markstoys
Member
- Messages
- 147
- Location
- Duarte, CA, USA
My plan is to put the V8, as well as the front and rear suspension from a 92 SC400 into this rust bucket of a Corolla I bought last year. I want a car that can be driven daily on the street, which means the A/C, heat(you'll see in a minute), stereo will work, it will have a full interior, decent ride quality, not too low, or too loud, etc.--but I want as much HP as the stock internals of a 1UZ will handle. If I do it right I will have a 2500 lb car with 500 hp at the wheels.
You can see how impressed my wife was with my purchase. It was a complete 1975 Corolla, which came with a bunch of extra parts. It wasn't running, but with a couple of parts I had lying around and about 2 hours I got it fired up.
Here's what I had 2 weeks later
My original plan was to simply repair the rust and stick with the stock Corolla motor. However, the rust was more extensive than I thought--this is the drivers side floor, which is typical of the condition of the lower portion of the car.
Considering how much work it would be to take care of the rust properly (lots of cutting and welding), I figured I'd swap in something cool. While looking for a 1UZ (the natural choice for a high HP swap) I found a complete SC400 for only $700. The interior was completely burned out, but all the mechanical was fine. So now I have a drivetrain, although I will use an r154 instead of the auto trans. I guess double A arms up front and independent rear will be pretty cool.
Here are the leftovers. Did you know that an SC400 body weighs almost exactly 1400 lbs? I got $70 at the scrap yard. Plus another $50 for the cats.
And after lurking around here for a little while, I realized that I really needed an Eaton m112. Thank God for ebay!
Now, I know I'm not the first nutjob to cram a V8 into one of these, but I am doing it a little differently. I still want a decent front/rear weight distribution and great handling--so this motor will sit back just a little farther than any other swap I've seen. While you can fit a V8 into the engine bay without cutting anything, mine is set back so the #1 spark plug is just behind the center line of the front wheels, which is about 1 inch farther back (relative to the front wheels) than it did in the Lexus.
It's not clear in the above shot that the firewall was cut extensively. There will be MAJOR modifications to the under dash area to fit/relocate the heater, A/C, etc. And those tires are just sitting there for mock-up purposes.
Here is where I am now:
Everything is still in the very early, tentaive, mock-up stage right now. Once I can tell roughly how everything will fit together (it will be months, at least), I will start the actual fabrication.
In spite of all have learned so fr by searching old posts from this forum, I still have about a million questions on a variety of aspects of this project, but I'm only going to post them as I get to them on the car.
You can see how impressed my wife was with my purchase. It was a complete 1975 Corolla, which came with a bunch of extra parts. It wasn't running, but with a couple of parts I had lying around and about 2 hours I got it fired up.
Here's what I had 2 weeks later
My original plan was to simply repair the rust and stick with the stock Corolla motor. However, the rust was more extensive than I thought--this is the drivers side floor, which is typical of the condition of the lower portion of the car.
Considering how much work it would be to take care of the rust properly (lots of cutting and welding), I figured I'd swap in something cool. While looking for a 1UZ (the natural choice for a high HP swap) I found a complete SC400 for only $700. The interior was completely burned out, but all the mechanical was fine. So now I have a drivetrain, although I will use an r154 instead of the auto trans. I guess double A arms up front and independent rear will be pretty cool.
Here are the leftovers. Did you know that an SC400 body weighs almost exactly 1400 lbs? I got $70 at the scrap yard. Plus another $50 for the cats.
And after lurking around here for a little while, I realized that I really needed an Eaton m112. Thank God for ebay!
Now, I know I'm not the first nutjob to cram a V8 into one of these, but I am doing it a little differently. I still want a decent front/rear weight distribution and great handling--so this motor will sit back just a little farther than any other swap I've seen. While you can fit a V8 into the engine bay without cutting anything, mine is set back so the #1 spark plug is just behind the center line of the front wheels, which is about 1 inch farther back (relative to the front wheels) than it did in the Lexus.
It's not clear in the above shot that the firewall was cut extensively. There will be MAJOR modifications to the under dash area to fit/relocate the heater, A/C, etc. And those tires are just sitting there for mock-up purposes.
Here is where I am now:
Everything is still in the very early, tentaive, mock-up stage right now. Once I can tell roughly how everything will fit together (it will be months, at least), I will start the actual fabrication.
In spite of all have learned so fr by searching old posts from this forum, I still have about a million questions on a variety of aspects of this project, but I'm only going to post them as I get to them on the car.
). 12" was my guess as the difference in track in your case and that might push your upper control arm pivots within cooking distance of the exhaust manifolds on a TE37 Corolla. GSMNOW is doing a LS400 1UZFE swap in a '83 Celica and said there was a huge diff in track of that vehicle and the RA65C '83 GTS Celica. He kept the Celica front suspension and xmember. IIRC, the 3rd Gen Celica is at least 2" wider than a 1st Gen Corolla, so unless you are planning on a full Veilside Body Kit...........
