Just finished my 4runner diesel conversion

Thought you guys might like this..
Engine is an imported 1KZ-TE 3Liter turbodiesel 4.
The unwitting victim:

Notice the black bumper after only 900 miles.. once I switch to biodiesel full-time that shouldn't be an issue. If I had put the tailpipe in the right spot it wouldn't be an issue either.

Money shot:




Gray, right hand drive, japanese market shifter.. kinda sucks that I can't see which gear it's in.


In process of wiring:


So far, in permanent 4x4 I was getting better mileage than the old v6 gas engine did. Last weekend manual front hubs went on, that'll go up to ~25mpg.. later this month it gets an intercooler and I'll be in the neighborhood of 31mpg.

There is still a lot to do.. spare tire is getting moved to a carrier on the tailgate to make room for an aux fuel tank so I can cut down the stock one.. damn thing hangs too low. Dual batteries are getting replaced by one huge one.. also plan to swap to 5spd transmission eventually. Only planned suspension mods beyond the bilsteins is stiffer springs in the back for the aux tank and probably long travel shocks and possibly links for a little more flex. E-locker too, eventually.

Any questions or comments, let them fly..

Justin

Great looking truck! Did you use a JARCO half-cut?

Looks great. Any involvement with these guys?

http://www.dieseltoyz.com/Home.html

No on both questions. Jarco is no longer importing diesel half-cuts (maybe not HCs at all.. supposedly the customs situation got a lot more sticky over the past year). Todd @ dieseltoyz doesn't like to deal with this generation of truck anymore. i think it's connected to the availability of these half-cuts.

I did all of the work myself, bought the engine from a guy I know in Dallas that imported 3.. 2 to sell, and one to stuff into his Fj40. The fabrication was pretty basic, motor mount legs off the frame and opening the shifter hole in the trans tunnel. The wiring was definitely the most intimidating and time consuming part.. the engine harness had to be extended to go across the firewall. engine was originally RHD with the computer on our driver's side. wouldnt fit like that, so i had to extend all 60 wires 57", including shielded wires, etc. everything was soldered and shrink wrapped, then double taped, wrapped in flexible conduit, then taped again. I also elected to integrate the JDM fuse block and parts of the chassis harness.. and a bunch more. I plan to do a full writeup with pictures and even wiring color codes at some point, but before then the intercooler and 5spd are more important.

Wow, very impressive and very, very nice! I briefly looked into this, but was quickly deterred by the cost and by how difficult the wiring looked.

so jealous... nice work

Very nice job!

Yeah, I have 3 more of the 130's left to do this year but availability has definitely been scarce. I'll be in Germany Nov 21-Dec 7th getting diesel goodies for installation. Sometimes you gotta take matters into your own hands Nice work Bloc

I really appreciate the compliments guys, this has been an interesting and very satisfying project for sure.

Hey Justin,

You finally did it! Looks awsome. Looks like alot of work tho. I thought you were having trouble getting that engine, but it looks like you got around that issue. You've been busy since you sold me your Jetta last Feburary. It looks like we both got what we wanted.

BTW: Jetta is running great, however, I put more miles on it than I had planed, so timing belt will happen before Christmas. That will be 21k miles since Feburary, yikes!

Keep me posted on this project.

Nick

Yeah, the engine thing is a definite issue for anyone planning on doing this in the future. I first started looking into this a couple years ago, when you could still get full half-cuts easily and relatively cheaply. By the time I was ready to start, in April of this year, they were pretty much non-existant (unless you had connections as todd does), or of dubious background. I managed to find the engine and jumped on it in about 3 hours.. taking time off work to drive up to Dallas and pick it up. Priorities, ya know? hah..

So at that point I had an engine and no truck to put it into.. 2 days later i figured I might as well start looking, and the VERY FIRST hit on craigslist was perfect.. 1994 4runner, (any earlier and it'd be R12), 4x4, clean body, and a blown engine so it was only $1500. I bought it that night and had the engine out by noon the next day. It was SO satisfying to pull all that crap and just throw it over my shoulder into a pile... pretty therapeutic. That was mid-May, and I had it road-worthy 2 days before Ike.

There's a guy selling half-cuts on ebay, but from what I've seen of his stock the quality is very low.. one guy bought one and 3 of the cylinders have damage.

sweet. an intercooler and an ECU remap would clean up that soot.

^^ yup. It's just begging for a TMIC...

Unfortunately, no room for a Top Mount, so it's going in the front. The Prados and newer Hiluxes that came with a top mount had a different, flat valve cover and throttle cable setup.. that would be very expensive to find. There's only about an inch and a half of room between the valve cover and the hood right now.. so, in lieu of a body lift the top mount isnt a good option.

I'm planning on putting a Lancer Evo front mount in the grille.. which means I will have to cut it out some. It's gonna look a little odd, but I plan a bumper that will be a lot like a winch-mount type to house a good portion of the IC, with a stinger to protect it from branches and such. I could tuck it in behind the grille, but that would require cutting the hood latch support, eliminating the condenser fan, and replumbing the high-pressure a/c lines.. something I'd like to avoid.

I've seen a setup before where an IC was used that was relatively small top-to-bottom, and just put inside an ARB winch bumper. It was really clean, but i have my opinion on whether that would work as well as a large frontal-area IC core with respect to forcing the ambient air through the core.


Oh, and about ECU remaps. The odd thing is that despite the black bumper, except for at startup I almost -never- see any smoke.. so the chip would just be for power, and in light of that I can't justify that kind of expense. Most of the decent ones I've seen are $1000+ and not within the states.. if anyone happens to know of something more reasonable for this engine/chassis, please let me know.

Id sure like to see one of these with a manual transmission.

That said really nice work. Ive got an HJ60 with a 1995 1HZ in it so I have an idea what you went through. Minus the wiring issues of course.

I've decided that would be about the only worthy upgrade.. and I do toy with the idea of getting a '60 and doing the 4BT or 4BD1T thing.. but don't want to deal with the driveline and physical fitment issues. Not to mention finding a 60 that was in the shape I'd want. rust is not an option...

i know the 12HTs are getting stupid money.. what does a 1HZ cost these days? if you can still get them?

The electrical wasn't really all that bad.. I guess it's relative though. I'm a glutton for punishment on wiring, I love doing it.

I picked up my 1HZ/H55/Tcase some years ago for 5,000. Today they are getting 10,000 if you can find them.

Nice job Bloc, although when looking at that wiring loom I'm thinking it might have been easier to move to a country with one foot in the third-world like I did, then you can drive whatever diesel you like

Im planning one with a manual trans and a mechanical pump.

If it ever gets delivered..........

Have a 95 4-Runner with a blown 3.0 waiting for the transplant.

Good luck RH. That's a great motor.

RoundHouse.. where did you find a 1KZ-T? or did you get a TE and plan on swapping pumps?

I bought my 4runner specifically for the swap.. tons of them cheap with blown engines all over the place. Strangely, not many trucks in the same situation, despite there having been a lot of them sold with the bad V6.

bloc said:

RoundHouse.. where did you find a 1KZ-T? or did you get a TE and plan on swapping pumps?

I bought my 4runner specifically for the swap.. tons of them cheap with blown engines all over the place. Strangely, not many trucks in the same situation, despite there having been a lot of them sold with the bad V6.

Click to expand...

It hasent arrived yet, so Im not able to comment on it, since I havent seen it in person, it may not work out. Will definitely post up when I have more info.

If the first one comes thru ok, I think can get more.

note FMIC

These trucks have a throttle body for EGR functionality and engine braking.. I had removed the plate a while back in search of efficiency so it wasn't doing anything except transmitting the go pedal signal to the TPS sensor. I decided to relocate the throttle body to provide more room for piping between the manifold and hood. Here is what I came up with:


5spd + custom crossmember:


As you can see from my sig, still nowhere near the 30mpg I was shooting for. That number is averaged significantly lower than what I'm getting with the FMIC, 5spd, and 3.73 gears (~24) because I had so many tanks with the old setup (automatic, 4.10s, no IC), and haven't been driving it as much lately, that the average isn't pulling up very quickly. Still, it's a constant tweak session to address little things. I kept stripping speedometer gears, so I recently went through the transfer case and while I was in there I decided to remove some backlash reducers that created drag in the reduction box. Recently ordered and installed the OE splash/bash guard, which should clean up air flow under the front of the truck significantly. Did some experiments with the OE viscous fan to make sure it wasn't causing problems. Planning on going through the front wheel bearings and lowering the front suspension a little. Possibly even experimenting with some coroplast under the body.

It does SPECTACULARLY offroad. That first pic was from a trip up to SW Colorado to do some of the high passes up there. This engine is brilliant at that. Low idle, tons of off-idle torque, turbo eliminating power-at-altitude issues, great efficiency.. it really was a treat up there.

I'm guessing it sounds pretty good....any youtube vids?

Looking nice! Project seems to be coming along.

BTW: That Jetta I bought from you is doing great. My all time high for MPG is 62.7!

Nick

As much time as I spend online, including photog stuff, I've never taken or posted a video. Though that is a good idea..

and 62? **** man.. I knew the car was solid but wow.

I still miss it btw. Keep playing with the idea of finding the exact replacement whenever I get out of Fire School. (low-mileage gunmetal 2003 5spd black leather GLS, for those wondering what I'm talking about)

Don't forget the tinted windows. The 62.7mpg was at 65mph, it drops to 54.3 doing 70mph and 51.3 at 75mph. Mpg increased after I did a TB change and advanced the timing slightly.

Since my last post on this thread I had a major tranny leak, which forced me to drop the tranny. The tranny shop said my diff bearings were shot so much that the diff was grinding into the tranny housing. I apparently caught the problem in time brfore the damage was to great to reuse the housing. While the diff seems to be good, except for the bearings, I thought this would be a great time to upgrade to a peloguin diff. The tranny guy said the diffs are a major problem for the VW trannys. So, I figure I could benefit from this new diff, beside being built better, its limited slip function should help tranversing through the snow around here. I'm sure that's not a big concern for you out there in Texas, unless you really go high up in the mountians, but thats why you got the truck.

Plan to keep it for awhile, which is why I'm upgrading the diff. I first mod!

bloc said:

As much time as I spend online, including photog stuff, I've never taken or posted a video. Though that is a good idea..

and 62? **** man.. I knew the car was solid but wow.

I still miss it btw. Keep playing with the idea of finding the exact replacement whenever I get out of Fire School. (low-mileage gunmetal 2003 5spd black leather GLS, for those wondering what I'm talking about)

Click to expand...

Tell me more about the custom cross member.

Why & how?

NPD.. sorry to hear that about the diff. Have you seen more mention of that problem here on the board? that sounds new to me.

Roundhouse: The whole powertrain is custom really. This transmission (R151F) came behind this engine in all 5spd KZN130s, but this particular transmission came out of an '87 turbo pickup. I wanted the all-gear and full-manual transfer case version, instead of the planetary reduction and electronic chain-drive xfer that they felt was needed in this generation of truck. So, this case is shorter than the "real" 5spd 1KZ setup, and as a result there is no factory crossmember with all of the bolt holes in the perfect spot.

Plus, by constructing it out of 3/8" plate steel I picked up well over an inch of breakover clearance. Now if I could just get rid of the rock-anchor fuel tank.

As far as how: Pretty simple actually. I supported the transmission with jacks while I made cardboard templates with scissors and tape, to eventually be transferred to plate steel. Then the 5 major parts were welded together very solidly, the center cut for a trans mount plate, and it was all painted up.

More pics:




I must admit stealing the crossmember design from Budbuilt.. but I'm not selling them so I guess it's ok.

Bloc, I've read issues with the diff rivets and planetary gear teeth breaking off, but not much about the bearings. I've asked before on this forum, but it was suggested that oil weeping out was normal. My tranny repair guy says otherwise. I have some pics of the damage bearings at this thread
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=268064

BTW: Nice work on the crossmember!

Hey, is that your Jetta on the street? The one I saw at your house?

Nick