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Toyota Supra 1JZ-GTE ('83) Swap - Tons of pics (56K Beware)

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#1 ·




Project: 1JZ-GTE SUPRA(83)
Code Name: Black Tofu
Operation dates: 04/03 – 05/07
Status: Active
Security Level: Classified





Wazzz up all!

My name is Sam and I'm a Supraholic. I wanted to take this moment to document my latest Supra build up. I've been an import guy for years, and I've always wanted to build a true, track ready racecar. I started out tinkering with my daily driver, simple bolt on parts on my Honda Accord. Then the body kit, suspension, and engine, then holy crap I've spent way too much money!! It was hella sweet, very well done, but I'd straight cry like a war veteran widow if it ever went off the road. Not to mention, it needs to get me to work. Well long story short.. hard times hit and I sold that sweet Honda. I was left with some extra cash and an addiction to horsepower.


I guess I'd like to start at the beginning (duh). I honestly didn't know what I wanted to start with. Drifting really caught my attention, so I started looking for any 240sx for a Silvia build up. Money dwindled during the search, then I was in the market for a Datsun 510 or Toyota Corolla AE86. Eventually, I came across a shady lot with a Black 1983 Celica/Supra with the naturally aspired 5M-GE engine. Hey, that looks like a Corolla, sort of.. Went home and did some research and found a whole following for the Mark II Supra. Looked at engine specs, mods and swaps others have done. $1200 later, it's in my driveway leaking oil. Perfect! I was born with the knowledge that in-line six power kicks ass.





I drove it around for a day or two before my buddy pointed out the Jesus fish on the rear. "Are we racing for Jesus?" he asked. Unless Jesus buys me a set of tires or something, I'll save the advertising space for the sponsors. After scraping it off, the outline of the fish still shines thru and will forever be a mark on my new car's ass.


This car had a purpose. It's hard to get over the stigma that you need a back seat.. or stereo.. or interior.. or dash.. LOL. Let the teardown begin!! This was the fun part. I went on the philosophy of.. If the car needs it to function, keep it. Otherwise, it get's tossed on the victory pile. I was surprised, all I needed was a screwdriver and three socket sizes to pretty much take the whole car apart. Removing the A/C and Heater core was the most fun. After wrestling with all that crap, they got a well deserved boot party to the curb. I combed the entire car for little brackets, odd & ends. I kept all the screws and hardware in a bucket to start a metric collection that can always be used elsewhere later. Chased down unconnected wires to stuff like the rear window wiper and squirters, antenna, horns, etc.. I took off all the water shields under the engine and in the wells. It's funny, every time I thought I had everything there was possibly to take off, I'd always find something else. Some hidden hose or wire to a disconnected systems. Now I have a sunroof, with no motor, LOL. I wanted to keep the car drivable for fun. After everything was out, it still didn't seem empty enough, so I proceeded to spend the next 2 months chipping away rubber mat sound denting material while I restocked my bank account for race upgrades.





I did manage to sell a bunch of parts from the teardown on EBay and Craigslist to get things started. I started out with the basic "must haves" for a racecar. Bucket seats, cool steering wheel (the OG wheel felt like it belonged on a bus or something), rims, tires, and suspension springs. Since this is a 26 year old car, the aftermarket parts market is pretty slim. There's only one or two manufacturers for any part you may need. I'll try to lean more towards "universal" parts, or modify whatever I have laying around. The idea here was BUDGET. Don't go for the fancy anything, function only. Ultimately, style does come into play, it's gotta look cool right?


It took me a while to find a body kit. The search eventually boiled down to two body kits that looked similar. I settled for a Kaminari 8 piece kit w/ fender flairs. I don’t' think it mattered much, because nothing fit at all, the install was a battle from the get go, and I ended up using the stock flairs and hacking on the kit till it felt comfortable. And my rattle can paint job was a waste after the first fitment kung-fu hack. I used my old Greddy SP exhaust from my Honda, with custom, catless, piping from a steelyard. It did purr nicely at idle, and extra racy when power hit it.


 
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#2 ·
One of the coolest mods I did at this point was the short shifter kit. I bought it from random guy off EBay. The stock shifter was like a huge whale dork with swing to match. A flick of the wrist and gears go passing buy. I was hooked, I stared cutting shifters everywhere, convincing friends to chop the shifters on their automatic Explorers.





I scored on some black embroidered-less APC seats on EBay for cheap (I hate logos). I failed to realize that the ass thickness of the seat would push my head into the roof of the Supra. So we modified the seat brackets and fabbed up much lower mounts in the car. They're so low, we had to poke access holes thru the floor of the car for tools to remove the seats. My head still sits kinda high, but recline able seats help (also with the gangsta lean).


Unfortunately, there's not much adjustability in the suspension system. So far I've bought some Eibach lowering springs, and the car still doesn't sit low enough for me. We hacked a few coils out of each to spring so the fender lip sat about 3/4" above the tire. Now it looks like it wants to go curve hunting. There's still alot of body roll. Defiantly some urethane bushings and the roll cage will stiffen it up. But for now, I'll live with the roll. What's cool is that the lowering cambered the tires in a few degrees, but almost not noticeable unless you have a square. Kinda a "set it and forget it" suspension set up.


My vision of a racecar is a clean, organized, professional portrayal of engineering. I wanted the "cockpit" to be clear of dangly wires or rust, or dirt. Rustoluem "Hammerite" silver is the ultimate battle armor for the naked metal. I swear by this stuff. The black kicks ass too! A four can interior spay job for 30 bucks. Eventually the role cage will be the same color. I unconnected all the chassis wiring and wiped everything down, and rewrapped the harness in blue electrical tape. The tape covers alot of dirt and looks new when it's all reconnected.








As time went by, I collected and replaced a lot of odds and ends in the engine. To me there wasn't since throwing a bunch of money at an old and tired engine. My goal was to clean it up (for those of you who don't know.. a wet towel is your best friend), get rid of useless crap, and add minor bolt on power adders. I'm already thinking of the near future engine swap. Blue spark plug wires from Accell, and decent spark plugs. I found a Pace Setter exhaust header on EBay. It arrived in the mail looking all black and cool. It looked soo sweet bolted up to the N/A engine. We fired up the car and all the paint burned up in seconds in a plume of bad smelling smoke revealing the grained oakish rusting steel underneath. It looked like crap but it worked well.


The guys at Rabid Chimp sold me a air intake system. That worked really well, and looked awesome sitting on the engine. It always bothered me that Toyota put the air intake directly above the exhaust headers. Hot air right into your engine = bad. That nice looking intake got really warm.







OK, at this point I felt the car was ready to go out and have some fun. The registration on it was still good for another year, so I can do whatever I want to the car, and still drive it on the roads. There’s no doubt it was an old engine. The odometer stopped at 130K and the speedo didn’t work when I bought it. Here's another stigma that's hard to break.. really babying your car.. worrying about possible engine damage. Drive it like you stole it. I took advantage of the curves, straight molested them. I signed up for some Weekend drift events at Portland International Raceway. Big props to Eric "Lunchbox" and Kicky-fast.com for hosting so many events. Going broke for track time. It's so satisfying shifting at 6500rpm. I really got a good feel of the car, but the engine was really getting pushed. The valve guides starting really opening up and started to burn oil badly. We had poked so many holes in the floor and firewall, smoke came in and went as it pleased.








Here's a link to a one of the Kicky-fast events from Hated-1 productions. You can see my Supra in line at the beginning burning up mad oil, but that's about it. That was one of it's last sessions.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-144107151246795143&q=kicky+fast


The tired 5M-GE engine finally went. I wanted it to be all glorious with explosions, and exciting, with parts flying everywhere. But it just started squeaking and knocking really badly. On the last day, oil was dripping pretty bad from the sump gasket. Trying to explain the towel under your car to the race officials is not fun. We nursed it home and tried to give it the death petal. Floor it until it explodes (or something exciting) to give it one last 9000rpm scream. It finally just smoked and clanked so badly we called it, and signed the death certificate. We were totally expecting it to happen, and had fun doing it. I enjoyed pushing it to it's limits. A far cry from the X-box controller.
 
#3 ·
Now to put in to action..

Project: 1JZ-GTE
Codename: BLACK TOFU.


I actually wanted a 2JZ-GTE engine but the prices scared me away. The 1JZ seemed rare enough to be cool with all the die hard Supra enthusiasts. It has everything the 2JZ's got (except horsepower & weight) all rapped up in a smaller, higher rev friendly package. Parts can be swapped like wives. The American spec 7M-GTE was a good candidate for this swap, but I'm attracted to turbos (plural). What I found really interesting were the donor cars from Japan. Great cars normal people in the States never knew existed. The Chaser and Soarer have always been considered mild-luxury sports cars (see: Lexus). I swear the Supra was genetically created from the genes of Japan's finest engineers. The engines that are imported from Japan are usually in great shape and well maintained. Commonly the donor car is perfectly fine before going under the knife. It feels good to know the new engine for my little Supra was born free roaming on the open streets of Japan.





On to the research.. Straight to the internet to find out exactly what kind of job I was up against and get a feel for the cost. It common knowledge the engine fits. Thankfully a lot of people have done the swap. Most pages with anything to do with the 1JZ will have a "Most commonly asked questions" section. What helps the most are the Random Joe's 1JZ (or 2JZ) Swap pages, where they share their experiences. Maybe I'll help inspire others as well.


One of the more important things I found was to make sure of the oil sump configuration is correct. Both the 1JZ & 2JZ have front, mid, or rear sumps depending on the chassis it came from. The front cross member of my 26 year old chassis needs the font sump to rest right in front of it. Custom engine mount are needed to sandwich it between the cross member and anti-sway bar, with not fudge room to spare. The bolt patterns for all sump pans are the same, so it can be easily swapped. However, spare front sump pans are rare and expensive.


The other looming question is the wiring and computer. The engine harness of my 5M-GE was confusing enough. Everything is nicely engineered to exact lengths. The right hand drive 1JZ harness needs to be extended about 3 feet. Or have an expensive custom harness made. If you got the nards, you can go online and find all the wiring schematics and connector pin outs for both cars and attempt it DIY style. Anyone in the house read Japanese? I'm opting to take the right way out.. Have the professionals do it. Here's the reason: Having the stock ECU is fine and dandy to keep the car running, but is not very good for tuning. If I'm going to race this thing, I need the ability to control & adjust the engine dynamics on the fly. A stand alone engine management system is the way to go. Adjustments to air/fuel maps, ignition timing, and on board data logging features will make sure this engine is tuned for optimum performance. Without it, all the other crap you throw at your engine for power won't be fully utilized. I'm personally thinking about a AEM EMS system. And here comes the bad part.. The system retails for about $1600 bucks, and a custom harness still needs to be made (more like modified). Add an additional $800 because you're not the one dealing with the rat's nest. And to top it off, about $80 an hour for dyno time. I'm figuring about $3000 for total install (The car cost $1200) just for the brains. That not counting the engine yet. I'm saving this nasty issue for very last. I'll attack the mechanical & fluid systems first.


There are several versions of the 1JZ, more like generations. Newer models came equipped with a huge single turbo and VVTi (Variable Valve Timing). Plus a sleeker looking valve cover. The VVTi is a device that is connected to a adjustable timing gear and mechanically advances a set of valves at higher engine RPM. All versions have relatively the same horsepower, but the newer generations are harder to find.


Generally, both the old 5M-GE and the 1JZ have similar characteristics (except a distributor cap). Both share a similar body size & style. DOHC straight six with the exhaust coming out the passenger side. Both use a clutch style cooling fan. The 1JZ, will need space for the intercooler, it’s plumbing and a bigger radiator. A new transmission mount and a drive line need to be built. I'm going to have to re-route power steering, coolant, clutch and fuel lines. I still don't know if the stock fuel pump will be enough to feed this beast, but I need to get a bigger one anyway to handle the command shouting ECU. Yep, every engine life support system will be modified.


The search for my engine is on. I looked at several on-line junk yards for available engines. EBay is a good source to price them. Shipping is a given, I doubt there's a Soarer clip in your town's local death lot. It is very freakn' important to have the engine package include the Igniter Chip, ECU, and MAP Sensor. Spendy morsels to find later. Since I was looking for a front sump, 1JZ with a 5-speed transmission, the list was short. I sent a e-mail to most prospects explaining exactly what I was looking for. Most of the engine clips I found were in California ranging from $2000 to $3000. I ended up calling a few yards to verify the front sump. Some were helpful enough to e-mail me some pictures. Some did look a little weathered and junky.





Finally the guys at Driftmotion.com hooked me up with a full 1JZ-GTE clip. All the engine openings were taped up, and it looked fairly clean, and they said the compression tested great. They were easy to talk to, and really understood what I was trying to do. Aaron and Jose at Drift Motion really know their Supras. They made sure I got everything I needed for this custom swap. At first I wanted the full clip, but it was way cheaper to just send the engine & tranny with a box or two of goodies on a pallet. Since I didn't need the radiator and A/C, it made the package much smaller. They went out of their way to pull the engine from the clip for me. Then separated the tranny, and tracked down all the electrical gadgets I wanted. All for a smooth $2700 to my doorstep. ** Prices will vary **





Well, the engine showed up as promised, and I proceeded to geek out for hours. I did more than a few walk arounds familiarizing myself with all the systems. One thing I really studied were all the loose vacuum lines. Then wires and hoses. What the hell to those go to? The engine harness looked complicated at first, but when it was untangled and followed back, it seemed fairly logical. A huge pig tail bundle of wires connectors at the CPU end. I rummaged thru the boxes, found the CPU. Interesting enough, it's for an automatic tranny, but it can be used for manual with no issues. I don't care anyway (see: AME EMS). Set all the electrical aside and put it away for another day. There was the clutch fork, slave clutch cylinder, clutch fan, Power steering hoses & reservoir & cooler, clutch fan, and sensors. I'm going to toss the stock fan, for some twin slim electric fans later. It even came with the stock intake tube, but no filter. Toss that, it's a tube. Chrome intakes are cheap. Especially since it's a simple design and doesn't need to snake around the bay. I also found the igniter chip, and map sensor. I'm sure they plug into something. The throttle cable was ridiculously long, like out of a corvette long. I might be able to rig it somehow.

 
#4 ·
The next steps.. Start really cleaning everything that came with the new engine and start dismantling the old. Yummy, more tear down. First thing that came to mind was to pull everything off the engine I can re-sell online for new parts money. Pulled and sold the Rabid Chimp Intake, Pace Setter Headers, ECU, Spark Wires, Starter, and that cool short shifter. In all I ended up with about $800 of play money to shop with. Disconnected the fuel, power steering, and radiator systems. Unbolted the driveline and motor mounts. I want to paint the engine bay, so everything must come out. Completely disconnected the chassis engine harness and pulled it. I think I'm going to use the stock fuse box for the chassis electrical system, but it still gets yanked. Unbolted, unscrewed every bracket, and hunted for little wiring clips and hangers. I took apart all the headlight brackets to gain access to some of the wiring. Also to clean and paint them later.





Now to pull the old engine... What to do with a blown 5M-GE engine? I pulled the sump off to take a look inside. I found alot of brass shavings from the valve guides. And the rings are toast. This thing is junk now, but the tranny's good. I put it up on Craigslist for free, a take it off my hands deal. Within a day somebody came buy and picked it up. Interesting story, this dude is rebuilding the old 5M-GE and putting it into a kit car called the "Lotus 1" (see: Google). An old school looking formula race car, which is street legal. He figured a free engine is a good place to start. He later told me we had spun the #2 crank bearing out of its seat. Cool, so top and bottom end went out together, that worthy. Maybe some day he'll drive his project by my way.





Check it out! You can see my garage pit in the background. Everyone should have one. That thing kicks soooo much ass.
I swear that engine leaked oil till the very end. lol.




Here’s the stuff I sold online... That’s right. I sold the wing.






I gave the completely stripped engine bay a hose down with a pressure washer. Deeper cleaning will come later, it's time to think about where the new engine needs to sit. The first thing I noticed were the original mounts were welded to the cross member. We had to torch and grind those off. We had to punch two huge holes in the forward wells to send the intercooler tubing thru. I wanted to have plenty of play room, so I made the holes like 9 inches round. This will also help get more air into the engine bay. Thinking ahead now will have it's rewards later.








There's going to be some fab work. Engine mounts, transmission mount, radiator and intercooler mounts, & drive line modifications. Also random brackets for fluid tanks and fans. One system at a time. First the engine prep work.


At this point, it's clean, clean, then clean some more. I caressed every surface of the awaiting 1JZ with a wet towel. Engine brite and the pressure washer helped tremendously. I really cleaned the transmission seam, and the drive spline. While the bell housing was off, I studied how the clutch fork was to be assembled. Getting a good idea of were everything is supposed to fit. It makes it much easier to do when the tranny is mounted. The clutch and flywheel looked a little worn. However that's a big investment and I'd rather concentrate on mounting the engine. I'll replace them later when I burn'em up. Then I slapped the engine & tranny together. Getting the spline to exactly line up was tricky. I tighten the bolts down to 32 ft/lbs of torque, then loosened them, then torqued them down again. There's no gasket, just make sure the mating surfaces are clean.





I didn't like that ugly A/C unit hanging off the engine, like a hairy mole on a hot chick. A few bolts later, and the thing fell off and I kicked it to the corner. I made a custom power steering brace out of 1/2" square tubing. Cut to length, two holes, and some paint. This of coarse is going to need a new belt, custom size me please. I used a 18306PK belt, (1830cm or 73" with 6 ribs) it fits good. The belt tensioner on the 1JZ rawks. A simple pull and the belt comes right off. Easy! Go Toyota.





We decided to use the stock 1JZ-GTE engine mounts, and simply make a welded bracket to mount the 1JZ rubber to. The question is how high to make them. That would require a test fit. We loaded the engine into the empty bay with our "Version 1.0" engine brackets. Turns out we were way too high (the engine silly..). The engine was sitting so high, the transmission was at an extreme downward angle. We need to get it much lower. Bring on brackets "Version 2.0". This would need holes in the cross member for the stud, and more holes for access to the nut and tools to tighten it. We lowered the engine down one more time, and still too high. I wanted to center the engine mounts on the cross member, it seemed natural, with plenty of clearances around the sump. But the transmission felt way forward, and thought we could squeeze an extra inch closer to the firewall. But this would place the mounts over the rear edge of the cross member. Hummmm.. OK this time, we decided to just cut a huge hole into the cross member and sink the rubber mounts even further down. The mounts have a steel base with the stud sticking out, so welding it is no problem. We got our holes cut and had to lower the engine in one more time. Clunk..





The engine drops into the holes and sits comfortably, with the tranny centered in the tunnel hole. The engine sat flat and the transmission lined up nicely and it was uber low. Finally! We tack welded the mounts in place and unbolted the engine from the top to pull it out again. Once the engine was out, we welded all around the mounts and filled in the gaps. There's no getting these babies out. They are now permantly fused to the cross member.





 
#5 ·
Now we have to fab the transmission mount. Frack! One more test fit. We were getting good at swinging the engine in and out. While the engine was in on the previous test fit, I notice the tranny mount holes were only a few inches away from the stock support holes. We had to hammer a small dent in one of the tunnel ribs to fit it comfortably. I ended up making two simple, two-hole brackets that fit the rear mount on the tranny in a vee shape. Then a plate with the four-bolt pattern of the tranny mount brace, and welded some 3/8" bolts x 4" long to make studs. I cut up a rubber mat in 5 or 6 rectangles and drilled that pattern in them. Adjusting the number of mats sandwiched up raises and lowers the transmission end. After testing fit or two, we tack welded the plate to the brackets, unbolted it and finished the weld. Simple and free.


In my opinion this placement can't get any better. We pushed the engine back and down, and the shifter is in a much more comfortable position. The crank pulley was a bit too close to the anti-sway bar. As soon as the car was lowered back to the ground, the sway bar pushed down and plenty out of the way under the car's weight. The rear turbo sits, about a 1/4" away from the rear bay wall. Thankfully the fuel lines sorta line up. The steering column is in the clear. Since I took the A/C out, there’s plenty of arm space on the side of the block to get to the mount bolt. However, it's still a little tight up front. Looks like I'm going to have to go with pusher fans instead of pullers.


OK, let's pull it out (see: again?!). It's time to paint. Again, Silver "Hammerite" to save the day. With the engine bay stripped bare, the headlight assemblies apart, it makes it easy to get in those hard to reach areas. I gave everything one last scrub with grease dissolver and a pressure washed bath. I wanted the steering column, brake and clutch boosters black. So I pained them first and masked them when they were dry. I took the approach to paint everything. Cross member, mounts, power steering rack, hard lines, suspension arms, and even into the tranny tunnel. I especially went rust hunting under the car for random spots. After painting, the engine bay looked soooo sweet. Clean and bright. I also painted the headlight hinges and the underside of the hood to match. I painted the wiper motor black to balance the color with the brake booster.








Now the let's paint the motor. The 1JZ valve covers were a little weathered. I figured it would look sweet color matched to the bay. With the covers off, this gives me a chance to pull the spark plugs and replace them. Also to get more dirt out of the corners. I painted the center vented cover black to separate the two covers. I also painted the cam gear cover, but I like the exposed cam gears look, so for now that cover stays off. I systematically disconnected all hoses, to clean and inspect them. Also exposing more areas to clean. I took advantage of this time to sleeve every hose I could with hose braid. Most hose braid kits come with fancy aluminum hose clamp covers. I found these things useless. They're hard to work with and you only have a few of them in different sizes. I found taping the ends of the hose braid with blue colored tape looked much cleaner. You can buy bulk hose braid thru an industrial supply distributor like McMaster.com for cheap. Braiding all the hoses were a challenge, but the extra work will be worth it in the end. When I get the rest of the line plumbing figured out, they'll get the treatment too.








I also took this moment to change the oil. The filter looked used. Yeah, check out my JDM oil filter. A stock 2JZ or 7M filter is a direct replacement. I'm sure the boys Driftmotion changed the oil when they switched sumps, it's just a good idea (also to know for sure). I installed the clutch fork and slave cylinder. It was a little tricky, but much easier to do while the engine was out. I liberally lubed the shaft before sticking it thru the hole to hit the sweet spot (he,he..). After taking some rough measurements, I needed a slightly longer clutch line to reach the MKII stock line, about 12 inches. I took advantage of the mounting brackets to keep the line out of the way for the install.

I ran down the 1JZ wiring harness again and cleaned the connectors and sleeves. I removed a lot of loose hanging tape and cable ties. I took more blue tape and re taped sections of the harness back together. I know most of this won't be used, but whatever does will look good. I did the same to the stock MKII chassis harness. Cleaned the gunk off every connector and re-taped loose sleeves. At least with that harness, I get the satisfaction of plugging stuff back together. Then I realized this was a turning point of the engine swap. Switching gears from disassembly to build. First to go back in was the OEM chassis harness for the headlights, signals, and the fuse box. The install was pretty straight forward. I used the stock cable clamps that made it thru the teardown. All the plugs line up so it’s hard to mess this up. While I was at it, I acquired a cheap pair of HID conversion headlights. It’s going to be a while till I see them turn on. Lol..


 
#6 ·
OK.. Finally the moment.. The scene they always cut to in the movies. Dropping this beast into her new home. Clunk! That was easy. There's like 6 bolts that bring these two together to form the Voltron of drifting. Man that looks good.. When we lowered the car back to it's wheels, the weight of the engine was perfect for the front cut suspension, and it leveled out nicely. I didn't notice before how low that engine really sat. It almost knee level (see: back pain).








This was a major stepping stone done, so we spent the next week standing around it, drinking beer. The first thing to put on was the shifter, boot, and knob. A two second install, and a must for daydream drifting.


The throttle cable. I had one that was too short, and the other that was way too long. I figure the best approach is to cut the longer one to fit. I had to cut the cable clamp at the fire wall end and pull the steel cable thru. I set up the throttle body end and ran it to the firewall and cut it to size. I cut the fire wall mount end off my shorter cable. I hooked it up to the throttle body, and ran the steel cable thru both halves. I simply tapped the cut end of my new cable sleeve to the stock fire wall mount, the braided cable holds it centered. On the inside of the cabin, I took a 3/8" bolt with two nuts (he, he) and created a cable lock. I drilled a cable sized hole thru the bolt and squished the cable with the two lock nuts. A bit bulky, but works great. The pedal pressure was way light because of the shorter cable. So I unbolted the pedal spring clamp from the firewall and gave it an extra flip to add one more sprint winding. Then I bolted it back under some serious tension. An easy way for a stiffer throttle pedal, with some improved response.


The brake system was never disconnected, so through the swap, it helped with moving the car around the garage. So that's two pedals down, one to go. Making the clutch work was fairly easy. Since I got the longer hydraulic line, it was a nice relaxed bend to connect it to the stock fitting. My stock clutch slave cylinder was leaking badly, so I found a cheap OE replacement on Ebay. Bleeding the system is a two person job. Blamo.. Three working pedals. The clutch fork completely lifts, and the shifter moves smoothly.


With the engine filling up the bay I can really study where things need to be. Fluid tanks, intercooler pipe, radiator & pipes, fan, and power steering all need to be custom mounted and routed. I spent some serious time into sketching out hose & pipe routings.





I decided to attack the front stuff first.. The Radiator, Intercooler, and the fans. I wanted to have the biggest radiator that I could fit into the frame members. I took some measurements, and subtracted some for working space. This is where sketching all the hose routing really helped me. Identify the coolant outlet and inlet, and imagine the inlet and outlet of the radiator. Most configurations I’ve seen for the 1JZ is the radiator inlet on the top drivers side with the outlet on the lower passenger side. My engine doesn’t leave that much room up front. I took the unusual approach to put both ports on the passenger side. Mostly because both engine ports are on the passenger side and it seemed like a shorter travel distance. I found a universal 3” core aluminum radiators online, and they welded both ports on the passenger’s side on request.
If I was smart I would have requested the ports to be the same diameter as the ports on the 1JZ engine.


Thus begins the saga about the radiator that could. When the radiator arrived I eagerly thru it in the bay. It was a nice tight fit from side to side, but it didn’t leave room between it and the engine. About 8 inches. That’s some seriously tight bends for a radiator hose. Then I realized, it sat extremely high, and there’s no way the hood would close. Crap’o-la! And, to top it off, the elevation of the inlet port pointed directly into the intercooler piping’s flight path. I’m too stubborn to send stuff back via mail, then wait with a barrage of e-mails and phone calls, then more money, then more wait. No thanks, I’ll make it fit... A tig welder is a must. Cutting the radiator neck off was step one to kill the height. The top and bottom surfaces had two veins that could be folded over to gain another half inch down. And lastly, I had to cut the extra threads off the frame bolts below that the radiator sits on. It’s such a tight fit. The hood actually hits the radiator first, and you have to muscle it the last quarter inch. Air tight baby! I wanted the biggest radiator possible and I got it. I totally had to re-think how I was going to route the coolant hoses. There was not enough room between the radiator and the engine, it was clear I was going have to hack the original radiator inlets. I got some aluminum tubing the same sizes as the 1JZ coolant inlet and outlet. It makes sense to not have many hose reductions in the system. By pointing the top inlet towards the passenger wall, it seemed to give me more room to work and bend hoses. Also, offsetting the lower inlet in the same direction allowed for a better flow around the alternator.


The final dimensions of the radiator core (without inlets) was 27”x18.5”x3”. If you do this swap, I seriously suggest not to go much bigger.. 18.5” is the absolute max height.



Since I cut the fill neck off, I’ll need an extra expansion tank to fill and check fluid levels. ..And the overflow tank. The front passenger side corner is getting pretty busy, with the intake and intercooler piping already there. I also need elevation to mount the tank. I found a cheap expansion tank for a 05 Ford Mustang that looked like it’ll do the trick. However, when I got it, of course.. it was way too big. I chopped it in half with the ban saw and had a plate welded to replace the missing wall. I got the wacky idea to mount the tank in the rear of the bay on the fender wall. Then route the fill hose thru the fender wall to the tire well, to pop back into the bay near the top of the radiator. It’s the sneak attack approach. It’s kinda far away, but that would increase fluid capacity. The only problem is that the gas spring that holds the hood rests along that fender wall when the hood was closed. So I had to make a bracket to have the tank mount about 2 inches away from the wall. Welded it all in, and spray some Hammerite for that freshy look. The chrome tanks look good in that corner.








It was clear that the top connection between the engine and the radiator was going to have to make a very tight “S” shape. Rubber hose has limitations for tight bends. They tend to fold. I thought about using connector fittings with elbow bends, but the hose diameter was huge and the fittings would be expensive. I checked out corrugated flex hose. Those didn’t seem to flex as tight as I needed, and the idea of crinkled hose doesn’t exactly translate into flow. I ended up taking some aluminum piping and cutting the angles for the tight joints to be welded. I’ve always loved the look of the welded tube one sliver at a time look, just like in the JDM tuner magazines. It turned out really nice, up front and center with the aluminum radiator for good bling factor.


 
#7 ·
The plan from day one was to go with electric fans, so I tossed the 1JZ clutch fan the moment I saw it. There wasn’t enough room up front for it anyway. I purchased twin 12” electric fans that would fit perfectly in front of the radiator. The picture shows a third fan that was given to me, but it was way too big to fit. Eventually they’ll be wired up to the EMS computer which will control them. The car’s frame and the hood latch sheet metal created a nice frame to mount fans. I also to take advantage of their slim profile. Most fans mountings are pretty universal. I took some sheet metal and fabbed up some vertical mounts and tack welded them in place. More Hammerite and it looks like it was meant to be there. I did some tests before I installed the fans. I found on these, swapping the +/- wires changes the direction of the motor, and the fan goes from pusher to puller. I did also try pulling the fan itself and turning it around, but it clearly wasn’t designed to do that. There was one flaw to my master plan.. If I ever had to replace the fans, I’d have to pull the radiator. Ummmm… 








I bought two 3" intercooler piping pieces, one 45 deg & one 90 deg
sections for cheap on E-bay to use for my custom air intake. I had to trim the lengths to size, and get some 3” silicone hose couplings. Interesting note here, the 1JZ air intake port is 2.75” around, so I had to get a silicone hose reducer for the mismatch. Plug a filter on the end. Simple and cheap. I think the general rule is the bigger the intake, the better. We’ll see. I think I might have to put a mass air-flow sensor somewhere, but I’ll have to do the research to see if the EMS will need it. I’ll worry about it later. Yay, it’s shiny.





The intercooler system is the coolest part of a turbo engine (no pun intended). I bought a universal 24”x9”x3” aluminum intercooler on E-bay for a few hundred bucks. I could have gone bigger, but I decided to play it safe after the radiator incident. I also found a universal 2.5” aluminum piping kit for another hundred. It came with (2x) 45 deg, (2x) 90 deg, (2x) 120 deg, and (2x) straight pipes. I figured if I fell short, I could always buy single pieces later. The kit came with the silicone hose couplings and clamps. It was clear, I was going to need to make some pretty tight turns at the turbo manifold and throttle body. I had to order some 90 deg angled silicone couplings to complete the parts list. It's going to take some cutting and measuring one piece at a time. But, before I got carried away with cutting all the shiny tubing, I had to mount the intercooler. I actually found a really simple method to mount it. It just so happens there’s a shelf with bolt holes under the headlight motors on each side. A simple piece of steel to stretch across the void would act as the top mount to hang the intercooler from. This put the bottom of the intercooler just inches away and in front of the cross frame member. I added two bent flanges welded to the frame to be the lower mounts. I had to do some adjustments to get the intercooler ports to be in the clear for the tubing attachments. The tubing has to really hug the car for the needed ground clearance. I had to cut off my cool tow hook extensions and the flanged they attached to under the front members for tubing clearance. After cutting one tubing piece at a time, and numerous test fits, the whole system eventually came together.








The blow off valve is a must. Swoooooooch! I parked it right in front of the throttle body for, I hope, a faster response. Again, another no-brand cheap buy off E-bay. If it sucks, I’ll replace it later. We’ll see.




I bought a yummy chrome fluid tank for power steering. I believe stock 1JZ tank would work fine, but I wanted to add some extra capacity with a bigger tank. Plus it adds some cheap bling. I started by bolting the tank to the driver’s side of bay right in front of the chassis fuse box. It seemed a logical place, close to the pump, and halfway between the steering rack and cooler. I created a duel core power steering cooler from both stock 5M and 1JZ engines. I don’t know if it’s necessary, but I figured the more cooling surface area the better. I mounted my creation on top of the intercooler mount. It should get plenty of air up there. The hose routing was pretty straight forward. From the tank, thru the cooler (twice), into the pump, then to the steering rack, then back to the tank. The only hick-up I found doing this is that the pump intake uses a .75” hose, while everything else uses a .25” hose. I just had to find a hose reducer fitting to make the connection. I won’t know if the system really works until I can power the pump with the engine. Such a huge reduction in hose really doesn’t scare me because both stock systems use a huge diameter hose to go a short distance from the tank to the pump. I’m using a smaller diameter hose to go a much further distance. In my head, the calculated volumes of flow are similar.. We’ll see how the pump likes it.


 
#8 ·
Exhaust systems are always an expensive buy. Nor would there be an aftermarket kit that would route it exactly how I need. I’d have to start collecting parts for a cheaper custom system. Since I plan on going with an EMS, I don’t have to run a restrictive catalytic converter. I took some measurements and went down to the local muffler shop to get some 3" steel tubing. The huge tubing will naturally produce a very bassy tone and increase gas flow. I got 16ft for about $80. I had one 6 ft section bent to about a 120 degree angle off center, so it had one leg longer than the other. This would be my down-pipe. The cool thing about the stock 1JZ turbo manifold, is that it exits out a single port. No need for multiple pipe unions or headers. The one thing that was tuff to find was the stock 3 bolt pattern exhaust flange. The dealership doesn’t sell just the flange, and apparently, it’s kinda a rare bolt pattern and a special order for most muffler shops around here. I ended up calling up the boys a Driftmotion again, and they cut one off a spare stock system and shipped it to me for fairly cheap. I had to go to the Toyota dealership to get the exhaust gasket crush ring. I combed E-bay for weeks looking for a decent muffler. I wanted get a cheaper muffler, but I had to steer away from the cheapest farting “race” can designs. I went with a medium sized 2.5” carbon muffler with the titanium tip flamed tip. I looks hella sweet, and should provide just a bit of back pressure thru the system. I won’t know how this thing sounds till the car’s ready to turn over. We started with the downpipe, and cut one of the legs to size to tuck it nicely under the car. Marked and welded the flange on the end. I figured there were very few bends we had to make. We didn’t have a tubing bender on hand, so we cut the pieces at slight angles, tacked and welded them one at a time, till we snaked to the rear of the car. The frame had a nice round notch already there for the stock system, so we didn’t have eat up that much ground clearance to get around the axel. We fabbed up few hangers to support the rear weight and absorb engine swing. The muffler landed perfectly under the body kit, and the whole system hung close to the car. Can’t wait to hear it.





 
#9 ·
I don’t plan on going real big with the horsepower. The stock 1JZ is almost twice the engine my old 5M. The anticipation is killing me.. (he,he) Anyhow, I do want to take advantage of simple bolt on power adders. The bigger intake and exhaust will help. Most tuners know the next best place to unlock extra power is in the timing. Hotter cams and adjustable gears have huge potential for power gains. Adjustable timing gears are the cheaper solution to more horsepower and are an essential component for ultimate tuning. Up to this point, I’ve been preaching pro-budget, no brand, and universal. However, in this case, I believe it’s better to drop more cash for quality parts. It’s such an important element in the engine’s function, if anything were to break, or slip your engine is toast. Since 2JZ timing gears fit the 1JZ, shopping wasn’t hard. I decided to go with a GReddy adjustable timing gear set with a new belt. GReddy is a big player in the tuner world, with HKS. To me, the name represents quality. Plus, they’re blue. Installing them, was a bit of a challenge. Naturally, I decided to do this after the engine is in the car. The two cam bolts came off easy, but the crank bolt was totally seized. It was difficult not to have the crank turn while you wrenched on the bolt. Most people will jam the fly wheel with a screwdriver or something. I ended making a tool to grab four holes in the first crank pulley, with access to the crank bolt in the center. With two guys, with two big-o breaker bars, and some thread un-seizing spray, we convinced it to come loose. For a while, I was doubting myself which way to turn the bolt. I took extra care not to mess up the timing during the pulley/belt exchange. This is one of those things, where you won’t find out that you screwed up until you go to start the engine. It’s a good sign that I can turn the crank a few rotations without any kind of interferences. For now, I’ll chalk that up on the “we’ll see” list.

The new gears and a timing belt made the rest of the pulleys look like shit. So I decided to splurge a bit, and go with matching GReddy blue pulley kit. Aside from looking nice, they’re way lighter than the stock pulleys. They’ll also eeeek out a few more ponys and increase engine response. I know I didn’t want to spend that much money to “bling” out the engine, but these make me smile every time I open the hood.




Grab a tape measure, and go 28 inches to the floor, and realize how low this engine sits.




So now I increased the air flow in and out of the engine, now I need fuel. I doubt the stock 5M fuel pump can feed the fuel hungry 1JZ. Luckily, it’s an outside the tank pump, which makes for easier access. A universal Walbro 255L/hr (GSL392) high pressure fuel pump will replace the old tired unit. The stock system uses 5/16” hard line (8.0mm), but the hose will barley fit the larger inlets of the pump. I went to the auto parts store and bought a cheap simple fuel filter with 3/8” inlets. I wanted something cheap and easy to find to replace frequently. Naturally, the hose coming from the tank was a 1/2” ID hose. So I had get hose reduction barbed fittings from 1/2" to 3/8” to connect the system. I planted the fuel filter right in front of the pump, so fuel from that point on should be clean.


At the front end, I had to connect the fuel input and return lines. The car has 4 hard lines that travel down the length to the rear. Trying to follow them by eye is uncertain because they switch order around bends and weave above the transmission as they approach the front. From the rear of the car I deduced that one hard line was the breaks, one was fuel outgoing, and two were fuel return. The old 5M had one return from the rail and regulator, and the other for the HVAC charcoal canister on EGR system. Damn those horsepower robbing emissions systems, and their extra fuel returns. I simply capped that one. Anyhow, I had to blow thru the fuel outgoing line to make sure I had the right hose at the other end. Unexpectedly, it blew out old fuel left in the line. Hmmmmm I think back to all the times we had torches, welders, grinder sparks, and open flame down there.. I hooked that up to the main input line coming out of the 1JZ block. That hose is close to 1/2" ID, so again I had to get the 1/2” to 3/8” hose fittings. I’m not quite sure what the side affects are from all this reducing to enlarging hoses will be.


One of the biggest horsepower adders are new injectors. Supra size the dump of fuel into each cylinder. I tried to do some research to find out how many cc’s the stock 1JZ injectors and found varied results of 480cc, 460cc, and 420cc. Ebay’s standard 1JZ injector sizes were 550cc, 680cc, & 770cc. I did some basic injector sizing calculations I found on the internet, based on my targeted horsepower range. It seemed the 550cc would be the best choice for me. Since I’m not going for crazy high horsepower, and I don’t have a fatty TO4 turbo to feed, the other injectors would be too much and fall below their 80% duty cycle for efficiency.


I wanted to go with an aftermarket fuel pressure riser/regulator. Mostly for the ability to crank up the incoming fuel pressure, and take advantage of the new pump and the injectors. I found a shiny blue one on Ebay that just happened to have 3/8” fittings. The stock 1JZ regulator is screwed into the end of the fuel rail, with a M12x1.25 thread. To replace it, I’d need to connect a hose to the end of the fuel rail en-route to the new regulator. It’s impossible to find a fitting with that M12 thread for a 3/8” hose. So I had to make one. I got a 3/8” barbed brass fitting with a standard 3/8”-NPT thread, which actually measures over 1/2". With some basic lathe skillz, I turned the threads down to 12mm, which left a smooth shaft. Then I got a M12x1.25 die for $6 and hand turned my own threads back onto the fitting. It worked great, a nice snug fit.

When I started the fuel upgrades, I thought about getting an aftermarket fuel rail, and top feed injectors, plus the regulator. But after a quick price study, I figured I’d stay with the stock rail, and cheaper side feed injectors. With the rail out, it was sent for a quick trip thru the sandblast booth. It came out looking brand new (Thanks Dave!) With it all apart I was surprised to see how simple this whole system was. It didn’t take me long to throw it all back together. It seems easier when everything is clean. I rigged a simple bracket to mount the regulator, and ran the hose from the rail to the it’s input. I connected the output hose to the fuel return line. Finally the vacuum line, and I’m done. Let’s hope there’s no leaks when the system gets pressurized.





I ended up changing out the dial gage because the original was cracked, it’s upside down.. LOL..

 
#10 ·
So far the drive shaft has been hiding in the corner. I chopped the old 5M front spline knuckle off, to let the guy who took the engine have it. The 1JZ tranny came with drive shaft end spline and u-joint. The guys who cut the clip with their car eating torches left me just enough drive shaft to act as a shelf for the re-joining welds. As luck would have it, the shelf fits perfectly inside the 5M shaft tube. It can’t be that easy.. I got under the car for a test fit, and naturally, we were too short. By about 1 3/8 inches. Now here’s the thing, the drive spline has like 6 inches of engagement. I could just weld it back together and loose that 1 3/8” of spline, but I finally decided to take it to a shop and have them lengthen it. I ended up going to a place called 6 States Distributing, drive line and truck parts. $80 bucks later, and the guy handed it back to me clean, longer, and balanced. Most people who do this swap, usually upgrade to a larger shaft to handle the extra horse power. In my opinion, if you do that, the weakness in the drive system trickles back to the differential, then to the axils. Then you might as well replace them too. More cash to dig out. For now, I’ll see how the stock system holds up to the new power, and replace it when it becomes a problem. Anyhow, the drive line fits perfectly. One scary note is, the center mount flange has like 1/2” of side to side shift. I tried my best to eye it straight, and lock it down.





So far all my focus has been on the engine. I wanted to go back and attack the cabin. Especially, the cracked dash board. I could just go to a junk yard and maybe find a complete dash.. maybe. But I had this crazy cool idea to see if I could fix it. Also, I’ll have to pull the dash gauge cluster completely out. As an added bonus, pulling the dash would reveal more useless goodies to yank and throw away. Yay! Also, to take a good look at the wiring bundle routing. I pulled the dash gage shroud, which has the cruise control and rear window wiper control. I contemplated keeping it for a minute, but it was declared to be useless, and was tossed. Unplugged and yanked the gauge panel. There’s no way I’m going to attempt to re-wire the stock gauges to the new 1JZ setup. The speedo never worked anyway. My plan is to buy a universal gauge set and a 5” tachometer and build a sheet metal gauge panel to replace the old unit. I still won’t have a speedo. Lol.


I was rather surprised to see there was only 5 little Phillips screws holding in the dash. There was one bracket to unbolt behind the gauge panel. Thanks to all the other crap I’ve pulled out from below, the dash popped out quite easily. In fact so easy, taking the dash out again when working with the ECU and harness would be no problem at all. With the dash gone, in it’s place was a rusty cross member with several useless brackets welded to it. That’s coming out to get sanded and painted. Bring on the Hammerite.


 
#11 ·
I bought some combat style toggle switches and a red push button start for the instrument panel. Every race car needs an instrument switch panel. However I’m not sure what I’m going to use all the buttons for yet. Lol. I figured one for master power (aka: kill switch), fuel pump, accessories, wiper, and lights. No doubt, it’ll take a bunch of wiring later, but for now, I’ll just make the panel to fit under the dash.


I've got a gauge set which will sit where the stock instrument gauge panel was, and a 5" tack in the corner. A gauge for boost, water temp, oil temp, air/fuel, and exhaust temp. However, when I go with the EMS later, I’ll need a wideband air/fuel sensor, which will eventually replace the cheapy I just bought. The gauges have a gray lens over them which make them really hard to see without the powered light inside. At first I thought it was cool, but then realized there not very practical during the daytime. Especially, during a race. We’ll see. They were cheap, but all they need to do is work. I’ll have them wired up later with the rest of the electrical stuff.


I took some measurements off the OEM cluster to fit the gauge panel in the dash. I ended up making paper cut-outs to test fit the profile. Good thing, cause it took multiple attempts to get it right. The switch panel under the dash is a fairly simple bracket design and will bolt directly under the dash. I took the plans for both panels to a sheet metal shop. I guess I could have cut and bend the material myself, but there’s no way I could have been as clean or as accurate in my cuts. It’s hard to beat CNC, especially if you have shop hook-ups.


I like the carbon fiber look. I found some carbon fiber pattern vinyl by the foot on Ebay. A cheap trick to get the JGTC cockpit look. I wanted to add a touch of carbon fiber to the interior’s black and silver theme. Plus it goes good with the shifter and muffler.





And now that ugly dashboard.. I pulled off all the loose particles of vinyl and foam bits from around the open cracks and filled them in with silicone. I popped out all the heater vents and tossed’em. In there place will be my home made paper-fiber walls to fill the gap and smooth out the dash profile. I held those in with more silicone. Then I gave the entire dash a covering of duct tape to cover all the cracks and seams. It makes the surface look solid again. I went and got some black felt at a fabric store. I’ll spray glue that as the outer layer. I tried to get a material that closely matched the bucket seats. It ended up being some kind of felt. Getting to stretch right, and strategically place cuts was a bit of a pain. It turned out sweeeet. Here’s for a 25 year old brand new dash.





Throw it all back in.. Nice.

 
#12 ·
After spending months in the garage, my 1JZ monster deserved to get out into the sunlight and take bath. I gave it a nice detailed wash, and mounted the good rims. I filled the power steering and coolant systems. Brake and clutch fluids looked good. I flung open all the doors to show off this point of accomplishment. This adventure is far from over, but is a good point to sit down and look back at how far this project as really come (.. and how much I’ve typed).





Soooooo.... I think it’s mechanically ready. Now to attack the electrical system. If you don’t have a EE degree, I wouldn’t suggest attempting this on your own. I set up the date to get the car into the shop to wire it up. I want this done right, and unfortunately the right way is expensive.

As I stated before, right way is complete engine management. I’ve seen other people do this swap with the stock computer, and it usually works if you don’t have any engine modifications or power adders. I was committed to this from day one. Otherwise, every dollar and work hour I’ve put into this project was a complete waste and I shouldn’t have started it. It does take deep pockets of credit to perform this last upgrade to bring this beautiful 1JZ to life. Plus, electrical is just not my thing.


If I'm going to race this car, I need the ability to control & adjust the engine dynamics on the fly. A stand alone engine management system is the way to go. There’s a few good EMS computers available in the tuner market. Adjustments to air/fuel maps, ignition timing, and on board data logging features will make sure this engine is tuned for optimum performance. One of the cheaper options was call “Megasquirt”. It does all the mapping that most systems offer, but I found there was little support in terms of local professional tuners. I opted to use the AEM (Advanced Engine Management) EMS Stand Alone computer, with a UGEO wideband controller. There’s a few sensors that will need to be installed, but the computer will monitor 100’s of parameters and engine functions. The local shop here, TorqueFreaks, have specialized in tuning crazy cars with the AEM systems. I highly recommend these guys if you have any tuning needs. For the right price they’ll fly to you and tune your car. This is where I leave it for the professionals. I’ll have them install and setup the system. They’ll do all the electrical work, like the harness, battery, fans, gages, and switches. In all, it’s a $5000 chuck of reality. Geeesh, it’s more than the cost of the car and engine together. For the win baby!





Off to the shop...







I wanted to say thank you for all of you who made it thru my novel so far.
My project 1JZ Supra sits at the shop for the wiring. There's a lot more work to do.. But for now, time to sit back and collect more parts and think about my attack strategies for the next installs. Tune in next time kids for suspension, roll cage, and brakes. LOL.. I look forward to continue sharing this adventure with you all. Grease stained digi camera in one hand and a wrench in the other. I’ll keep you guys posted on the build up. This car has a destiny to tear up the track.

Props to you! Props to my roommate Heath (Red Chopstick) for helping me since day one. Cheers!

--Sam (White Rice)
 
#20 ·
Thanks guys.. I've had the car now for almost three years and I've been able to get this far in the swap in under a year. I blew the 5M early last summer, had the engine by December, and hopefully out of the shop my May. Not a bad turn around. I gave it a lot of love this year ... and money.

I got alot of support from all you guys on celicasupra.com. Somebody is always out there to answer any questions. Once I bought the car, I discovered this site, and ultimatly got inspired from Norbie's build. I like the idea adding to the pile of experience in this site. Someday I hope somebody out there may find some inspiration from my build.




I've already have another project waiting for me and my wallet. LOL..
 
#21 ·
wow man, that is too good, you have done some amazing work there, and Its gonna pay off big in the end...
 
#22 ·
Excellent write up sam, we'll have to get together for a drink some day and check out each other's rides!
83 w 2jzgte (soon to be finished, I hope:>) mine was also inspired by Norbie-thanks Norbie!
B
P.S keep Portland weird!
 
#26 ·
Jesus H. Christ! I'm glad my boss is in another state because I just took the better part of the morning and after lunch to read this...Awesome thread, great work, and a good write up. Thanks for sharing.
 
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