Builds TYettie's HDJ81 Build

[TYetti]

Long long long time Lurker but I feel like I've finally done enough to warrant a build thread to chronicle the trials and tribulations of building up an HDJ in North America, so here we go....

Specs:
Engine: 1hdt, 3" SS Turbo back exhaust, Front mount intercooler
Lift: unknown 4-6" lift
Armor: none
Wheels and tires: Method NV 16" Dick Cepek MT
Exterior: none
Interior: Razorback front and rear seat covers, Android auto touchscreen, paracord grab handles, personal steering wheel

I also have an 09 Tacoma which will be downgraded to DD/Husky transport that build can be seen here

TYetti's 2.7L Rebuild/FULL SEND/EAF build

Current pic [ATTACH] [ATTACH] [ATTACH] [ATTACH] Mods Driveline -4.88 Yukon gears front and rear -Arb air locker front and rear -Rear diff breather...

www.tacomaworld.com

I bought this 80 after probably a year of searching, I was looking for an HDJ or a super clean gasser I could swap diesel was always going to be the way, I had a couple deals fall through but finally clinched one in August of 2020

Had to get fuel for the drive home


Added to the collection


The outside was in good shape it had only been in Canada for a year or so, and looked like it was in good shape and taken care of when in Japan, the Tbelt and water pump had been done per the stickers I found so that was nice, unfortunately the BEB had not been done ever to my knowledge and with 250k km on the clock at the time I literally just parked the truck which did not make my wife happy but better safe than sorry. The interior of the truck was a bit of a mess the while everything was there aside from a few pieces, it has clearly been taken apart and reassembled multiple times, gauge bezel was cracked and I found a rats nest of wires under there, the driver's side vent tube is also missing weird i know. Mechanical issues were non existent at aside from the beb and the disgusting side dump hack job exhaust the truck came with.

BEB






You can see some pretty good delamination on a few of these definitely glad I parked it and waited for parts at the time.

Right before this trucks first trip, I determined some clicking noises I was hearing was the ACSD, quick bit of searching determined I should just delete it before it breaks, so I picked up the blank plate and the night before of course I did the delete, also threw on some Method NV and 35" Dick Cepek MT, from my Tacoma, all while getting a shop addition built onto my house






Speaking of which finally some Wheeling, I do a Thanksgiving trip every year since 2014 so this was the 80s shake down, turns out the random lift from Japan has the absolute heaviest springs and I'm thinking too short of shocks since it likes to unload and is seriously lacking in flex

 

[TYetti]

Reserve

 

[TYetti]

Reserve

 

[TYetti]

Reserve

 

[TYetti]

It was an interesting first trip out I ended up taking a lot of bypasses because it was just a nightmare trying to bounce the truck down the trail, I pretty much restricted the 80 to DD/FSR cruiser






Finished the shop and got to work on fixing up some of the interior issues, broken grab handles were replaced with paracord handles, I deleted the factory amp thing that kept shorting out the fuses for the stereo, added an android auto double din and a usb port







That time I put a whole skid of laminate flooring in the back of the 80 and it only leveled the suspension lol



The reason's I bought the 80 in the first place

 

[TYetti]

Ice storm left her frozen







I ordered up some Razorbacks to keep the suede seats nice and mint









At this time I ordered up a 3" ss Turbo back exhaust, which took forever, I couldn't get anyone to ship anything out of aus, a cruiser buddy had one off Alibaba on his for more than a few years with no issues so I went that way it only took 3 months to show up, in that time I also added diy halo led projectors in new depo housings and scored some new depo corners as well









Exhaust









And then for my birthday my wife picked me up a few goodies, Prinsu roof rack and an Arb compressor





And that gets up caught up for now

 

[TYetti]

Ok so I finally got into the Prinsu rack install, unlike the Tacoma version the cruiser rack doesn't come with instructions weird right, guess they figure cruiser guys know more ?? Lol full disclaimer I put the wings on the wrong side and had to do everything twice so I did run out of time

I started by taking off the sunroof visor

Nice and dirty like the rest of the truck. I ended up assembling the whole rack and realized once I lifted it onto the truck that I messed up took it off a d just did the basics to get it back on

 

[TYetti]

Part 2

Finished sorta

I also ordered up some weather stripping to put on the bottom of the rack lots of people have reported no issues but I like the idea, hoping I don't have issues with the j hook things cause I'd really like to keep moving with projects

Ps excuse my messy shop it's one of my ongoing projects

 

[TYetti]

Finished up the Prinsu install today, had to wait for my weather stripping to arrive, I didn't have any issues getting it on added all my crossbars and got it clamped down, didn't have any problems with the clamps either which was nice since I'd read so much about them

The next challenge will be to get the tent up there somehow

 

[Dusten]

Ice storm left her frozen







I ordered up some Razorbacks to keep the suede seats nice and mint









At this time I ordered up a 3" ss Turbo back exhaust, which took forever, I couldn't get anyone to ship anything out of aus, a cruiser buddy had one off Alibaba on his for more than a few years with no issues so I went that way it only took 3 months to show up, in that time I also added diy halo led projectors in new depo housings and scored some new depo corners as well









Exhaust









And then for my birthday my wife picked me up a few goodies, Prinsu roof rack and an Arb compressor





And that gets up caught up for now

A little late, but a few searches here would've shown that Ben @ superior Engineering will ship legendex exhaust stateside.

 

[TYetti]

A little late, but a few searches here would've shown that Ben @ superior Engineering will ship legendex exhaust stateside.

I did so much searching but at the time, I just couldn't find anyone who was willing to ship, I'll keep it in mind for next time if this exhaust doesn't last, my buddy has been going on something like 5 years with it so for the price it seems to work

 

[Dusten]

I did so much searching but at the time, I just couldn't find anyone who was willing to ship, I'll keep it in mind for next time if this exhaust doesn't last, my buddy has been going on something like 5 years with it so for the price it seems to work

Weird because I just had a big post in the spring about my exhaust.

 

[TYetti]

Weird because I just had a big post in the spring about my exhaust.

When I was looking to buy it was like November 2020-Feb 2021 so that could be the difference, it also took like 5 months for it to show up even from Ali, at one point I was gonna cancel the order and get one fabbed locally but it showed up like two days after the seller asked me not to

 

[Dusten]

When I was looking to buy it was like November 2020-Feb 2021 so that could be the difference, it also took like 5 months for it to show up even from Ali, at one point I was gonna cancel the order and get one fabbed locally but it showed up like two days after the seller asked me not to

Rough. I paid in April and by May had my exhaust lol

 

[TYetti]

Rough. I paid in April and by May had my exhaust lol

Ya that would have been a much more acceptable turnaround. But it worked out in the end, I was pretty desperate to get rid of the side dump exhaust that the truck came with.

 

[TYetti]

Well it's been a hot minute, just a few things have happened so let's recap

After getting the prinsu rack installed I started to plan out my storage drawers for my enormous fridge and stove



Basic maintenance


Glamour shot with the KMC grenades


I scored some 5th gen 4runner sliders for 300$ which turned out to be the correct length for the 80 just required mounting modifications



Later on I picked up a aux fuse bracket, it's originally for the fj80 but some strategic bending and it fit in the HDJ81 nicely


A few months later I finally got the arb deluxe bumper, to me it's the classic look with the 80. Unfortunately someone welded on some tow hooks to the frame which had to be cut off, I also had to reroute the intercooler pipe , through the ARB bumper, this would later be a poor decision, as it required a creative coupler solution and it never sealed right.






Spent that summer just going on camping trips, really enjoyed the truck, for thi, its so much more comfortable than my Tacoma





Winter 2023/24
Shortly after a lake trip I found that the 1hdt was consuming oil for the first time ever, which was odd because it was really good that way and never did previously, the rerouted intercooler pipe tipped me off as it was constantly leaking boost, I noticed the whole backside of the bumper was covered in oil. Clearly the turbo had dome a seal.

 

[TYetti]

I gathered my shop helper and began the disassembly, once I started I realized just how much oil was in everything. Took a lot of brake clean to get it decent.


I was also able to extract all the manifold studs without any of them breaking and replaced them


Behold my stuff!!! Lots of hardware for this project, turbo studs, coolant line studs, high pressure oil line, oil return line, gaskets



I then tapped the manifold for an egt



Wife got me sandgrabba mats for Christmas

 

[TYetti]

Gauges
This turned out to be the longest part of the whole process, my dash was never the nicest, it had been painted at some point, which was failing, the center section was cracked badly, the upper gauge bezel was broken as well as the gauge cover itself. I also found out that at some point this truck had a bitchin sound system because I found what seemed like endless bundles of wires, also the remote start alarm was hacked into the ignition switch.






New mirror triangles


New ignition switch


New gauge cover



Mocked up gauges in overhead pod


PDI turbo inlet pipe


Fully assembled


I also got my hands on a excellent condition lower bezel, and upper bezel, painted them up with sem black, and ordered a full suspension set-up from icon



Fully assembled and running it had been 1year 2months at this point


This is where I found out that someone had messed with the tune and done a horrific job

 

[TYetti]

Tuning

The tuning saga has been ultra frustrating but I've learned a lot. The top advice I kept getting was just send the injection pump and injectors out for rebuild. Which would have returned the truck to baseline settings but I wouldn't have learned anything and it turns out I'd still have the same problems. This truck has always had a cowboy tune on it, she's been a coal queen since I bought it, and it wasn't until getting the new turbo that I was brave enough to tackle the tuning myself.

First things first LS400 visor swap


Ok now the tuning
I started by trying to get the GTurbo to fill boost which should have been 25 psi, but it was unable to reach past 15, and the truck was still throwing tons of coal. So I turned down the on boost fuel for a start by adding preload, the aneroid pin had been previously modified at some point in its life, the top had been ground off so that it has more space on the cap, and the profile made more aggressive.



I played with the setting for a while, at the same time devouring information from the ve pump thread on here. The whole time the Gturbo wouldn't get beyond 15psi, once I eliminated fuel and boost leaks, I moved onto checking the turbo itself out of frustration I pulled the wastegate line and suddenly full psi. Which lead me to the conclusion there's something going on with the wastegate. I assumed that the wastegate would work on spring pressure alone but this didn't seem to be the case, I added a T fitting inline after changing all my vacuum hoses to double wall silicone, and suddenly 19psi



I ordered a boost controller and added it to the mix and after some testing bam 25 psi
Adventure 80Series on Instagram: "Update finally got the truck running right #toyota4x4 #toyotalife #yotalife #yotafreaks #yotamafia #toyota #80series #landcruiser #yotanation #toyotalandcruiser #toyotapacific #toyotadreamers #toyotaheritage #turbo #toyotarigs #toyotadiesel #yota #cruisermafia #cruisercult #classictoyota #1hdt #turbodiesel #ih8mud" - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKXcAecpe9a/?igsh=MTB4cjRua28zOWVpMQ==

Couple more minor adjustments and the cruiser was a different machine, gobs of power on demand, and just in time to go climb the Cascade mountains and then the Rockies

Adventure 80Series on Instagram: "80 series likes to party now, 27psi peak pull egts stayed in the green pretty happy about that #toyota4x4 #toyotalife #yotalife #yotafreaks #yotamafia #toyota #80series #landcruiser #yotanation #toyotalandcruiser #toyotapacific #toyotadreamers #toyotaheritage #turbo #toyotarigs #toyotaholics #toyotadiesel #turbodiesel #1hdt #cruicsermafia #cruisercult #classictoyota #tuning #diesel #diesellife #dieseltuner #dieseltrucks #nevergofullretard" - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKa9f_vJrGb/?igsh=bTRkNGU3Z3M4Y2Fm

 

[TYetti]

Tragedy strikes 3 days after completing a 2500km trip to Alberta and back a Ding Dong kid tried to be the traffic at the last second and I couldn't stop. The cruiser did its job and I was fine but the damage was extensive