My landy is pretty muched finished now, vehicle modification papers are with the DOT, so I thought it was time to post the car up here.

Background: Back in Sept 03 I imported this LJ71G from Japan, which is their SWB Prado, it is a super close relative to the australian delivered LJ70 Bundera. Stock the car came with an 86HP 2LT (2.4L turbo diesel), R151f heavy duty 5 speed transmission (R154 relative), Landcruiser gear driven transfer case 2:1 reduction and 4 pinion 4.875:1 G series diffs front and rear (front diff is high pinion as found on 80 series landcruisers). It also has coil springs all round, 310mm ventilated discs on the front with twin piston calipers and 26*mm drums on the back.

Why do the conversion?: I like camping and fishing etc. and quite often take trips up north towing a small dinghy with tents, freezer genset etc. I was sick of stock 4WD's struggling when carrying these loads so I needed more power. The original plan was to fit a 1UZFE but at the time I couldnt get one at a reasonable price and looking at it now I think I would have had clearance issues on the side. So I chose the 1JZ instead and soon quickly realised how much power could easily be extracted from these engines with simple modifications.

So in the end what I created was one of the best sleepers youll ever come across. The car has punched out a best of 196rwkw with the following mods: Haltech E6X, large front mount, 14psi boost, twin dumps and 3.5" exhaust. Youll see this figure is down on the supra/soarer boys for similar mods, I assume the massive transfer case and large angles on the UJ's absorb quite a bit of power.

The conversion: It was reasonably difficult but there is alot harder ones out there To begin with I sourced a bellhousing, clutch slave, fork, pushrod, pivot ball and through out bearing carrier from Dellow. The R154/JZ bellhousing would have bolted up but the R154 has a 190mm input shaft compared to the 160mm R151f so it wouldnt have worked. I then got a billet steel flywheel made up and a full face organic clutch which quickly died, I now have a 9 puck ceramic clutch with upgraded clamp force.

On first fitting of the motor we realised the sump was fouling the front diff pinion flange and the rear turbo pipe was striking the firewall. So i fabricated a new lower aluminium sump section (increased capacity) and took to the firewall with a hammer. With the engine back in I did my mounts using the original Landy chassis posts and rubbers, then made new aluminium brackets from the engine to the rubber mounts. I then made my twin dumps, re did the power steering lines and moved the resivior to the pass side, put intercooler and radiator in, fuel system including fabricating a 8L surge tank with Bosch 044 pump and wired it up at the same time removing a truck load of diesel bits and pieces.

I then took it up the road and got the exhaust done. On the first tuning effort my ignition was breaking down at 4500 rpm, this was traced to the toyota ignition module, which I replaced with 2 Haltech units. I also short shifted the gearbox (using standard shifter) and added some redline oil a couple of weeks ago Had to make a new panel (aluminium) under the grill too after all the chopping for the intercooler.

Only thing left to do know is mount my aircon condenser and get that going, oh and whatever DOT asks me to do

Here are the pics all comments, critisms and questions welcome


Engine bay after diesel removed


2LT and 1JZ side by side


Custom surge tank and Bosch 044 now residing next to TCase


Done




Drivers side engine mount and dumps


Passenger side mount


New lower sump section

[Updated on: Mon, 24 October 2005 00:58]

[Updated on: Wed, 03 August 2005 05:56]