Sleeper MX83 build

[Gordo 0]

"Then, the rear diff ratios are completely incompatible with it."

 

Not to mention, the trans ratios suck...

This idea will soon fade, just like the 1UZ, and LS1 fads.

 

I still think a close ratio TKO 600 would have been a better choice.

[BoristheCat 0]

True about the diff ratios.

 

It was either Ricky or Austin that said he was actually fairly happy with the gearing and that it ripped fairly well for a stock motor, CD009 and stock diff combo.

 

Eventually planning on a diff rebuild anyway. The lowest I can go to my knowledge is a 3.5 ring and pinion. It's not the best, but it's certainly better than having a 3.9 like I have right now.

[Tbone 0]

Subscribed.

Having a six speed trans mated to 2jz is going to be killer man.

Fuck the cost

Fuck the work/tears

Fuck peoples opinion

Get er done.

 

You signed up for pain&suffering the day you became the owner of cressida.

[Gordo 0]

Good luck with finding the 3.5, the easiest is the MkIII turbo 3.7.

But you won't have enough power to pull red line with either of them.

Anything near 200 mph requires about 800 hp.

Your 3.9 will do 187 @ 7500, so it's probably just fine, (if you are planning on making over 5-600 hp.

Other wise, a 4.1 would be better.

But then, first gear is almost useless...

So, either you have a useless 1st gear, or a useless 6th gear...

 

Was going to run the numbers again, but I can't find where I hid the X8 frontal area info.

CD is .380.

[BoristheCat 0]

 

You signed up for pain&suffering the day you became the owner of cressida.

 

 

Pretty much.

 

The diff I currently have is out of an MKIII turbo.

 

The problem is, the seller didn't say what year it was, which was irritating. I purchased it knowing that I would need to do a rebuild on it anyway in the future.

 

So I either have a 3.73 from an MKIII turbo from years 88 to 89, or a 3.9 from an MKIII turbo from years 90 to 92, not sure which. If I care enough, I'll check it when I feel like crawling under the car at a later date.

 

inb4 I'm accused of lousy planning lol

[Gordo 0]

inb4 I'm accused of lousy planning lol

 

Aren't we all......Or we would never have bought anything with a 'Cressida' name...

[RickyFromThePark 0]

Someone mentioned to me that some toyota 4x4 r&p gears may fit in the stock pumpkin (maybe 4runner?). Doesn't help much if you want a taller rear gear though, they're all shorter gears for the big tire moab bros.

 

I looked, but not very hard. Also my gearing didn't bother me much but I had mondo tires on the back, something like 255/55 if memory serves, and I like having a useless 6th gear for the highway.

[Urrik 0]

It's the other way around, mk3 turbos up to 89 had the 3.9 and 89+ had the 3.73

[BoristheCat 0]

Oh ok cool. I vaguely recall the seller saying the diff was from a 90 or 92, I can't remember which. Either way it'll be marginally better over the auto diff that I chucked.

 

I'll see how the 3.73 behaves and get a rebuild with a clutch kit, seals and other goodies once I've driven it around for a bit and can make a judgement on how I like the gearing.

[BoristheCat 0]

I regret nothing.

 

 

 

Absolutely shocking news everyone, you have to chop your shit up.

 

I shouldn't have too much more cutting to go. You can see my janky MS paint work in green to see where more cuts need to be made.

 

 

 

 

The two circled areas are where the upper width of the trans is hitting. The center console still fits over everything relatively well.

 

I'll reinforce shit once I can get the final position figured out in a few weeks.

 

Doing it this way will allow the engine to be pretty far back and close to the firewall like I want.

 

Having the stock J3 A340 bellhousing is great. The front of the trans fits like a damn glove, which I'm super happy with.

 

Also welded up most of the holes which I'm not going to be using. Relocating the fusebox to the trunk and tucking some wires. None of this is very hard, just tedious and time consuming.

 

 

[battleaxe 0]

why havent you removed the entire interior in prep for the cutting of the tunnel..and why havent you stripped the front of the car to paint the engine bay? and why you doing all of this before you've fit and finished the engine and all the plumbing and the parts that need to be bolted and all that other bullshit?

[shlammed 0]

that stuff isn't as easy as buying the parts

[BoristheCat 0]

why havent you removed the entire interior in prep for the cutting of the tunnel..and why havent you stripped the front of the car to paint the engine bay? and why you doing all of this before you've fit and finished the engine and all the plumbing and the parts that need to be bolted and all that other bullshit?

 

Mainly because I'm limited on storage space for putting my parts. The interior is completely stripped from the seats forward. I will finish stripping the front end once I'm close to painting the bay. The engine is like 80 percent done except for the fuel rail and a few other minor things. I am planning on test fitting the motor and trans as an entire unit after my bondo is done.

 

 

 

My posts are a little bit out of order. My wiring harness is almost done, and I want to get all of my electrical routed along with the test fit of my motor all at once.

 

 

I want to get my tunnel cut as close as possible to where the trans will end up being so I don't have to put the motor in and yank it out repeatedly. I know my shit's a little bass ackwards, but I'm planning a test fit of the motor and trans hopefully within the next month.

 

 

 

Gauges and clutch should be here within the next week or two.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

I fancy the idea of relocating the fuse panel to the trunk, but that is a long ways for those wires to go to their home. Would you have to up the gauge of the wire so you don't lose too much current?

I'd like to clean up my engine bay like you are, but since my swap has been running so well, I don't feel the need to mess with it right now lol. Maybe some day.

[BoristheCat 0]

On a few wires, yes. Not by much though. I would bump them up just to be on the safe side.

 

I talked to a guy at Milspec, and he said car wiring gauge is normally higher than it needs to be straight from the factory.

 

For example, our 2j VVT-i motors use high-impedance injectors, and they really don't require that much power. Every wire on my loom to power an injector was a 16 gauge, which according to the guy at Milspec was way overkill.

 

He said I could run all six of my injectors with 20 gauge if I felt like it.

 

If you google a current vs wire gauge chart, it will tell you when to bump up a gauge based on the length of the wire run.

 

Here's a decent one:

 

 

 

 

A wire you would definitely want to bump up would be your alternator wiring. On the stock loom, the white wire is a really short run, only a few feet from the J1 box to the round alternator plug. Now, it will be going from the fusebox that you have relocated to the trunk aaaaalll the way to the 2J oval alternator plug. A wire that used to be only a few feet long now runs nearly the entire length of the car.

 

Let's say that wire to the alternator is a 12 gauge on the stock motor, and it's 4 feet long. Now let's say it has to be 12 feet long to run from the trunk to the alternator. If you use the chart above, now it's telling you to bump up from a 12 gauge up to an 8 gauge.

[battleaxe 0]

Any battery relocated I've done had been 1/0 gauge and alt wiring is at minimum 4

[BoristheCat 0]

Right, you're referring to the actual power cable that runs from the battery to the alternator and yeah, I would go with 1/0 gauge.

 

The three wires that run to the oval alternator plug on the 2j are very small. They are 20 or 22 gauge. However, you want to take the existing cressida wiring and reroute it into the oval plug.

 

If you're referring to the additional wire that runs from the positive terminal into the J1 box, yeah I would use a 4 gauge for that.

 

I'm going to get more pics of my wiring within the next couple days and I'll get more detailed with what I'm up to.

[BoristheCat 0]

Got my gauges.

 

 

 

For those of you who want to know how much is involved with a wire tuck, it's really not that bad at all.

 

 

Here's the injector, o2 power, Ignition, steering rack solenoid wiring and alternator wiring that will end up being incorporated with the main harness.

 

 

 

This wiring goes to the headlights and will be routed back toward the front of the car

 

 

 

And here is all the wiring that will go from the left kick panel back to the fusebox that will be in the trunk.

 

[Gordo 0]

Headlight wiring looks a little on the small size for running the length of the car...

[BoristheCat 0]

Yeah, this is the stock wiring. I was pretty surprised myself.

 

Modded an SW20 MR2 front sway bar to get rid of the stock coat hanger in the back. It's a solid 19mm, which should be sufficient. For 50 bucks shipped, it's a cheap and viable solution.

 

Cut it shorter and tapered the ends with a grinder. Made sure that I didn't let it get too hot to mess with the temper.

 

 

 

In this pic, there doesn't look like much clearance, but there's at least two inches of clearance from the end of the sway bar to the axle. I used polyurethane bushings intended for the SW20 MR2 and then just sanded them down and they fit like they were meant to be.

 

 

 

Got a billet oil cap to match my pulleys and valve cover bolts. Put the dress up bolts on the coil cover just to see what it looks like. I'm liking the way it's turning out.

 

 

 

Finished resealing the upper and lower pans to the block after replacing the o ring and all gaskets.

 

 

 

I was going to polish all the aluminum on my intake and turbo piping, but got lazy. It's too much work and I don't feel like doing it. Polished the fuel rail, but I'm just going to paint it blue to match my cam gear and brakes.

 

Once I get my new injector o rings, paint the fuel rail and replace my intake gaskets, the motor will be done.

[Gordo 0]

Good job on the sway bar.

[BoristheCat 0]

Thanks Gordo. I read where you mentioned that an FD3S swaybar would work, but I didn't even bother looking for once since I'm sure the price would be ridiculous.

 

Got some minor swag for christmas.

 

 

 

Also got an optima battery. Not too heavy at 31 pounds and it's definitely lighter than stock.

 

Although the battery is sealed and I'm not going to track the car, I wanted to keep it contained for a cleaner look.

 

Got a battery box. It's rather large, and I know I can fit my 150A breaker in there. I'm debating if I should put the fuse box in there too... I don't know how hot the battery gets, so I'm debating if this is a wise idea or not.

 

When it's under the hood, there's at least some air flow around the battery, whereas there won't be any in the trunk.

 

 

 

 

Also fitted my gauges. I'm not quite happy with how my panel turned out, so I'm going to have to keep messing with it.

 

In the pic below, the rings on the gauges are way too shiny.

 

 

 

Buffed them on low speed with a 320 grit buff on the dremel. I'll probably finish them with 600 grit since they're now a tad too dull. The left and center gauge in the pic below are done while the right one wasn't quite finished. Definitely a better match currently than before though.

 

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Great progress Boris. The matte black bezels flow much better with the rest of the console. I agree the gloss black didn't mesh well. I'm very surprised how close the MR2 bar looks. It may be the photo, but is the MR2 bar wider than the Cressida bar? This bar looks like a much better fit than the FD3S bar.

If you have any pictures, I'd like to see how and where you made your cuts. I may consider this route as I was tossing up the idea of the FD3S bar.

 

BTW: that wire gauge reference is the chart I refer to when I am deciding what wires to use. It's a great help.

[BoristheCat 0]

Thanks Zach. Yeah, I was surprised by the similarities too. Yes, the MR2 bar is a good inch to inch and a half wider on each side. The lines I marked in red are where I cut. I just aimed for the middle of the bend on one side and then squared up the other side.

 

After the cut, it sits pretty much perfectly above the endlink mounts on the LCA's.

 

The one thing you need to be aware of is that the bushings sit on the slight bend in the MR2 sway bar. I can't tell you how long the bushings will last due to this because my car isn't running and driving.

 

Where I circled in green is where the bushings will end up sitting once you install it onto the cress. You can tell where the bushings sat in their stock locations just outside of the green circles.

 

This sway bar is cheap and required only like half an hour of work with sanding the bushings, cutting, grinding, drilling, etc.

 

Glad the wire chart is helpful.

 

[BoristheCat 0]

No noobs will ever peruse the build threads. It's a pity, because I am about to outline all the tools necessary to do any electrical work on a cressida.

 

 

Three sets of strippers. One set strips that crappy doughy thick insulation on stock wires. The other sets strip high quality PA wires (milspec wires) sizes AWG 10-24. Search ebay "stripmaster".

 

Go to ebay. Search "huskie cable crimper". This will crimp any battery cables or splices. $1300 used factory OS tool that you can get for less than 250 shipped with a shitload of dies. Want to crimp 1 or 2/0 battery/starter/alternator wires? This will do it.

 

Eastern beaver is an importer that sells Hero tools. Get the Hozan P-707 and P-706. These will crimp any Japanese terminal from 24 AWG to 14 AWG. VSV's, injector terminals, everything under the sun.

 

The FR-150 extractor tools are expensive. (not pictured) $40 for two pics. They're expensive if you're cheap. Buy these once and you won't be buying $4 amazon china tools ever again. Buy good tools once.

 

 

 

Get a thermal wire stripper. This will strip shielded wire for your knock sensors, ETC and so forth. This is almost $3000 worth of tools (including shipping).

 

I got all of these tools for $600.

 

If any of you are still too scared to build you own tucked harness, PM me and we can talk.

 

If you are willing to do your own work, I'll help you free of charge (barring completely retarded questions).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The funniest part of this post?

 

I give better advice drunk than shlammy gives sober.

 

I refrained from being a douche for so long, but now I have to. I feel myself turning to the dark (douchy) side. Gordo and Rue, embrace me.