LX450 1HZ Turbo Diesel & 5speed swap (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Threads
30
Messages
231
Location
York, PA
I recently swapped a 1HZ with a safari turbo kit, R151 transmission and split tcase into a LX450. I learned a great deal lurking on Ih8mud. Hopefully this thread will help if you’re considering a 1HZ/D swap. I’ve put over 8000 miles on the truck since “finishing” the conversion in December. Running 255/85/16 cooper st at 45psi and load with me +:princess: + our aussie + gear for a 3 week cross country trip it got 19mpg on back roads and 15-16mpg doing 70-75mph. At 75mph the engines turning 2700rpm…I see 35’s in the future.





This is a list of all the parts purchased after the engine, tranny and tcase.



After collecting all the parts, the swap was straight forward. The 1HZ bolts to the existing frame mounts. I made new tcase cross member mounts that tuck the tcase above the frame. I plan to make a tcase skid plate that ties in the factory cross member frame mounts with the cross member. The rear drive shaft needed to be lengthened. The stock 70 series driveshaft fit in the front.



Almost a flat belly



For the wiring I pinned out the 1HZ harness then spent an evening with the LX450 wiring diagrams to figure out where to splice it in. I spliced a majority of the engine harness into the IL1 connector under the dash. These are my notes

1HZ harness




 
Last edited:
The clutch pedal assembly and master cylinder is from a LDH euro 80. After drilling two bolt holes in the fire wall it all bolted up. The pedal is spring assisted. The springs are too strong for the smaller slave cylinder on the R151 trans resulting in no pedal feel/effort. I would assume it works great with a H series transmission. I plan to add another spring to increase the pedal force. If I did this swap again I’d try using a pedal assembly and clutch master from a 3rd gen 4runner or Tacoma. The Clutch pedal on my 97 4runner is very similar to the 80 series pedal. I tried to match the pedal spacing to my 97 4runner. This required moving the brake pedal closer to the accelerator pedal.

Edit: I removed all the springs from the clutch pedal. Clutch is smooth and feels great.



The vacuum reservoir is made out of exhaust pipe. The reservoir hangs inside the drivers fender well. That’s a low vacuum warning switch.



 
Last edited:
Webasto
I love this thing! The heater core outlet goes to the webasto inlet. The webasto outlet is “T” to the heater core inlet on the 1HZ and to a valve to the heater core inlet. This allows the Webasto to heat either the engine and heater core or just the heater core. The rear heat switch (rear heat was removed) is wired up to run the dash blower motor on medium speed off the aux battery. The webasto is also wired off the aux battery. It’s awesome having heat in the truck while camping/sleeping without running the engine. I plan to swap over a flat plate heat exchanger for a shower from my 4runner. That’s what the 2 plugged T fittings will go to.



Cruise
The stock 1HZ/D accelerator pedal cable runs to the cruise control actuator like a 3FE. A 3FE cruise control actuator plugs into the 97 LX450 harness and the 3FE accelerator pedal to cruise cable works on the LX450. I bought the cable from the cruise actuator to the injection pump from Japan 4x4. The cruise control needs 12V on the D light circuit to work. No other signals from the engine or transmission ecus are needed.
 
I threw the exhaust together the night before we left on our trip (why the hangers aren’t painted or cleaned up). I’m really happy with how it turned out. The exhaust is quiet with the windows up but you can still hear the turbo sing with the windows down. There was not a notable difference in EGTs between running just a down pipe and the full exhaust. The prebent mandrel 3” tubing and an aero turbine muffler came from mandrel bending solutions. They had the best prices and excellent customer service. From the rear cross member back to the tail pipe I used the nice flex pipe that big rigs use. I intended for the flex pipe to be a quick solution but I have a feeling it’ll be there for a while.











 
Last edited:
The Fuel filter is mounted to the LX450 charcoal canister. The water in fuel sender trips the OBD check engine light. Down the road I want to upgrade the fuel filter set up and add a fuel heater. That's the Hellroaring isolater mounted on the battery box.




EFI fuel pump removed and Webasto fuel pickup added.
 
Fantastic swap really like the detail.

Cruise The stock 1HZ/D accelerator pedal cable runs to the cruise control actuator like a 3FE. A 3FE cruise control actuator plugs into the 97 LX450 harness and the 3FE accelerator pedal to cruise cable works on the LX450. I bought the cable from the cruise actuator to the injection pump from Japan 4x4. The cruise control needs 12V on the D light circuit to work. No other signals from the engine or transmission ecus are needed.

So to get the cruise to work you simply got a 3FE cruise actuator (plug in not re pining?)cables and 12V+ to the "D" light? If so you have seriously made my day I was really worried I may lose the cruise on my swap.
 
The Tcase shifter is move back and closer to the transmission shifter. Stock the transmission shifter was too close to the dash so I angled it back and toward the driver. I’ll redo the shifter cover console area at some point. The rags are temporary sound deadening.



The bottom row of switches: deck lamp switch runs the reverse lights off the aux battery for camping, defrost switch turns on the webasto and the rear heat switch runs the dash blower motor off the aux battery. The boost gauge is in the vent on the left side of the cluster.




Auxiliary battery box. The breaker goes to another fuse box in the cab.
 
A big thanks to Arya Ebrahimi for helping me build the sleeping platform/rear drawers. He talked about selling these. If anyone is interested, shoot him a PM.




The main goal of this design was to waste as little space as possible. The sides are 18gauge sheet metal with 1x1 aluminum angle along to top to fasten the platform. Roller bearings are sunk in the square tube for the drawers to roll on. Compared to conventional drawers slides this didn’t use up any side space and allowed the drawers to be removable. The drawers are made from ¼ plywood and 1/8 aluminum angle held together with screws and gorilla glue.





Drawer bottom




Sealed (except for the lid) fluid storage in front of the drawers



I’m going to move the mounts connecting the front compartment and the drawers to bolt the front compartments to the second row seat mounts instead. This way the front compartment and platfrom can be removed so the second row seats can be used with the drawers. This was another item quickly finished up the night before our trip.


 
So to get the cruise to work you simply got a 3FE cruise actuator (plug in not re pining?)cables and 12V+ to the "D" light? If so you have seriously made my day I was really worried I may lose the cruise on my swap.

Yep, the 3FE cruise actuator plugged right into the stock LX450 harness. No repinning. The 1HZ/D cruise actuator to injection pump cable is slightly longer than the 1FZ and 3F cable if they aren't long enough for your swap. I connected the yellow wire on pin 6 of the IL1 connector to the Black/orange wire on pin 4 of the IL2 connector to get 12V+ to the D light when the key is on. If you have the speedometer signal from the cluster, the cruise ECU should be happy. I currently don't have a working tachometer(factory diesel tachs are $$) and the engine and trans ECU are removed from the truck. Cruise works great.
 
Yep, the 3FE cruise actuator plugged right into the stock LX450 harness. No repinning. The 1HZ/D cruise actuator to injection pump cable is slightly longer than the 1FZ and 3F cable if they aren't long enough for your swap. I connected the yellow wire on pin 6 of the IL1 connector to the Black/orange wire on pin 4 of the IL2 connector to get 12V+ to the D light when the key is on. If you have the speedometer signal from the cluster, the cruise ECU should be happy. I currently don't have a working tachometer(factory diesel tachs are $$) and the engine and trans ECU are removed from the truck. Cruise works great.

Fantastic! Thank you!

I plan to try and use the cable from the 1FZ cruise actuator. The Isuzu has its throttle on the passenger side of the engine so it should fit well. I will be using the factory speed sensor on the t case so that should work fine. Was worried I was going to have to do a lot of wiring or live with out. Both I was not looking forward too, the system did look very simple in the wiring schematics I was looking at. Tach I'm just going to use a Dakota digital adapter to the factory tach. Use a red sharpie to lower the "red" line ;).
 
Excellent. Nice write up and pics.
 
Hey There, nice looking rig! Do you have any pics of the R151 to split-case? How did you adapt them?
 
I started off with a HZJ76 chassis. The R151 and split case were stock in the 76.

 
Interesting, I'll have to check out my '87 era r151f tailhousing...
 
Webasto
I love this thing! The heater core outlet goes to the webasto inlet. The webasto outlet is “T” to the heater core inlet on the 1HZ and to a valve to the heater core inlet. This allows the Webasto to heat either the engine and heater core or just the heater core. The rear heat switch (rear heat was removed) is wired up to run the dash blower motor on medium speed off the aux battery. The webasto is also wired off the aux battery. It’s awesome having heat in the truck while camping/sleeping without running the engine. I plan to swap over a flat plate heat exchanger for a shower from my 4runner. That’s what the 2 plugged T fittings will go to.



Cruise
The stock 1HZ/D accelerator pedal cable runs to the cruise control actuator like a 3FE. A 3FE cruise control actuator plugs into the 97 LX450 harness and the 3FE accelerator pedal to cruise cable works on the LX450. I bought the cable from the cruise actuator to the injection pump from Japan 4x4. The cruise control needs 12V on the D light circuit to work. No other signals from the engine or transmission ecus are needed.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom