SBC/LS1 with R154, anyone done it?

[Chaingun]

Kai while i can understand where you're comming from i'm not a toyota purist, i was raised building small block chevys from the ground up. What i'm looking to do with the thread is gather as much information and advice as i possibly can before starting this swap, not negative comments and dissuasion . I will be doing a chevy motor in my supra i love my 7mgte, it's a marvel of technology for it's time and it still runs well for me. But as it's so frequently said there is no replacement for displacement. my sb350 which is mostly stock except for intake, headers, and carb is a 5.7L motor nearly twice the displacement and a hell of alot more low end torque. as far as wiring, the SBC needs about 4 wires total starter power and signal, distributor harness, and alternator that's about it.

The reason i'm doing the SB350 first is to get the transmission and clutch set up correct along with fabricating motor mounts and such, then once i have the money it's out with the 350 in with a cammed and headed ls1 and a painless wiring harness. With the correct mount adapters it will literally bolt in directly in place of the sb350. I'm probably going to have to upgrade the stock fuel pump at that point and get a fuel pressure regulator and remove the return as well, i know the ls1 is a returnless design that runs between 55 and 60psi, can anyone recommend suitable fuel pump and regulator? I think that a single hung Walbro will work for the pump, but in a bigger hp application i may want a double.

Thanks for that info IJ, i'll get it up on the ramps today and see whats what under there and get some measurements. I may be able to modify the oilpan to fit around it or i may not need to do anything to it not sure yet.

 

[IJ.]

Have a look at my pics thread in Members rides, there's a bunch of pics from the LS swap and how I got around the brace issue.

Off to bed now back in 7>8 hours!

 

[te72]

te72, i'd love to get the LS6 as it's rated much better out of the box, but i think that for my goals an LS1 with cams and heads will be sufficient. My modified 350 is estimated at about 315hp (hasn't been run since the new intake and cam were put in) with a top end of about 5500 RPM.

All an LS6 (to my memory) is a cammed and head swapped LS1, no? You can easily get an LS1 to play nice with head work and cams. Hell, 400rwhp isn't at all a stretch with the mentioned mods. Used to run my stock LS1 up to ~6200 (whatever rev limit the car had to spoil the fun) all the time, no problems with that.

Ugh. Why not just get a 1UZ-FE, the bellhousing for it, and have an easier time wiring it all in? Oh, and it'll all be toyota instead of soiling the shell with non-toyotaness :/

As much as I love the 1UZ in all it's awesomeness, unless you'd driven a car with an LS engine, I don't think it can be understood fully.

Off to bed now back in 7>8 hours!

See you tomorrow, within today? Still weird on the top half of the world...

 

[Chaingun]

probably gonna limit mine to around 6500, i want a fast car but i don't want to have to rebuild the motor every year. I found a build up guide for an ls1 with cam heads header intake and throttle body that i was planning on basing mine on that was well over 500hp at the crank, I'll be using a reprogrammed stock computer as I won't be running any boost at least not yet. My friend had an 02 WS6 Trans-Am with heads and a 90mm throttle body, and when he hit the gas one of two things would happen, either i'd almost fly out of the t top... or the 4l80e would explode (this happened twice mind you). Anyone that thinks a t56 is a bad transmission should take a look at one of those POS's i'd rather have a good old 700r4. Being lighter (especially once i have that all aluminum motor ) even stock it should be as fast as a trans am maybe faster

 

[IJ.]

Building a 4L60E here for mine, The Built A340E stood up to the 6.0L at low boost no probs.

 

[Chaingun]

I loved the 4l60e, all of the pluses of the 700r4 minus the tv cable issues. I don't know how many of them i've seen burnt up over the years due to the throttle valve cable being adjusted wrong. It's one of the reasons i prefer manual tranny's on carbed applications.

 

[IJ.]

My car came with the 4L60E stock, it's AWD and will be blown so I just bought a heapOhot up parts from the US, I think all that will be left stock/original is the main shaft and the case.

 

[limequat]

Not to beat a dead horse..., but a stock 1uz puts out 260 hp. In a heavy supra, that's just adequate. You could make sweet power with a set of cams, but where do you buy them? How much do 4 cams cost? This is the point where you realized that you made a mistake. That's why the 1uz swaps around here get sold.

 

[Vrank!!!]

So the biggest issue for the r154 to ls is clutch/flywheel then? I'd do a 6.0 swap in my IS if I could use the r154 I have for it.

 

[Chaingun]

Agreed, where as a stock ls1 puts out around 350 when the Vet version is used, cam it and get ls6 heads and intake for the price of a bigger turbo kit on a 7m and your close to if not exceeding 500HP which I believe i would find much more than adequate. I've been working on a list of potential roadblocks on this project one being the brace that IJ mentioned, another being the front bearing retainer i believe it was called that another memeber hacked to bits to fit the adaptor to, a third is a clutch that will mate up i'm wondering if i can find a clutch disk to match the r154 splines and be big enough to handle the ls1, or if i should have the ls1 pressure plate redrilled to match an r154 pressure plate. another issue will be exhaust routing and the pilot bearing, I doubt i'll be able to cross over the exhaust anywhere but right at the rear of the car, i may actually dump it out on either side of the car infront of the rear tire instead. Any general information on the clutch sizes that anyone has as well as where i may be able to source a pilot bearing would be helpful.

 

[te72]

As for exhaust routing, look at Limequat's build thread, should give you inspiration on how to stuff a lot of engine and piping in the Mk3 bay.

Oh, by the way, your putting an iron SBC in your car mandates that you grow a mullet to sacrifice to Lynard Skynnard's remaining members.

 

[Chaingun]

:icon_mull No it doesn't lol The iron small block is really just a test bed to get the car ready for the all aluminum LS1(which i'm fairly certain is going to be lighter than the 7mgte), I have a small block sitting in my garage right now that's just begging to be used for something. The mount locations between a sbc and an ls1 are almost identical i'd just need the adaptors that the Fbody guys use on their swaps and the bellhousing clutch setup and most of the exhaust from the SBC should be able to be used again with the LS1. It's also a proof of concept, as far as i can tell a bolt in chevy motor hasn't been done with an r154 before and i'd like to make it happen regardless of which motor i use. Once everything is done i'll have specs for motor mounts and all of my build notes and pics for others to reference in other LS or SBC builds. What i'd like to start doing is collecting the information i need to get this job done
Issues:
1. Pilot bearing and clutch disk
2. Rear frame mount as pointed out by IJ(still haven't gotten to look back through your thread for what you did to resolve the issue maybe i can later tonight Do you remember the name of the thread?)
3. Cooling-I haven't found the overall length of a 7m and accessories to compare it to the chevy motors i'm going to use The length will determine if i'll use the Small blocks stock fan. as a thought i wonder if i'd be better off swapping to the LS1 radiator and electric fan and ditching the small block fan entirely.
4. Fuel pressure- easily fixed with a replacement pump and regulator
5. The actual motor mounts- I think i can fab these myself based on the pics that others have done and some measurements of my own.
6. There is the issue with the front bearing retainer that the PO of S.A.'s car did- How and why? i probably won't know this until i actually have the adaptor plate and i'm ready to fit it. I'm thinking that if the Jeep AX15 and the R154 are essentially the same transmission then why would an adapter made for the ax15 require a hackjob on the r154?
7. Last what about the stock tach, what is required to make it run on a v8 pulse signal? I think i remember reading about a $50 signal converter that can do the job seems like a worthwhile investment and an easy fix

These are the questions i need to find answers to before i turn the first bolt on this swap. S.A. Supra if the PO of your car is somehow still available could you maybe see why he needed to do that the the retainer? That's my biggest concern to be honest.

 

[Chambers]

1. You will need to measure the crank on the chev and the input shaft on the R154 and order a bearing that works. As for clutch disk you would be using the R154 disk, just have to make sure the flywheel is the correct diameter. Or have a clutch disk made that has the correct spline number and shaft size.

2. Its here: http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?67406-*IJ-s-pics-thread*/page3

3. With my 1UZ-FE I could have used the LS400 mechanical fan assembly if I had a different upper radiator hose, other than the one hose it cleared everywhere else, since the SBC (carbed at least) rad outlet goes up, then using a flex hose would probably give you plenty of room to run the chev fan. As for the rad, I'd go with a aluminum rad for the Supra, really that should be efficient enough.

4. If it were me doing a carb SBC, I would just put a fuel pressure regulator in for FI--Carb conversions, Summit has them. Alltough now that Im thinking about it, I wonder if running the factory fuel pump through the resistor would supply enough for a SBC with or without a fuel pressure regulator.

5. Mounts are up to you!

6. Not sure.

7. Yea, some kind of converter would be needed to go from 8 to 6. I looked for them for a short time but didnt find any.

Misc., if you utilize a GM style throwout bearing/slave clyinder for the clutch after doing proper measurements and using proper spacers, you could just use that, its one unit.

 

[Chaingun]

probably not on number 4, i'd planned on either removing the reisistor and making it a key on 12v, or replacing the fuel pump entirely. the brace in question IJ, is it this guy?

 

[Chambers]

Yea, what I did for my 1UZ is sent 12v trough the "check connector" wire to power the fuel pump, that way I "elminated" the factory resistor and relay circuit. It still gets power from the EFI main relay but it just goes a different route through the car. Ideally the fuel pump should be on a rpm switch, I found them but very few had a low enough rpm signal to power the fuel pump for inital start up in my opinion.

 

[Chaingun]

Pardon my ignorance about the support in question it was stated that it served a purpose, is it the brace that the torque strut for the motor attaches? i know that the 7m torque strut is located on the motor where as most chevy's are located on the transmission. I had planned to build a bracket connected by the lower header bolts, to the factory torque strut to fix this issue. Currently checking out Syst's build thread for more ideas. i doubt that i'll be able to use the same headers he did due to what is sure to be a totally different mounting. I may need to fab my own, but i highly doubt they will be a grand as the ones on IJ's turbo build.

 

[te72]

Another thread you might consider reading up on was Bigzavs' "1.5JZ T56" thread. I seem to remember him having some rather interesting times mating that transmission to the engine. Kinda the reverse theory here (Supra trans going on Chevy engine), but it might prove insightful.

 

[Chaingun]

Definitely, i appreciate the help i'm getting here and i know that once i get the supra into the garage this winter i'll have a hell of a lot of fun with the build. I'm wondering at the moment, for the SBC, i have a set of headers that were on the motor but i think they are truck headers. I'm pretty sure that they are block huggers though so they may work ok.

 

[limequat]

RE clutch: Here's what I did on my Mazda...

Ls1 flywheel. Autozone camaro pressure plate. Land cruiser disc. Solstice bearing retariner and slave. Plumb and done.

 

[Chaingun]

This was mated to an R154 Lime?