550hp 2JZ 1978 Hilux Build

Nice progress on the Hilux!
Some clever fabrication going on, and very well executed!

 

Very nice job you’re doing !

 

This is gonna be awesome! Great work!

 

Since I'll have parts starting to show up soon, today I decided to fix the front cross member while the engine is still easy to pull. There's only about an inch left of it.



I decided to fully cut it out, plate it, and run a tube between the two sides similar to the trans cross member. Onto the lift the chassis goes!



I first plasma cut the remains out and then a grinder to smooth the edges, followed by a wire wheel to try and get a somewhat clean area near the welds. Before welding I then hit everything with a flappy disk and cleaned it with acetone.



I took some measurements and cut two plates out on the plasma table, and using a combination of a scissor jack and hammer got the plates formed into place.



I then TIG welded everything with .045" wire. Not the greatest welds, even with the lift it can be annoying to get into position but surprisingly everything welded really nice! I thought I'd have issues not being clean since it is a 44 year old frame caked in oil but it worked great!



I then measured, cut, ground, and sand blasted a 2.0x.120 tube. With it tacked in I quickly reinstalled the engine, made sure the oil pan cleared and the motor mounts still lined up to confirm the chassis hadn't moved and then welded it in with the MIG.



Quick coat of paint and the engine bay is done with the heavy fabrication! (For the time being )

 

This is gonna be an exciting build!

 

This is awesome! At first glance I missed the 2JZ part and rolled my eyes thinking this was just gonna be another drop a 350 Chevy in it build.

 

It is really fun to watch the progress you are making. Thanks for sharing your build.

 

Subd

 

I had thought about a LS since I have a "spare" laying around from my buggy project, but a 2JZ is so iconic and really the final evolution of the little 4 banger that came in this thing originally. Plus I've never built a turbo vehicle, let alone a Toyota engine so it'll be something new and fun! The transmission is from a Nissan, which I wish it could've stayed Toyota but out of the options it was by far the best/most available.

 

wow so cool.. as someone who is just starting to learn beyond the basics of vehicle maintenance, serivce and repair, honeslty im amazed by this. Not just the skills, but the mind /vision and creativity that goes with it. Thanks for sharing your process. I look forward to seeing where this goes.

 

Machining (lasering - I dont know anything about either) this or mild variation into a plaque/or license plate or maybe ornamentation on the tailgate would be pretty awesome.

 

I hadn't thought of going that far but that is a cool idea! I was figuring at a minimum get a license plate that said "2JZHLX" or something. Outside of that, I haven't spent much time thinking about the exterior aesthetics though that'll be coming up faster than I was expecting I think!

 

Smashed that watch thread link!

 

Was traveling over the weekend and going racing so didn't get anything done, but I made a good bit of progress yesterday and today and had to share it!

I came back to a bunch of Summit packages. The fuel cell should show up later this week along with the shifter I ordered. I also ordered stuff to do brake lines and found a grille from Thailand so bought that.



First thing was to change the radiator and engine coolant ports to AN fittings. The whole cooling system will be AN20 lines. Due to the radiator having a fair bit of room where it'll be mounted, I just welded the bungs straight to the radiator outlets. The engine side I cut the old hose connections off to save room. These may be the best welds on the whole build!







I also installed a new thermostat when reinstalling the housing.



The next part of the cooling system process is... the roll bar! The plan is to mount the radiator off the "C pillars" which will be angled back, this way the radiator will be (probably not) out of the way somewhat and suck air up from under the truck. I think I'll make some little air scoops to throw air up into the radiator too. With that said, I needed to build the C pillars so I could mount the radiator! First up was bending the roll bar, which having the lift helps hold tubing at the right level especially since I was working with a full stick of 1.75" DOM I had laying around.



The roll bar was a bit tricky, I wanted to do one piece with all bends since I thought that'd be better looking than any abrupt tube junctions and angles. I also now definitely plan to get bed sides and just run them for aesthetics and have minimal if any real "bed", so the lower tube bend needed to just clear where the bed side would eventually sit. The next issue was the roof of the Hilux isn't flat, and I don't have a way to do a radiused tube so I decided to do two 12deg bends on the roof line so the center section would be flat then angle down slightly before curving down at the edges. And lastly I wanted the tubes to sit about flush or tiny bit past the body. With all that said, and one attempt failed by the second bend, I ended up with this 6x bent tube!



I am extremely happy with how this turned out! I've tried other complicated bends before (this one isn't THAT complicated since it's all in plane and mirrored to be fair) and usually end up having to do a cut and sleeve to rotate different sections. I'm very happy that the roll bar ended up being pretty close to planar (close enough to massage it by hand). The biggest "issue" is the bottom bends didn't seem to be even or something and to be aligned with the body, the drivers side would sit overly inboard versus the passenger leg would be in the "correct" position and flush with the outside of the frame. But minor issue that really makes no difference functionally, and after 6 bends and 12ft of tube, being 1" off on one leg and spot on everywhere else is something I'm happy to live with!

To prep the frame for welding, I first cleaned everything and after just tack welding to the frame noticed that I was actually welding to that shitty little cross member bed support thing which was bad. So I cut that cross member out and ground the welds out so the frame was flat and welded the roll bar straight to the frame. I don't have any photos of this, so we'll have a lot of text and then just jump to the finished photo.

I then made the C pillars out of 1.5" DOM and connected them to the frame where there's a big tubular cross member. The passenger side was perfect and by "origin" for reference, so with the passenger side in I used an identical C pillar tube on the drivers side which then pulled the roll bar into plane and aligned it with the body to the same extent as the passenger side. After that I replaced the cross member thing I cut out with a 2.0" DOM tube. I will most likely cut out the carrier bearing cross member in front of this one, and just rely on this cross member for the "rear cab cross member" and then I can run a one piece drive shaft. Finally, I ran a diagonal from the passenger frame side to the top of the roll bar. I didn't want to get fancy with any tube junctions so just ran the tube to the bend in the roll bar instead of to the C pillar junction. With this orientation the tube shouldn't block any of my vision either. And here we are!





Little mini cage turned out pretty good for a days worth of work, and this is why I had to post an update for today! Next up will be mounting the radiator, and then I can run the cooling lines.

Also, I've been thinking about colors (even though it's far out) and I'm thinking the TRD Pro Inferno color would be pretty sweet on the Hilux. I like red, but that's pretty common and the TRD color would be a cool modern touch on an old truck and make it stand out pretty well. Thoughts?

 

DIMES!!!

 

The BEAVER COUNTRY sticker was the highlight of the build so far and you removed it ! WTF ?

 

That is an awesome build. You don't want to keep a bit of retro flavor for the paint job?

 

Hahahaha I went to take photos of the back done and had fucking beaver country staring at me and couldn't handle it anymore

Honestly I've never been a big fan of the Toyota racing stripes, maybe since they've become so played out; though in general I'm not a big fan of multiple colors, bit too much going on and doesn't have that clean look. Plus compared to the Hilux, most "retro" stuff was decades newer anyways

 

Always enjoy reading your build threads, great stuff

 

That would be pretty killer actually. A Smoked Mesquite (or whatever turd brown color it is - sorry mesquite owners) could work too. Both are very 1978.

 

At least it didn't say something like "POLE PATROL" or "WIENERMOBILE"

 

I used to see that thing all the time...

 

For a long time it was parked in Berkeley near the bay bridge

 

There are a few of them. We got to hang out in one up in Grants Pass OR one weekend while doing a monster truck show. The "drivers" we're pretty cool. They were at the same motel we sat around and BSed with them while sitting inside. Got a weiner whistle and other cool stuff. I told my wife to blow my Weiner and handed the whistle to her, she did not see the humer in it or is that hummer ???

 

I just want to know if the wiener whistle was shaped like a wiener and if you still have it?

 

Oh, this is good.

 

I sniff a whole lot of phucking awesomeness happening in this thread.

 

Between old Toyotas and weinermobile talk, what more can someone ask for

 

Yep and it should be around the house somewhere. That was probably 18 years ago ( man time flies by ! ) I should look for it.