I just thought I'd give a bit of a progress report on my brothers car, an MX-73 cressida, into which I'm transplanting a 1J out of a JZX-81. The 5MGE it was equipped with seems to have choked on it's crank timing sprocket, so out with the old & in with the new.

It really hasn't been too difficult so far, we started out by removing the old box & motor & then cutting & grinding off the original engine mounts from the crossmember. Once this was all smooth & mount-less, the gearbox was bolted in, which bolts up in the exact same location as the old one, no mods needed, & then the 1J was lowered into position, & bolted up to the gearbox.
I spent a bit of time getting the position of the motor just right, with clearance around the swaybar & crossmember, & then lining up the crank to be as straight as possible.
Before I started doing this though I had cut out some 4mm plate steel which was to be the mounting flange of the new crossmember mount. This I bolted up to the engine mounts on the engine, & once the motor was in position, these flanges were sitting about an inch above the crossmember each side, and I tack welded a piece of bar from the crossmember to these flange plates. Then these were unbolted from the engine mounts, the engine lifted out & there was the crossmember mounts where we needed them.
I cut out a few bits of steel to suite, & had these welded up by a mate from work.
Now the motor's sitting nice & snug in the engine bay, just like it was meant to be there.

Most things line up quite well, & the new motor has no clearance issues with anything at all.
-The exhaust back to the cat is a perfect fit to the mx73 & clears the steering nicely.
-The fuel lines match up perfectly, one banjo bolt into the filter mounted on the block, the return pushes on with a clamp.
-The heater hoses need just a metre or so of hose & line up fairly well.
-The A/C pipes line up perfectly, but have different hose fittings, so that will take some fixing. The receiver/dryer may have to be moved to make way for the intercooler anyway.
-The P/S is on the passenger side now, so it will require a simple LP hose with some sort of smallish cooler routing round the engine bay to a new remote P/S fluid reservoir I need to find & mount near the pump, plus a HP line from the pump around & back to the steering rack. Some AN adapters & a talk to some people at work might be the go here.
-The transmission cooler lines on the new motor have been cut, so we need to sort something out here. They'll just be looped in the meantime.
-There's heaps of room for a big intercooler, although modification is definitely required to the bumper, which is massive. Plenty of room for pipework though too.
-There's also plenty of room for exhaust, the standard muffler is over 2ft long, & 7" wide, so we've got a 3" straight through truck muffler to take its place.

It's prolly about time I took some photos, & I'll put them up when I do. It sure is gonna be fun when it's finished, but the best thing about it is once it's finished & out of the carport, I can start work on installing my new (turbo! )motor in my car, which is gonna be soooo much easier than playing around with this oversized car & motor combination!

[Updated on: Mon, 05 January 2004 12:17]

Ok here's some pics.

Doesn't it look right at home?






Here's a pic of one of the new engine mounts:




Plenty of room for thermofans & an intercooler. I guess a transmission cooler will have to be squeezed in too....




And here's the 3" straight through truck muffler she'll be wearing.




More pics here:
http://members.optushome.com.au/big.worm/Cressida/ page_01.htm

[Updated on: Tue, 06 January 2004 09:20]