Hello all, I’m going to start a build thread here to show my progress on my current Duramax swap in my 94 FZJ80
Little history first, i bought this cruiser basically from the original owner with around 320k on the clock. But it was very well taken care and had almost all of its service records from the local Toyota dealership where it was from. Hardly any rust and all original which was exactly what I was looking for
First thing first was a quick wheel swap to a newer set of 17s and some decent all terrain tires
I drove this around for a while and loved it but what was killing me was how under powered the engine and transmission was and it was just killing the drive for me so I decided to undergo a new transplant
Most are going to ask why not just LS swap it and be done with it, this might sound weird to some but I’ve done so many LS swaps in so many different kinds of vehicles that it’s just to easy anymore.
So I basically wanted a challenge
I’ve always been a big fan of duramaxs, I’ve owned a couple LB7s and LLY trucks and my favorite was a 2009 LMM truck I had with a full exhaust and fully deleted that I just loved the sound and the way it drove
So I decided why not try to get the sound and drive ability of a LMM duramax into a 7 seater triple locked Land Cruiser
Since this swap apparently isn’t very common since I only found like 2 build threads and neither of them seemed to ever get finished I had to do a lot of homework before I got started
I decided to go with a LMM out of a Chevy express because I wanted to run a 4l80e because Marks 4wd sells a 4l80e to Land cruiser transfer case adapter so that simplified alot
Little history first, i bought this cruiser basically from the original owner with around 320k on the clock. But it was very well taken care and had almost all of its service records from the local Toyota dealership where it was from. Hardly any rust and all original which was exactly what I was looking for
First thing first was a quick wheel swap to a newer set of 17s and some decent all terrain tires
I drove this around for a while and loved it but what was killing me was how under powered the engine and transmission was and it was just killing the drive for me so I decided to undergo a new transplant
Most are going to ask why not just LS swap it and be done with it, this might sound weird to some but I’ve done so many LS swaps in so many different kinds of vehicles that it’s just to easy anymore.
So I basically wanted a challenge
I’ve always been a big fan of duramaxs, I’ve owned a couple LB7s and LLY trucks and my favorite was a 2009 LMM truck I had with a full exhaust and fully deleted that I just loved the sound and the way it drove
So I decided why not try to get the sound and drive ability of a LMM duramax into a 7 seater triple locked Land Cruiser
Since this swap apparently isn’t very common since I only found like 2 build threads and neither of them seemed to ever get finished I had to do a lot of homework before I got started
I decided to go with a LMM out of a Chevy express because I wanted to run a 4l80e because Marks 4wd sells a 4l80e to Land cruiser transfer case adapter so that simplified alot