My poor wife had no idea what she was in for.

["N8"]

Ok first off hello, im new to the forum and extensively know nothing. But this seems to be the place to be if you're playing around with the 1UZ so here I am

So the scoop is this. I got married a year ago to my lovely wife who knew at the time I was a car guy. Soon after I met her I fixed up a little old crx for her to drive to work and take to the track every now and then to play in. Recently we just found out that we have our first child on the way. We are both really excited to have our first baby, but she brought up the problem of not having a back seat in the crx.

So no back seat means a new car. We went back and forth about this as she wanted something with crazy modern amenities like air conditioning. And I am a jerk and won't let a boring car sit in our driveway. So we drove out to new york and picked up a very nice looking LS400. We got it from the son of its first owner who purchased it in his retirement and obviously loved it as it was immaculately upkept.

But again im kinda a jerk, and wont let us own a slushomatic either.

So the plan is: with a baby coming in 7 months now as the final deadline, I have to swap out the transmission for something respectable, put some non-grandpa suspension under it and buy some race rubber.

I will focus the build around the transmission swap as it seems to be the tough hurtle with this car.

Currently all I have done is jam the car into my tiny rented garage, buy a R154, and just a few minutes ago ordered the toyota v8 Rxx series swap kit.

Please if anyone has any insight about what it is im getting myself into, I would very much appreciate input. Has anyone successfully or unsuccessfully put a manual in an LS400 or better yet the 154? Anyone know what is tough about doing this swap?

Anyway I'll do my best to update this thread as stuff happens. Im looking forward to this build even though I already feel the pressure of time coming down upon me.

 

["N8"]

heres some random photos of other junk I have to tide things over till I can get some stuff for this build up.

 

[BlackUZZ31]

shift kit the auto ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/A340E-A340F...1-A343-TOYOTA-JEEP-solenoid-tcc-/330719393950 ), fit bigger UCF20 brakes and then watch ebay for a cheap M112 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eaton-M112-...a-Excellent-Condition-15K-Miles-/230981504374 ) or larger supercharger and speak to LP1 on here about a manifold..

Much better value for money than a manual conversion...

 

["N8"]

With a shift kit there is no clutch and this means no clutch kicking. Shift kit auto's are still auto's at heart. The Rxx swap kit from toyotaV8 has alredy been paid for. I have a supercharger in the basement waiting for the LS but i'll wait till after I get it driving before I get into any air fuel management stuff.

Other than the value you talked about is there any real reason the swap is a bad idea? As far as I can see currently it seems like a great compromise for my wife and I.

 

["N8"]

Heres a couple photos of what I have currently.

 

[4U2QUIK]

only downside (which I already know you're aware of) is the difficulty of the swap. Tanner told me he already talked to you about this.

 

["N8"]

Yes he did, but so far nobody has told me what the hard hurdles on the LS400 swap will be. It seems like a bunch of people have started this swap, but maybe everybody gives up at some point? any idea where im going to run into trouble?

 

[4U2QUIK]

making the independant clutch pedal setup can be difficult, and then the shifter extension is super long. You will also have to figure something out for the driveshaft. There's a few different ways of going about it from what I remember. It's been over 3 or 4 years since I las did one of these swaps.

 

[4U2QUIK]

and, there's a couple of people on her ethat have done it much more recently.... the person that comes to mind is a guy named dave hardy. I cant remember his user name right this second. i think it's dhardy or something like that.

 

["N8"]

Cool. Thanks man, these are all the hurdles I thought would be tough but doable. I haven't taken a tape measure to the transmission's yet to see how far the shifter needs to move, there is a guy on e-bay making custom r154 shifter extensions up to 6" I figured if one of his shifter extensions will work I may pass the problem along to him, otherwise I have a couple ideas that will require me to brake out the TIG and do a little bit of milling on some aluminum stock that should extend the shifter as far as I want. The pedals are still a wild card. My toyo DIY login has been pretty handy for this and it seems that both the sc300 and the es300 manual brake pedals are almost identical to the LS400 I am hoping that this means the firewall is somewhat similar shape and I can rob some pedal kits out of one of these vehicles and weld some brackets together to bolt it all down.

The gentleman who sold me the 154 out of the turbo supra also gave me the supra driveshaft and offered to sell me his rear end. Eventually I will have to deal with the no limited slip problem and am leaning towards calling the guy back and maybe adding on having a go at swapping in the mk3 rear end. This will allow me to just drop the supra drive line off at my local driveline shop and tell them to make it X length. mounting it in the subframe seems simple enough, anybody know if the LS400 axles will bolt up to an mk3 rear end? if not, i'll have to find another way around it.

 

[BlackUZZ31]

With a shift kit there is no clutch and this means no clutch kicking. Shift kit auto's are still auto's at heart. The Rxx swap kit from toyotaV8 has alredy been paid for. I have a supercharger in the basement waiting for the LS but i'll wait till after I get it driving before I get into any air fuel management stuff.

Other than the value you talked about is there any real reason the swap is a bad idea? As far as I can see currently it seems like a great compromise for my wife and I.

the LS400 is a nice cruiser, never designed as a manual and clutch kicking is for underpowered drifter wannabe's with a nice blower set-up you will easily overpower the "grip" provided by the LS400 irs.

fitting a manual will see you replacing diff's, subframes, axles and clutchs, shift kit the auto and you will have a nice cruiser with plenty of power thats fun to drive, use it to tow your manual light-weight drift car in relaxed fashion with a hand free to pass a clean nappy to your poor wife

 

[BlackUZZ31]

LS400 axles will bolt up to an mk3 rear end? if not, i'll have to find another way around it.

No, you want a JZA80 supra or UZZ3x SC400/SC300 diff, the rear mounts will bolt strait up, then just fabricate two brackets for the front mounts

 

[4U2QUIK]

shifter has to be about 8" with the w58. probably will need to be 9 1/4" long with the r154.
also, you will not be able to use any kind of oem pedal so just forget about that idea. you pretty much have to build a box for the pedal and clutch master and stuff it up under the dash. We removed the e-brake pedal and mounted the clutch pedal there as it'sprtty much the only option.

 

[Spinnetti]

I too am a car guy with many projects, and though I initially hated the idea of an automatic, a manual does very little for this car. I race mine with the auto and we run up front with it.

 

["N8"]

Well like I said before im a little bit of a jerk and I dont think my family will ever have an automatic transmission. Call it a point of taste. Also I have grand plans for this 1uz in the future, but this inital build will get us going and I can make the little v8 couch up some real power later.

8 or 9 inches is encouraging, I was dreading a two foot span of some sort. Not being able to use an oem pedal is disheartening. Hopefully there will be another half hour of daylight by the time I get home from work so I can drag the car out and see what your talking about. Remote pedals wont be the end of the world, itll just be a little extra effort to make it look nice I expect.

 

[Racersky]

I was researching back then before my conversion on my LS400 and I sworn the R154 trans can come real close to fitting with no much modifications needed if you can find the transmission with the tripod shift linkage. My LS400 currently is converted from automatic to a 6spd. The transmission I chose was the 350z transmission (CD009).

 

[Racersky]

sorry for a double post but here's a pic of the r154 transmission with the tripod shifter (bottom) and a w58 transmission (top).

 

["N8"]

Yes your talking about the JZA80 shifter. It hangs off the back of the transmission. If you find one let me know. It seems that they are super rare to find for sale and when you do find them people are asking stupid money for them. How do you like the 350Z 6speed tranny?

 

["N8"]

Also, how did you handle installig a clutch pedal?

 

[Racersky]

Also, how did you handle installig a clutch pedal?

I used an sc300 clutch pedal with the clutch master cylinder. The problem is not getting the pedal in there but moving stuff that is in the way like the fuse box, power steering module, and some misc things. I have four pedals down there lol.