money.

 

[dogfishlake]

I have their header on my 80 (for now). It has been a couple of years and it has held up great. I don't drive it much in the salty road winters. It needed a lot of clean up work but worth the money imo. That said, as my turbo build takes back off this winter I am going with a 6boost turbo manifold on my truck.

 

[asuddendeath]

alibaba sells the same thing as CX racing or they'er in the same.

 

[Kyle Wewe]

CX has a rather poor reputation going back many years for cheap products that sort of fit and eventually fail. Back in my "import tuner" days, their manifolds and plain old headers were known to crack at the welds. I have used their intercoolers with good results.

-This kit in particular uses a junk Chinese turbo (call yourself lucky if it lasts 20k miles).
-The wastegate (also a cheap knockoff) vents to atmosphere, which is illegal (whether or not your local jurisdiction cares to check), and will result in lots of noise and terrible exhaust smells
-Intercooler placement is poor--charge pipe below the frame rail does not jive with off-road use, airflow to intercooler almost completely blocked by front bumper.
-No provision to maintain the factory MAF, so you'll have to rework the intake to figure that out on your own
-BOV vents to atmosphere (may or may not be an issue, but will confuse your MAF by allowing metered air out of the system)
-if you're dumb enough to run a 10psi wastegate spring out of the box, good luck!

I have not used this kit or even seen one in person, but my thoughts are that if you are building a turbo setup from scratch, the manifold may be a viable alternative to the treadstone manifold (which has it's own host of problems). The downpipe would also give you a starting point if you didn't want to fabricate the whole shebang from scratch. I would consider it a starting point, at best, not a complete kit.

Thanks for the info--I was more curious than anything, but that was a great breakdown-- have made all the interior, and exterior upgrades and while my engine runs strong, I would like a little more pep. I think a setup with 6-10lbs would be manageable without to much modification, as i have kept everything stock so far under the hood.

 

[White Stripe]

Id run it. I would probably modify a few things and would slowly upgrade the components as money allowed and keep an eye on the cheap stuff until I could upgrade. They have 2 intercooler setups available I believe.

 

[dogfishlake]

Thanks for the info--I was more curious than anything, but that was a great breakdown-- have made all the interior, and exterior upgrades and while my engine runs strong, I would like a little more pep. I think a setup with 6-10lbs would be manageable without to much modification, as i have kept everything stock so far under the hood.

I would say the best approach is buy a six pack and read the "bolt on turbo" thread Bolt on turbo kit started by @scottryana . It has overloads of information. There is a kit coming from Wits End @NLXTACY and I really believe it will be the ultimate in bolt on kits for the 80. It will be worth the wait.

 

[Kyle Wewe]

I would say the best approach is buy a six pack and read the "bolt on turbo" thread Bolt on turbo kit started by @scottryana . It has overloads of information. There is a kit coming from Wits End @NLXTACY


I have followed Wits End @NLXTACY and agree this would be the ultimate, nothing is half assed with him and I like that--but my pocket book doesn't. I started to look at that thread as well and yes I would need a six pack, a lot of good info it seems but a lot of chatter as well ha. Thanks again for all the input.

 

[Heckraiser]

Haha, yes a lot of chatter in there. If you haven't already, you can read through my DIY turbo thread (link in sig). I got it up and running for a little over $2,000. I gave up on it due to exhaust leaks (sensitive wife, and I have a history of carbon-monoxide poisoning loved ones, which may explain a few of my loose screws as well ), but everything worked quite well in the end.

The same general process could be followed by using the CX manifold and downpipe, and then sourcing quality parts for everything else. A real Borg Warner S300sx turbo can be had for around $600 if you shop carefully. Also lots of affordable Holset turbo options (hard to tell what's a knockoff and what isn't), but they are OEM on some domestic diesels, so should be reasonably reliable. One strategy I think I read about another mudder doing was buying a knockoff ebay GT35 turbo to get everything up and running, and then coughing up the dough for a real Garrett GT35 (about $1500) a year or two later.

Although it is a lot of money, the Wits' End kit should be worth it if you can manage. Smartly designed from the beginning, no cheap junk parts or materials, and most importantly, everything is made to work together on a 1fz. It's almost as much as I paid for my cruiser, but this is a dumb expensive hobby anyway, so what the heck!

 

[Heckraiser]

Id run it. I would probably modify a few things and would slowly upgrade the components as money allowed and keep an eye on the cheap stuff until I could upgrade. They have 2 intercooler setups available I believe.

Their other intercooler setup is even worse than the one in the link, IMO. BUT, their pipes did give me some good ideas both of what to do and what not to do.

 

[White Stripe]

Their other intercooler setup is even worse than the one in the link, IMO. BUT, their pipes did give me some good ideas both of what to do and what not to do.

At only 1700 u have a awful lot of money saved to play with intercooler setups.

 

[Heckraiser]

Right, I guess the point I would make is if you're considering CX, just use the manifold and downpipe, and figure out the rest on your own. My TMIC setup cost something like $200 to put together and worked great aside from chopping a hole in a perfectly good hood (so many regrets...). I would not bother with the intercooler setup included with this kit--or at best, chop it up and use some of the pieces to make something that actually works.

 

[scottryana]

What?? I thought your shaker hood scoop was badass!!

Right, I guess the point I would make is if you're considering CX, just use the manifold and downpipe, and figure out the rest on your own. My TMIC setup cost something like $200 to put together and worked great aside from chopping a hole in a perfectly good hood (so many regrets...). I would not bother with the intercooler setup included with this kit--or at best, chop it up and use some of the pieces to make something that actually works.

 

[Heckraiser]

It was OK ... Finding a decent condition hood that actually fits after I went back to stock was not so badass

 

[Nigel Stewart]

Kyle, what route did you take? did you end up getting the CXRacing kit? I too was looking at that kit and was ready to buy it yesterday... was planning to pull the trigger on it today but am trying to gather more intel. I cracked the factory exhaust mani and figured if i was going to buy a manifold... might as well boost her

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

IIRC @FastCarGuy edit - see post #22
Look at Safari's intercooler set up for pipe routing out to the front.

 

[Jason Andrews]

I wouldn't hesitate in buying a CXracing kit for the intercooler, piping/tubing, boots and clamps. They lasted me like 8 years before I started breaking clamps and blowing boots with 40-50psi boost. They are nowhere near as quality as Vibrant intercooler-clamps-boots but they are a cheap way to figure out your routing and angles with cheap materials especially if you are doing the work yourself.

I have an XO2 racing intercooler for a Supra, but basically just the universal one like this: You can find one with the tubing and clamp kit for $150-160 if you look around.

27x12x3 3" Inlet & Outlet Universal Bar&Plate Front Mount Turbo Intercooler | eBay