VVTi 1UZ IS200

The 1UZFE EGR Delete Kit is available for sale here.

tobbiet

New Member
Messages
5
Location
Hobart
Hey all!

I know a 1UZ conversion has been done a few times before but thought i'd share my experience putting one in a RHD (from Aus) IS200. This is currently my third weekend spent building it and we test drove it last night which passed with flying colours. We have previously done a few conversions in my shed (skylines, silvias, volvos, corollas etc etc) and i'm lucky enough to have a couple of mechanics for best mates to help me out. We like to get things done at a fast and hard working pace, so apologies i didn't get a heap of pictures along the way.

The wiring was clearly going to be the hardest part, I built a spreadsheet of the IS200 pinout and the 1UZ pinout including body plugs well before starting off and labeled/tested all the wires on the car before dismantling as well as some on the motor (mainly using a multimeter/test light.

Car wiring pinned out before starting removal
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A couple of Saturdays ago we pulled the 1GFE out (nothing out of the ordinary here, was pretty straight forward)

Letting the aircon gas out
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Motor out, tying the tailshaft and exhaust out of the way :grin:
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It didn't take as long as expected so we decided to trial fit the 1uz already:
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There is mixed talk around this but.. in my case the motor and gearbox bolted straight in (using the 1UZ 5 speed and all the factory mounts) and using the IS200 auto gearbox cross member. There was a few small rubbing issues, one on the back of the left head looking in that required a massage of the firewall, the lower heater hose needed an inch cut off it and the cross member needed some hitting on the front face to clear the sump properly.

Once this was in I spent some time doing the wiring and getting little bits and pieces plumbed up. I had to repin two of the original IS200 ECU to body connectors into two 1UZ connectors accordingly as well as repin the 1UZ body wiring into the IS200 body (EA) Plugs
Used the factory lower 1uz rad hose with a duty clamp and another hose slipped inside on the rad side - a cut up bit of old rad hose for the top and the factory IS200 heater hoses bent and trimmed a little for the heaters.
Test fit of some plumbing etc.
ugvvjta.jpg

You can see there also I opted to use the factory intake pipe but the crown motor i had uses a cartridge type slot in AFM for which i didn't have the airbox for, a mate of mine welded up an ally pipe/flange to suit.
The radiator sat nicely and there was plenty of room to run the factory thermos.

At this point my mobile hydraulics mate came around and begun making the new high pressure power steer line (using braized factory ends to AN fittings with gates hose) the fuel line from chassis rail to fuel rail and also the air con lines (these were tricky, we end up cutting up both IS and 1UZ hoses to make one out of two to suit!)
Fuel Line
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Power Steer
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Had the tailshaft made to suit the different flange on the 1UZ box
It was also longer than the stock front half (about 82cm face to face IIRC)
u0c7S0Z.jpg


The wiring was mostly done at this point, the motor came with an ECU and key and appeared the security was working, however no matter what i tried the ETCSi elec throttle motor would not work. After a week of pain and running numbers i discovered i was sold the wrong ecu (UCF21 celsior ECU/UZS171 motor) for the motor I had.. so i got my hands on a crown ecu to suit which worked fine - however has the security flashed out of it :frown2:

Once the tailshaft was in we found that the clearance for the rubber donut was nil for both the shifter base and the shifter arm.. we pulled the shifter out and spaced it up around 10mm to suit and then had to bend the linkage away from the donut as well as putting 5mm spacers under the gearbox crossmember to also assist.
Shifter out
pLcd17b.jpg

We also had to add around 1" to the rod between the shifter arm and the box selector.
Pic showing it all in place
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Once this was sorted we started on the exhaust - the manifolds would not fit past the steering shaft between rack and column - i tried both castlemaine rodshop headers and other factory 1uz headers with no joy. The original crown headers were the closest - so we cut the interfering section out and welded a scallop in to suit + spaced the motor up by placing 7mm plate under the mounts and 4mm washer above the rubber mount/ally bracket. We also couldn't use the 3 bolt cat flanges due to having no 1uz cats in Tasmania that i could find. So we heated up the manifolds and welded normal two bolt flanges on
Pic showing the scallop and flange
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Spacer
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Then we built the Y pipe to connect to the factory exhaust under the back seat
Simple 2.5" 2-1 with a flex joint
APhHR4G.jpg

Installed
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Finished off the plumbing and fitted everything in
Here's how it looks:
rQ4VlLL.jpg


We took it for it's first drive last night and overall it's spot on.
7dQ4NGb.jpg


It drives like factory, no major rattles or drive ability issues, goes well and is dead quite except for the induction noise.

Proof it works
https://youtu.be/wgVjAOYdoVc

Current issues:
Econo gauge is stuck on full as soon as the motor starts
Fuel gauge flashes empty light even though it reads what's in the tank - when driving though it does drop quickly (assume due to the econo being on full)
Trac control not working and flashes at me
CEL (need to get scanner onto it)
Small hiccup at low revs that may just be plugs or crap in the injectors etc.

I've written this in a hurry and will try to edit and add more pics in time, let me know any questions.
Cheers,
Tobbie.
 
Latest updates

Hey guys, copied this from another forum I had it on (had a few issues with my account not registered for last couple of days!)

Here's the update this week:
Spent a little while on this after work a few nights this week trying to sort out mainly the fuel consumption gauge issue!

My house mate dragged the scan tool home from work on Tuesday and we pulled the codes and watched live data etc. to my surprise there wasn't many faults - one of the primary 02s was dead, so we replaced that, and also the piggyback/spoof i had done for the rear 02s was still throwing a code but i've fixed that now - all 02 codes gone.

The only code i have left is P1200 fuel pump relay circuit.
Even though the fuel pump works flawlessly.. the is200 has FC and FPR pins on the ECU to control low speed and full speed on the pump. The 1UZ ecu i have has the same functions, so is pinned to suit - the only thing i can find is on the diagnostics i should get 12V from the FPR pin during cranking and high engine load condition - i don't get this instead i get an earth signal switched on at high engine load and cranking...I'm wondering if this is causing the code and if i should change the switched earth to a switched 12v out of the ecu to the car using a relay?

Given that is the only code i've got i can only assume this is what is causing the econo gauge to read max as soon as the engine is running - would love any suggestions though!
 
Looking at the photos you don't appear aren't running cats (or at least 1 cat).

How will you go with engineering without cats?
 
I'm not too stressed about that yet, Tasmania is pretty slow when it comes to modifications and we get away with a lot.. but at the time I couldn't find any anywhere so gave up and running none for now.
 
Cheers!

Took it for another decent drive tonight since sorting out the 02 sensor codes, definitely smoother and the FPR circuit code i'm getting is definitely related to the ecu trying to switch the pump to low speed on idle/ low load condition, the CEL only comes on after going from heavy throttle back to idle for a few seconds, punch it again and it goes out.. so i tried switching the negative trigger the ecu is giving from the FPR pin to a positive signal through a relay back down the original is200 fpr wire but no change i still just get a constant 13v at the pump.. Got me a bit stumped, and i wish i could figure out whats causing the consumption gauge to be completely on all the time as well.
 
I'm considering the same thing - atleast the pump is getting full power all the time so shouldn't cause any running issues. And on further investigation of 99 IS200 diagrams i don't even think the IS200 has a FPR to switch to low speed!

The only other thing that i really want to fix though is the clocked out economy/MPG gauge on the IS200 as soon as the 1uz starts up, it causes the fuel gauge to drop quickly when driving and throw an error making the empty light on the gauge flash continuously. Has anyone on here had any experience with these? It's got me stumped -i assume from what i've read that the signal delivered to the cluster is generated from AFM, injector pulse and crank signal readings?
 


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