550hp 2JZ 1978 Hilux Build

Smoked Mesquite would be a great sleeper truck color if that's what you're looking for. Inferno would look great too but would definitely get more attention.

 

If you find it, you'll have to post a pick of you blowing it...

 

Nice choice on going with a VVTi set up. They were a problem years ago, but now they're the go-to 2J. If you haven't already chosen fuel management, a bunch of guys around here swear by ProEFI.

Looking forward to seeing more.

 

Rad!

 

From my reading it seemed like a few years ago the VVTI was looked down upon and then people figured out how to tune them and then they became popular since they make better torque low down. I read about the ProEFI and some others, but ultimately I don't plan to do the tuning and I found a local shop that does Dyno tuning and they said they prefer Motec or Haltech so I think I'll go with one of those purely since that's what the tuning shop prefers to use. Certainly not the cheapest option, but for the convenience of a local place being able to tune it I think it'll be worth it.

With that said, it'll be awhile until I get there. I figure this fall at the earliest since I'll sand blast the chassis, get the cab painted, and then tear the engine down and figure out all the turbo things before I actually need a stand alone setup--so lots of time to figure out the big power details!

 

That is definitely the case. Might help the turbo spool a bit quicker too.

That's the most important factor. Making sure your tuner is familiar with the software. We usually fly Alpha out here once or twice a year and have him tune a lot of cars in the area over the course of 4 or 5 days.

 

Excellent build and progress!! Might I make a wheel suggestion for you? Mitsubishi Starion / Chrysler Conquest wheels from the 80's are 5x114.3 and come in 16x7" 16x8" staggered. They actually resemble the 4-bolt Celica wheels from the same era, and make mini-Toyota trucks look fantastic.

 

Oof!! You are the man! If nothing else this post may justify this threads whole existence! I was just talking to the wife about wheels and tires yesterday but haven't looked at anything. That looks great! I really like that deeper back end too. I will have to heavily consider those! Thank you for the suggestion! And if that's your Hilux, it is gorgeous!

Ive also been toying with the idea of fender mirrors which seems to be a JDM option, I don't think the USDM got them? I think they'd be sweet, but I need to look around since I like the little pod looking ones as opposed to the rectangular ones, though the ones on that one look better than most I've seen.

 

Also a photo from last night, I realized the hump in the body was for the driveshaft and was really just a continuation of the trans tunnel (for some reason I thought it wasn't that before) so I cut the tube cross member and bent a U piece and welded it in and capped the ends off. I will have to cut out the cross member in front next and then the driveshaft will have a clean shot back.



Also today I got some of the parts I ordered last week from Thailand! New headlight shrouds, which I already have some but these were included with the grille I bought which hopefully shows up tomorrow! Thailand seems to be the only way to get most parts via eBay.



And then what I'm most excited about! Just got my Autosports Engineering shifter in! I will install this tonight. It requires some disassembly and modification of the rear of the transmission since it moves the shifter to the top access cover instead of hanging off the back. I have yet to shift the trans, so this will be huge! Also shout out for including Skittles

 

Great build! you make me miss my 71

 

Oh dude! That's a true classic there. The first gens had such derpy and cute front ends, they remind me of a puppy hahaha

 

All cute and ugly at the same time lol

 

And then what I'm most excited about! Just got my Autosports Engineering shifter in! I will install this tonight. It requires some disassembly and modification of the rear of the transmission since it moves the shifter to the top access cover instead of hanging off the back. I have yet to shift the trans, so this will be huge! Also shout out for including Skittles

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It's the little things that mean so much when you buy from folks... I just received an order from the guys over at Desert Does It, and they included a Lemon Head w/the order. I was almost as happy to get the Lemon Head as I was my actual order!!!

 

Slight change of plans for today's work, before pulling the body to install the shifter I wanted to get the radiator mounts in since I planned to set the radiator height to sit just below the window line. This pushes the radiator as far forward on the C pillars as possible without impairing vision, and giving more room for bed/suspension space behind the radiator.

I don't have any in progress photos, but you know the process, so here's a photo dump:













Spot the issue









It's not done yet! Obviously. My plan is to have two plates that overlap the edges of the radiator and clamp it down, but due to the fill nozzle I'm not entirely sure how to make that side nice looking. Also I need a way to mount the Ford Taurus radiator fan (the god of all electric fans if anyone was wondering), so if I can kill two birds with one stone with the hold down plates that'd be great. But like I said, TBD as to how those will be done...

In regards to the issue, the fucking passenger side isn't remotely parallel to the drivers side at first I thought it was because the cage isn't C pillars aren't parallel but then I realized AFTER welding half of the mount in that the bottom semi circle cut out wasn't remotely seated against the tube! I completely forgot to check that everything was truly seated on the passenger side, and since there's four plates that ultimately get welded to the tube and the top semi circle and the two tangential plates aligned I forgot to check the bottom! The bottom semi circle is probably a 1/2" out of wack, to the point I didn't even try to weld it and just go with it.

I'm not really OCD, and if anyone has noticed there is a LOT of shit that isn't perfectly aligned, but this is by far the most annoying since everything else looks amazing. With that said, the hold down plates will completely cover that asymmetric gap so no one (but you guys) will ever know, and the misalignment actually makes the radiator sit perfectly with like .030" of lateral slop where as I had designed in about .250".

Anyways... Overall I'm very stoked for how it turned out! It took me awhile to get everything straight in my head since the back plates are different, the top plates are different, and then I dimple died some of the small plates wrong so had to remake those. Definitely the fanciest radiator mount I've ever done, and the welds for the most part look awesome. This was one place I wanted to get sexy with it since it'll be right in everyone's face and always visible. Besides that stupid misalignment (which you can't really tell just looking at the plates) I think it looks great!

I probably won't have time this weekend to work on the Hilux, and will be getting more parts in, so next week should be pretty exciting!

 

It really is! It feels like such a personal touch and just going that extra little bit more that a big company wouldn't ever do. Gives confidence that if you call them up they'll help you.

 

When I see something like this build it makes me feel like a caveman banging two rocks together in comparison. You've got skills Sir!!

 

Well thank you sir. I feel the same way though in comparison to people that do this for a living. Radiator bracket being skewed, roll bar not being perfectly centered, etc. Always have to strive for improvement!

 

I wish I felt that far up the evolutionary plane. I feel like those monkeys that use reeds to get ants out of their hives.

Amazing work & thanks for sharing!

 

The cooling system fabrication is done! Or at least the stuff that truly matters. I cut out the two clamp plates and some tabs that I welded nuts to.





The filler neck got a special little bracket to set the nut plate in a spot that clears the radiator cap, which is why this section wasn't included in the original plate. Don't worry I cut those bolts down too



Next up was mounting the Taurus electric fan which only has mounts on the top and left side, so I ended up using two bolt holes on the left and also cut out a little clamping plate and then cut out a clamping plate for the entire right side of the fan shroud which also wraps around a bit to keep it located vertically since there's nothing actually going through the fan shroud anywhere on that side. I then took some bolts, cut the head off, turned down a smooth neck on the lathe, and converted them to some studs and welded them on!







In retrospect I wish there was a more elegant way for the radiator clamp plates to interface to the cage holders, the plates have some sharp angles that overhang that stand out a little too much. BUT that level of nitpicking means it's turning out really nice, especially for such a relatively complicated mounting setup going on. It looks great! I will add some rubber trim to seal the radiator fan better to the radiator, but otherwise all that's left is run the cooling lines and wire the fan up and cooling is done!

 

That's gonna look awesome!!!

 

Got the remaining parts from Thailand! Shout out to atomboys on eBay, they packaged everything super well and everything looks amazing, and got here way faster than I was expecting!







It looks like there's a lower valance or something that connects the fenders and sits below the grille that I'll have to track down next.

 

Still haven't touched the shifter today I started the fuel system, ie redoing the rear cross member. As usual I skipped photos of the boring parts, so enjoy some end result photos. This is some of the best work I've ever done, very happy with how it turned out!













I then cut out the original cross member which was a few inches forward and spent a lot of time cutting and grinding to get down to just the frame.



Fuel cell mock up:





Where I cut out the old cross member there are some gouges and cuts that I need to patch up. It turns out the inboard frame plates are REALLY thin, like maybe 14ga or thinner (way under 1/8"). The inside of the frame is also painted and gross, I noticed this when I was plasma cutting and welding it that shit was burning off. This is now an issue because I tried to mig and tig the holes in the frame from where the cross member was and it doesn't weld for shit, plus being really thin makes it hard. Hard enough to the point I'm thinking of just cutting out a large section of the inboard plate and welding a large overlay on it (seen in the bottom left laying on the frame), this way I can fillet weld the overlay to a section of frame I can clean. At this point I called it a day.

I'm thinking of cutting a hole through the frame in front of the fuel cell and running a tube through it to create a second cross member so the two tubes will hug the fuel cell, and then I just have to make a cradle for it. I'm not sure how I want to try and execute that yet, on the one hand since I don't have to fully box the frame in like the rear it can be easy, but the hard part will be I need to cut through four layers of steel and keep it concentric and I'm not sure how best to do that. I was thinking a hole saw but that won't help much I don't think. Typing all this I think I figured it out though: cut some oversize holes with the plasma, run the tube through, and cut some tight fitting overlay plates that are like 1/2" wide and hug the tube. I think that'll be a sexy way to do it, and will reinforce the inboard part of the frame that is so thin.

 

This is epic. Sub’d

 

Lots of progress today! Though I also only worked on the Hilux, so one would hope so. I decided to cut out the frame sections where the old cross member was and weld in new patches, and then for the new cross member I decided to cut matching holes on the outside of the frame and then cut oversize holes on the interior portion and put some overlay plates to cover it up.











With the frame patches up and the two fuel cell cross members in place, it was time to make the fuel cell cradle. So time jump like 5 hours later and here we are:









Two strap type things each 6" wide, and on the bottom the outside edge is bent up for a 2" lip to locate it laterally. Everything is tig welded, with the exception of the gap on the underside between the tubes and plate I wanted to weld too for some redundancy and the mig is great for filling in acute angles like that.







The fuel cell has about 1/4" of total slop in both axis, and I plan to put some rubber or foam spacers in to make it sit snug. The top of the fuel cell pressure line is about 1/2" below the top of the frame, so if I add a bed there should be plenty of room to run plumbing. This fuel cell is 20 gallons from Aeromotive and has two vent lines, a sending unit, baffling, and their A1000 pump.

I will make a hold down plate next, and otherwise the fuel cell mounting is all done! I think this turned out great! I'm trying not to get super wrapped around doing good work, but it's cool to see my new base level of fab work is so much better than I was 4-5 years ago (when I started my buggy build). Practice, research, and better tools are allowing the Hilux to turn into a real cool little truck and it doesn't feel like I'm going at a snails pace to get it done!

I have a glimmer of hope I can start it this weekend, not drive but fire the engine up. I doubt it'll happen, still a lot to do, but we're getting mighty close! Once the hold down plate is done I think all the large scale fab work is done, and then it'll just be little brackets! Getting into the home stretch like plumbing and wiring and normal wrenching!

 

Amazing work, what's the story with the bellhousing?

 

Are you asking something specific or wondering why it's dirty? To which my reply is that's probably 44 years of oil seepage and dirt

 

I've never seen this thread until tonight.
Very impressive work @snivilous

Awesome to a man fulfilling his passion...

 

I thought it was a hole.

Lol

 

Great work!

 

Truly impressive work!