OM606 Swap FJ80

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I’m working on swapping my 1991 Land Cruiser with an OM606 from a 98 Mercedes e300td. The plan has been to keep as much of the drivetrain original as possible and integrate the OM606 as best as I can.
Reason for the swap (other than just being awesome) was due to the original 3fe showing signs of failure after 320k miles. The rest of the cruiser was in amazing shape though so it was a great candidate to be swapped.

Here’s a picture when I picked up the engine and trans out of a donor car:

Next step was tearing down the engine to put in heavier valve springs and do an overall refresh.

That picture was taken after the block was painted. After that I started reassembly with fresh gaskets and a rear sump oil pan (already in the picture). The original turbo that came on the engine was on the smaller side and leaking a decent bit of oil. After checking through flow charts I decided to go down the route of using a gtx2867r. I’m starting with a Pulsar turbo to check the power level and response before switching out to a Garrett unit for longevity. I designed an adapter for the oem manifold to go to the T25 flange and have a thermocouple for getting EGT data.

 

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A few more parts I designed at this stage included a downpipe bellmouth for the 5 bolt flange on the turbo, intake inlet adapter and a fuel heater block off plate. The downpipe bellmouth I designed and had 3D printed out of 316L stainless steel. Intake inlet adapter I designed and had 3D printed out of AlSi10Mg. Fuel heater block off plate was laser cut out of 3/16” 5052.

 

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Fab parts included capping off the EGT port on the oem turbo manifold. I tug welded it with a nickel alloy rod as the manifold is NiCr. The water pump housing had a tube coming out of the back that almost did a 180 degree turn. I welded a bung onto that to remove the need for a o-ring fitted tube as it was leaking.

 

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With the engine mostly reassembled in its final form it was time to start on mating the engine to the A440F. I started with 3D scanning the entire OM606.

I then 3D scanned the 3FE mostly the bell housing and the RH side of the engine for positioning in the engine bay when I get to that stage. I only needed one side to use for a vehicle for-aft reference with the original engine mounts so I could get the transmission location.
Now the fun challenge. I couldn’t locate an adapter on the interwebs so I needed to design one. Here’s a picture of an early model I was working with:

Not shown in that picture is the torque converter adapter that I designed and just got delivered from the machine shop. Torque converter adapter is made of 7075 and adds roughly 7lbs of mass to the rotating assembly.

And here’s a picture bolted to the OM606 flex plate so you can see how it will interface.