Builds LS3 1980 Hilux

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Man it's such a tight fit in there! going to be a PITA to maintain. I hope it's all worth it.

Enjoy the pics!

Doing a lot of research on cooling. Trying to find the best way to get this 6.2 happy under full load.
 
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Man it's such a tight fit in there! going to be a PITA to maintain. I hope it's all worth it.

Enjoy the pics!

Doing a lot of research on cooling. Trying to find the best way to get this 6.2 happy under full load.

Looking good! I’d recommend a nice 2 core radiator pushed forward and a big ass electric fan. How easy is it to get to the oil filter?
 
Tested the suspension before dropping in the drivetrain. I really like how it sits with the 255s.
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Then we completey stripped it down to the frame. Treated the underside of the bed and cab. Closest pic I have of that.


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This would be the new hump inside. It's not bad. If anything, it turned out really good! Wait until you see it with the seat in.

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This is the engine head clearance towards the firewall. As you can see, not much room spared. Worried about heat radiation, so added a few mats of Dynomat. I'll do the same on the otherside.

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The accessories out of the truck didn't clear the grill support. So I swapped out the accessorie drive for a CTS-V. It hugs the block a lot better. But the down side, is that the accessories are low (AC and Alternator). I had to notch the frame and add metal outside the frame. I'm going to brace this section as well. Will run a bar across the oil pan. More on that later.

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Here is a broad look in the engine bay. LS is huge in there!

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Front area with the CTS-V accessory drive. I think these are the Thinnest (closest to block) OEM accessory drive you can get from GM.

I plan to notch the outlet tube from the water pump. You can see it stick out way too much. I'll need to re-route that.

Measured the clearance in the front. I only have 7 or 6" of clearance. Did find a dual corer radiator from Griffin that matches the factory rad dimensions. So I got it ordered along with 2 10" SPAL puller fans. I'll space the fans out to clear the water-pump pulley nipple.

The displacement is a lot for this chassis. a healthy 4 cyl is probably enough. Where I live, the LS engines are far more common than 80s or 90s Toyota engines. It was the logical choice for long-term use. Sure it's a lot of work to get a Gen4 all aluminum engine in-there. But thats the fun part.

I'm converting the electrics and everything to run on a LS1 PCM. I like the cable throttle a lot more than fly by wire.

Using Marks 4WD adapters to get the H151 behind the LS3.


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The LC60 axles are perfect under this truck! I'm really happy how it sits with the 255s.

#Cycling

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Truck oil pan was removed. It wouldn't clear the diff. So I swapped in an LS2 oil pan.

Diff to Pan clearance is perfect now.

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Added a small service window in the new tunnel. So we can easily access bell-housing bolts.

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This pretty much gets the thread up to speed.

Axles have been rebuilt and added Yukon Zip lockers in.

I've got a new dash shipping out of California for it.

Rad and other little bits are also in bound.
 
Looking good! I’d recommend a nice 2 core radiator pushed forward and a big ass electric fan. How easy is it to get to the oil filter?

That's the plan. I've got a 2 core in bound from Griffin.



Oil filter might be an issue depending on how the exhaust goes. I'm messing around with three different headers trying to find the best way to route with the little real-state this thing has. It is challenging to say the least.
 
That's the plan. I've got a 2 core in bound from Griffin.



Oil filter might be an issue depending on how the exhaust goes. I'm messing around with three different headers trying to find the best way to route with the little real-state this thing has. It is challenging to say the least.

You could get a kit like this and relocate it to somewhere on the block or make a mount on the engine bay for it. Have it facing up and easy to get to.


Loving the looks of your truck, can’t wait to see it all done.
 
This is where we are with it.

Pulled the engine for the last time to clean up the engine bay. Sure looks good all cleaned up.

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Radiator had to move forward a little to make room for the 2 10" fans and shroud.

This is how much real estate i'm working with.

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Might have some issue with the air filter and it's piping. Not much room to get it routed the way I like. But first, I'll need to get the cooling system done and worry about air later.

After this, I'll be doing drive-train and body wiring.

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
 
Looking good man!
 
Update time !
 
Yea!

Wiring and wiring and wiring. But that's mostly done at this point. Wrapping it up.

The major circuits are on the RHS. You can see the PCM peaking out behind the dash.

The AC unit is for an FJ40 application. Which means I'm loosing both outer vents on the dash.

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And because I lost the vents, I re-purposed the one on the right for a master kill switch ( This cuts power from everything except winch). The other side will see a AFR/Wide band gauge.

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To prevent accidents from happening while vehicle operation or storage, the knob is easily removable.

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It's a perfect fit in there.
 
Under the hood, things slowed down a bit.

The car intake manifold fits perfect. The problem raised when we tried to get the air inlet hose on. No way to clear radiator and hood at the same time.

So I have a Holley low profile manifold in bound as well as a low profile intake elbow.

We should be able to clear everything this way.

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Back to wiring and this is the ignition panel I made. the 6 switches will do (from left to right) Ignition, Fuel pump, Outside lights, Air, Locker1, Locker2.

The button you see on the far left is push to start.

Lower right is where my Race Radio will sit and the tunes go on top.

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While we are waiting for parts to show up. We tackled steering. Got the 60 gear in and made a custom bracket on the frame.

Went ahead and did the high-steer kit with the upgraded HD pins.

Going to redo the inner fenders to close the openings we made.

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Here is the custom aluminum fuel tank we built along with the skid. Following the principle of keeping it light and strong at the same time.

tank will sit in the very back of the frame. It's also biased a little to the right. Need to make room for a tucked up exhaust.

Tank will hold 100+L of fuel. Thinking close to 120L. should keep up with the thirsty LS3.

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Mounted the spare tire against the bulk-head. I'll have my Power tank on the other side.

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Here is the steering rod showing the clearance from header. The headers are not matching. I had to use 2 different headers to clear starter and frame on one side. This side had to clear steering and frame.

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I'd like to maintain all factory gauges. So here is what I did

For tach, I'm using a Dakota digital tool to re-calibrate the signal for tach.
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Water was easy. The LS already has an extra port to read water from the head.

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The dash in Hilux only does oil pressure light without a read-out.

LS harnesses in general leave oil pressure to body harnesses instead of engine. So it's not part of the engine wiring. And therefore, it's not picked up through the PCM and can't be read through OBD. That logic doesn't make sense to me. So I did some research and It looks like It can be pinned into the PCM. I think it's PIN 58 on the C2 blue plug. Going to hook it up to it and see if I can read it through OBD.

I plan to setup gauges through my phone via Bluetooth from the OBD port. The more info I can see the better.

But to get the dummy light working. I got a toyota OEM sender and tapped it into the oil port on the bottom of the block.

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Driveshafts have been made for it. I'll get those installed then tackle the exhaust.

Excited to drive it. Going to be a fun sleeper

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Wow! Amazing report
for cooling are you using puller fan ? Pusher fan ? Both?


Jm
 
What a great build.
 
Awesome awesome stuff. Looking forwards to seeing your findings on the oil pressure OBD readings.
 
It's been almost a month since my last update on this truck.

Here's where we are.

The manifold and elbow showed up. The elbow had to be modified. It didn't clear the hood. So we had to get creative and massage the elbow to clear the hood.. The "Cobra" inlet now clears the hood lol.

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Different view

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Here is the compressor/ Fuel regulator. Fuel system is all -6 at the moment. Might bump it up if we do boost later.

Zip lockers are hooked up to the CKMA12.

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Brakes/Clutch are all plumbed and ready to go. We made the lines and flared it in-house. Also added the Wilwood proportion valve to control the rear. I don't like brakes that are 50/50. A small detail that I like to take care of. With this guy, I can control how much brake is applied to the rear.

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I added vents to the hood. With this powertrain, I really feel like it would need every little help it could get to breath and vent.

So the center ones are exhaust. We fired up the 2 fans and saw where the air was pushing. That gave us an idea of where to put the two vents.

The one left side of the picture is fresh air supply for the sealed air filter. Hood will be primed like the rest of the engine-bay. We are not there just yet.

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Inside the truck, things are near finalized. We got the panel all wired. Gauges are also all wired and have been tested. The AC lines have been pressurized and tested.

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I like the trans shifter tall like that. Something different than all the manuals I drive, I do have an extra shifter should this guy get annoying to use. I have a feeling that won't be the case lol.

Shifter boot for trans is golden. I just need to find a boot for the T-case shifter. The one that's on it know won't work. Note the E-brake handle. That's a Loki unit. I've installed it before on a different rig and it works great.

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Under the truck is really where it's at for this project.

Check out this slick setup from Dakota Digital. They make an adapter for a mechanical speedo that would give an electric signal to keep the PCM happy and also relay the mechanical signal to the dash. It's one of those weird things that I really really dig in this truck. Partially because it had to be modified to accept a Toyota cable.

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Here is the exhaust. All done in house (like the rest of the truck). We went a little overboard with wrapping. My goal here is to keep the cab as cool as possible. I'm not sure if the length of wrapping will cause issues. We've never gone this far wrapping exhaust. But this covers headers/ under-cab section of the exhaust. If the cab stays cool, It means more seat time. More seat time means more trips and more usability.

The 2 sensors sticking out are for Wide-band dual readings. O2 sensors are not yet installed.

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