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1uzfe swap this summer

Swamprat

NAXJA Forum User
Location
little Tijuana
So like normal when I cant sleep, which happens alot I research things. Namely engine set ups, suspension, axles, street cars, race cars, blah blah blah. What ever is on my mind for the night. Well lately, ive been thinking about an engine swap in my comanche. And it all started with my lexus, heres why. So my lexus has an a341e automatic trans, which internally is almost identical to the AW4. In fact the rebuild kit is the same for both transmissions. So I started down the lame idea of a LS400 based drift car, becuase in theory I can run a manual gear controller on the A341e just like you could on a AW4. And while looking into making the lexus a drift car I stumbled upon a few posts about running the aw4 in toyotas with the 1uzfe engine. Which is the v8 in my lexus. No big deal didnt think much of it till I found a post from some dude in Taiwan who did shoe horn a 1uzfe in an xj.

Now it all goes down hill, ive found a few post where people looked into the swap but gave up due to lack of knowledge, skill, or parts. Which is discouraging, but I have a running donor so I have everthing to run the engine, I also have everything I need to run the aw4, as well as the A341e for the bellhousing, torque converter and the starter if needed.

The only concerns I have are, engine bay width. Bolt pattern between the aw4 and the A341e bellhousing, spline counts as well as a few other fitment issues I might have with such a big engine. But in theory I have everything to make my mj both 4x4 and drop a v8 in it.

Before everyone starts with the typical why not ls swap/stoke it posts. I have looked into them, the current I6 in my mj is slowly eating its self, every oil change yeilds an alarming amount of metal flake. My only options are to either stoke and bore the original block, or drop the engine out of a parts xj I have in and hope its better. But then I bought this lexus to drive while doing one of the two and well ^^^ all that previously posted stuff happened. Plus where is the fun in conformity?


So I guess now I just need to save up to buy a daily driver xj so I can pluck the engine out of the lexus and shoe horn it into the mj for no other reason than I some how randomly ended up with all the right parts to do so.

-Ian
 
if you do end up doing this swap successfully, i sure hope you take good notes and pictures to do a write up of it later. this would seem like a worth while swap if it can be
done. good luck
 
Take a few measurements... will the OHC V8 even fit ? Probably not much room for servicing the thing once it's in there but se las vis.
Would be a badass driver and something different for sure. Go for it.
 
Do you have the 1997 and newer version? The older version doesnt have super impressive power figures. Definitely an improvement from the 4.0 though
 
We had a '90, a '95 and a '98. They all would hit 155 MPH no problem, even with over 200k on the clock. Smooth as silk. The '04 LS 430 is limited to like 135 :(
 
My donor is a 93. So not amazing power its about the same as the i6, but its different.

still better than the 4.0. Lots more HP, little more TQ, probably see much improved highway mileage as well. Might not give you as much performance as a more common LS swap but you would probably still be happy with it
 
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