Progress on 1UZFE > RA65 swap

[83GT400]

I like to see progress! Should be an awesome car when everything is worked out. Did I ever ask you why you wanted to swap out the 300hp 22r-te? I kinda feel like I'm following your footsteps because LC is selling a COMPLETE turboed stage 5 motor with literally everything needed from intake to exhaust for only $8,500 and I am OH so temped to buy it.

 

[Toy Snake]

I like to see progress! Should be an awesome car when everything is worked out. Did I ever ask you why you wanted to swap out the 300hp 22r-te? I kinda feel like I'm following your footsteps because LC is selling a COMPLETE turboed stage 5 motor with literally everything needed from intake to exhaust for only $8,500 and I am OH so temped to buy it.

I want to see progress too! LOL! I know Gary has a very busy schedule and has a life......

IMO, if smog inspection is not an issue, go for the LC race engine (I sense you would prefer a plug and play solution). The turbo 4 cyl. 22RTE is an easier fit but you say nothing about wiring harness and engine management so, that could grow to $12K if you can't DYI it.

Gary is prep'ing his car for street use in SoCal which requires smog compliance. (me too).

 

[83GT400]

Toy Snake,
It DOES come with the complete harness and an already dyno tuned engine management (probably SDS). Literally all I would need to do is hook up fuel, cooling, install a starter and alternator, and swap oil pans (engine was made for a truck) and whoop, there it is. It was tuned for pump 100 octane because that's what is available in AZ. Id have to retune it for the piss juice California calls 91 octane. Regardless, $8,500 is almost a steal. Still very tempted.

Smog IS an issue however, I know more than enough ways to get around it. One thing I did not ask them when I called is what cam it has. That could mean the difference between it being streetable or not. Still, having a car that requires no effort to pass would be a definate plus, because I do want to drive this car on the road. That deal couldn't have come at a worse time because I have all the money I need to swap the 1UZ. Resources are my only problem with that, which makes the turbo motor even more tempting...I know this is a Lexus site but help me out guys!

 

[rwdfreak]

I'm a 1985 Celica owner and I had the same dillema. The only thing I could say is that a 300hp 22re-t will be already maxed out, so not much more gain to get if you get bored. You will have lag and the engine will still look like **** when you pop the hood. Lets face it, the old design 22re isn't really pretty and the hose/wire going everywhere are not realy distinguished. Then you have fuel consumption, the 1UZ engine will do over 26mpg if tuned properly in a light chassis. My 120whp 22re does already do that so I can't imagine how bad it would be with lower compression more agressive cam and turbo. The 1UZ will probably feel and sound more smooth in everyday use.

At least those are the main reasons why I got myself a donor LS400 and I'm starting the project in a few weeks. The only good point I see with the 22ret is that for that price you have all new parts, but I guess for 4k you could rebuild the 1UZ with some extra goddies. The other 4.5k would be for the transplant (1000 for clutch/Bell/PP/flywheel/transmission adapter if you go manual, 1000$ for the exhaust and the rest for bracket/rad upgrade/ ande more)

 

[83GT400]

hey freak, Its me ILL83GT from celica-gts.com. I know you know about me doing the 1UZ swap already. Im pretty sure it's still on. I am super jealous that you got a donor car already. How much did you pay for it? I was going to buy this 81 Supra (for the rear axle) from Las Vegas but I got word today that somebody from Texas flew in and drove it home. They were only asking $875obo. I am extremely dissapointed I wish I had more time so I could have went to go get it. I have searched pretty high and low and it looks as if one isn't going to pop up anytime soon I can't really do the swap if I have the stock 6.7"

 

[Toy Snake]

IMO, 1UZFE is the way to go if you have the resources to do the swap. It is up there on the difficulty scale alone as a straight swap and gets even more difficult with ECU change and manual tranny conversion.

 

[Toy Snake]

IMO, 1UZFE is the way to go if you have the resources to do the swap. It is up there on the difficulty scale alone as a straight swap and gets even more difficult with ECU change and manual tranny conversion.

 

[83GT400]

Yeah I plan on using the stock w58, so no modification required there besides mating the 1uz to it. I see Dellow auto has a complete swap kit for that. I have an experienced (off-road) fabricator that seems up to the task in getting it all to fit. Right now I am trying to get the supra axle in hand to put on the car before I find a donor LS400 to get the engine from.

 

[83GT400]

Yeah I plan on using the stock w58, so no modification required there besides mating the 1uz to it. I see Dellow auto has a complete swap kit for that. I have an experienced (off-road) fabricator that seems up to the task in getting it all to fit. Right now I am trying to get the supra axle in hand to put on the car before I find a donor LS400 to get the engine from.

 

[GSMnow]

Hey, sorry I have been out of touch. This is my thread and I have not been on it in a month, Oops.

Nothing really to report on my car, but I will add in my thooughts on the swap process.

If there is an R cross member for a front sump, you may be in luck. The RA65 cross member was a great fit for the early LS400 1UZ motor. An RA4X cross member may be a good start, but if it is any narrower than the RA6X parts, space will be tight. With a modified stock exhaust manifold I have 1/4 inch on either side of the pipe between the steering shaft and the frame rail. Not much room to work with at all. The older car's recirculating ball front steer setup may actually fit better, but I have not experience with seeing it first hand. The oil pan setup from the LS400 does clear over the cross member and the steering rack in the RA65 like a factory design. Check my under car pictures, the cross member and engine are completely unmodified in that area. The rear flange of the engine may be just a tick further back than the 22RE was, but that is a guess as I failed to take close measurements. In any case, the position is likely close enough to allow the stock trans shifter to still work through the console without a problem.

There are two different companies that i am aware of that make adapter setups to bolt the W58 onto the 1UZ block. I saved my W58 and may put it back at a later date. I know that trans will easilly handle the stock power of the 1UZ as it took everything my turbo beast threw at it without complaint. I can't say the same for the 7.5 inch Supra diff. I destroyed two of them. The weak link is the limited slip setup. There are a few stronger LSD systems that will go in the Supra housing, and the ring and pinion gears heeld up fine, so this may be an option. But I also found a suspension tuning setup that was alowing my inside rear tire to unload way too much which was seriously increasing the amount of torque the poor LSD unit was trying to transfer. This cause rapid wear of the clutch faces and the thrust washers. Once they wore too far, the clutch member would pivot far enough to slam into the carrier and break it. If you hear a clunk fron an FXX3 diff, stop and re-shim it, NOW!!

1UZ vs 300HP turbo 22RE???
I could NEVER make my setup California legal. This was problem #1. I used a programmable ECU and many hand fabricated parts that were emissions critical, so it was a big no go. Though it was very clean at the pipe and would have easilly been as clean as any stock 22RE from the late 80's. My cam was a Comp 268S that gave a very smooth idle at just 850 or so RPM. It was a little down on torque from a stock cam up til about 2800 rpm where the curves met. From 2800 to 4500 the Comp 268S pulled ahead steadilly, and from 4500 to about 5800 the Comp was still climbing a bit as the stock cam was falling off fast. Around 6000 rpm the power actually started falling off, and I found my best acceleration was achieved by shifting it at 6200 or so. The fall off was slow and smooth, and there was still plenty of torque up there, so I consistently rev'd it out to 7500 rpm to avoid shifting out of 2nd while autocrossing. I had Crower billet steel rods and J&E pistons in it, so it held the revs without a problem.

The 1UZ will be a very different animal. It is down to a rated 240 HP, but I am sure I will gain a bit over that thanks to going from 5 mufflers to 1 with all mandrel bent pipe. 2.2 from each header, "Y"'d into a 2.5 inch Dynomax ultra flow. I also have all of the sound deadening resonators off from in front of the air box. So let's assume I lose about 50 HP at the extreme peak if I leave the motor dead stock. But now I also lose a full second of turbo lag in several transient situations. If you were at light throttle and found you needed it NOW, it could take over 1 second to reach 12 psi of boost. Sure, the 1UZ is only rated at 250 LB FT also, but it is over 200 LB FT from IDLE to REDLINE. Nothing I would call a torque PEAK. With just a cam upgrade, some claim over a 30 hp increase without losing torque. The stock cams are so mild, I don't doubt this.

All in All, in a drag race, the turbo will likely win, but in my autocross racing, or passing on the street, the V8 wil be much more consistent as far as responding to pushing the pedal.

Swap issues....
I have very mixed feelings about what year motor to use. The more I know, I am really leaning towards doing an OBD2 next time. I have a 93 OBD1 setup, and it has about 1/3 of the wiring, but it also has a much tougher visual inspection since the ECU can't report many emissions system failures, so they must inspect many more things under the hood.

The right side cylinder head appears to run further back than the left one and this did require some "clearance mods" with a small sledge hammer to make sure there was room so the cylinder head fit.

The only other clearance issue was the steering shaft. The rack and all cleared fine, it was only the shaft. And it was just the forth port and cat flange. With a small amount of cutting and adding in some stainless steel tubing, it fits like factory now. Of course, the cats could not mount right to the headers, they just won't fit. I used an elbow and a short run of pipe to locate the left side ca right where the stock Celica cat would be anyways, and the right side cat is right where the cat from a Supra would go. The headers and the extension pipes will all be fully wrapped in something like Thermo Tech to keep the heat in the pipes to light the cats fast as well as saving some very close proximity wires and hoses from getting melted.

Stock Celica throttle cable appears just a tick short. Mine was shortened a tick, and I had to make a very sharp 180 bend to link it up.

The power steering hoses actually fit and threaded together just fine.

I am sure there is much more. Feel free to ask any questions. I know the RA65 pretty close, but I don't know the 2X and 4X cars very good.

I need to sign off, I still have a real life.

Gary M.

 

[silveradobeast]

you should make a vid for all of us!

does anybody know how much difference is in a 83 cel to a 81 celica?

i want to do the same swap but on my 81 coupe gt

http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss177/silveradobeast/celica4.jpg

 

[GSMnow]

Wow, has it been that long?

I was hoping this would finally be the year I get to bring my car out here to Cali, but life always seems to get in the way of the plans.

I did get to drive my car a bit, but it is still running on 4 cyl and the idle motor is still stuck. It drives like a very smooth 22RE when only 4 are firing. I sure hope I get to do a full 8 cyl power run some time.

My issue is that the garage I have had it in for the last 6 years in Illinois is connected to a house that is going up for sale soon. This means I have to move it or sell it from 2500 miles away. Every time I have tried to make a trip out to work on it, something has happened. I will be taking a full week off of work in Feb to go back to Chicago. I hope to spend some of that time on the car, but most of it will be devoted to getting some of my other stuff out of the house to get it ready to list for sale. As much as I want the car here with me, I have no place to park it now and it will cost upwards of $2000 to get it hauled out. I work 50+ hour weeks and have a familly, so I do not have the time I did back when I started the project. If there is someone on here who would like to complete a 90% done 1UZA65 Celica, I al not looking to make money on this, just minimize my loss. Send my any offers at [email protected] and maybe we can find a good deal for both of us. I want the car to go to a home where it will be finished, cleaned up, and driven hard. It already has a proven suspension system that will corner at over 1.3 G's on Hoosier autocross street legal radials. The engine swap has not hurt the balance, if anything it may be even better, the front ride height is about 1/4 inch higher, even with the 300 lb/in springs in there. It was just 1.5% nose heavy with the turboed 22RE and the aluminum V8 is sitting about 2 niches further back in the car.

My other option is if someone in SoCal has a space they would not mind the car being parked in from time to time and I can arrange a way to get it out here. I so want to drive it, all the time, but it is just not looking good for that. It is driving, legal, emissions certified, plated, and insured in Illinois. It needs a bit of TLC to finish up some loose ends and repair a few minor issues. The car is located 18 miles north of Chicago. I hope to hear from someone who will treat it right. I did get one offer on the engie already to put into a later Supra chassis. I sure would hate to see my Celica chassis scraped though.

Gary M.
[email protected]

P.S. Al, I guess you did win. Give me a call some time, I can't find your phone number.

 

[GSMnow]

I actually made some progress on my car!!!

I was up in Chicago for work and got 2 days of free time. I spent one going over the car and did a bit of testing and found why it was running on 4 cylinders. The left bank ignition coil failed. New coil from NAPA was just $25 and it fired up instantly on all 8.

WOW, running on just 4 cylinders is not half the power, it was more like 1/3. I still do not trust the motor mounts or drive shaft, so I took it quite easy on the car, but I drove it for about 10 miles and got a bit brave a few times. On just 205-55-14 14 year old Nitto Drag radials, I was not expecting much grip either. I just left the completely stock 1994 LS-400 trans in econ mode drive, no kick down switch, and I rolled into it in second gear. At 3500 rpm, it starts to roar very nicely, and the tired hooked up and I left my friend way behind. Nothing mad any bad noises, so at the next red light, I tried it a bit harder while it was still in first gear. I still got it rolling easy, then got into it at 2500 rpm. By 3000 on the tach, the rear tires were moaning and I could feel it slewing a bit sideways as they started to lose grip. I was just past 1/2 throttle so it shifted a bit short at about 4800 rpm, and the rear tires chirped into second, even with over 150 pounds of crap piled in the trunk. Yeah, those old Nitto tires are not up to the torque. I would estimate I hit over 50 mph in under 5 seconds from a slow rolling start. I did not try any launches from a standstill as I just do not trust the car at this point.

The car is currently in my friends shop in Evanston, Illinois. I had such a blast working on it and taking ot for a drive, but I just have no time for it and had to get back to my reality here in California. My friend is going to be listing the car on EBAY shortly. Now that I got to drive it on all 8 cylinders, I am even more sad to see it go, but I just do not have a choice. Getting it to Cali, storing it here, and then making it legal here, are all just too big of hurdles with my life as it is.

If anyone on here is interested in a 1UZFE powered RA-65C that run and drives, but needs some TLC to finish up, I am letting it go very cheap. It is legal in Illinois, passed emissions and has a clear title, etc. Write me at [email protected] if you are interested in this car at all. I am going to let it go fro about what the motor cost me.

 

[Lextreme]

Just saw this and thought some who were following this project might like the video above.