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DLM's turbo 4runner build thread

18K views 57 replies 18 participants last post by  dlm 
#1 · (Edited)
Well I haven't posted much here yet but have recently finished a rebuild on my 1987 turbo 4runner and figured I should share it in case anyone finds it useful. My name is Dave LaMay and I live in La Verne CA. I am half owner of a shop called Driftmotion. We focus on mark 3 Supras but are car nuts in general and are willing to play with anything with wheels.

My truck is a black 1987 turbo 4runner SR5 automatic with every option. I bought it about 2 years ago with 179000 miles. It was in almost showroom condition. The previous owner had repainted it a year prior and installed an awesome stereo but no other mods and I don't think the four wheel drive had even been engaged.

Upon getting the truck I quickly remedied that problem and installed 4.56 gears, a detroit locker in rear, a detroit truetrac in front, 31 inch all terrains, homemade rockrails, an allpro rear bumper, and removed all the unnessary bits(mud flaps, front valance, etc.)

Anyway, I will post all my pics and detail everything I did but it may take a little bit of time as I don't get much freetime. Bare with me and feel free to question away as I go along.

Here is the oldest pic I have of her.


At about 185000 miles or so all hell started to break loose. It started to run rough and overheat. It showed obvious signs of a blown head gasket. Then even though there was no oil and water mixing yet in started knocking. So that prompted the engine build.

Here is my empty engine bay...


...and most of what had been in it.


Upon disassembly I found a severly cracked turbo exhaust housing, a cracked exhaust manifold, and two large cracks in the head from the number three combustion chamber to the water jackets. It had also spun the number four rod bearing. Other than that everything looked great. ::) The building begins.

So, I have to get to bed now but I will try to add more tomarrow.
 
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#4 ·
Fixed the pics. The great big ones are still available, just take "normal_" out of the URL. It is still a 22rte but not stock. Here's is a hint, The turbo is much bigger but still a Toyota part.;)
Thanks for the feedback guys, stay posted.
 
#9 ·
when ever i get a truck i just want it to run turbo or not haha, NICE dave full props here, Ive seen this truck in person and have riden in it many times and everytime, no joke, I get mad jealous, its the damn nearest thing to perfect condition, and damn it hauls ass for a 4runner, faster than my moms scion tc haha yea leave me alone im still in high school, but anyways the car is not much competition but hey any 4runner or toy pickup that can beat a car has to be pretty damn fast but anyways dave you got one sweet ride, dude just finish her up with long travel and that bitchn turbo setup up set at 12psi and youll be set for life with one kick ass 4runner to pass on to many generations, o yea and dont forget a tranny swap in that build of yours, autos are for weenies :D kiddin yo im just jealous :( lol
 
#11 · (Edited)
Thanks for the comments guys. It feels good to know someone is reading.
Ok, part 2. So I started out getting everything machined. Everything was checked and was in great shape with the exception of the number four rod and corresponding rod jounal on the crank. Everything got cleaned good.

The crank got ground under on the rods only, and all polished.



The block got honed and decked.



Front



Bottom



Flat and smooth for the cometic MLS head gasket



I reused the original rods and pistons.




I did however need a new number four rod and a non cracked head. At this same time I happened to run across a 1987 turbo 4x4 truck with a manual for sale. I bought it for a few hundred bucks non running. Upon disassembly I found a cracked turbo housing(surprise), a cracked exhaust manifold(surprised again), and a head cracked between the valve seats of all four cylinders(sur... nevermind). I kind of suspected all this when I bought it but at least I had a replacment rod and everything needed for a manual trans swap later(hint hint). Anyway everything got balanced and checked again.

So that is all I have time for tonight. I'll try for more tomarrow.
Stay tuned.
 
#12 ·
Ok so next everything started to go together.

Here is the bottom all together.


And here is the deck after assembly and with the new ARP studs.


This would be a comparison of the blown factory gasket on top and the cometic MLS on the bottom


So I wasn't able to find a turbo head that was any good and the more I reseached and thought about it I decided to go with a 22re head. I really felt the compression bump would help with spool and the head would probably be less likely to crack. Here is the cheap, new casting, prebuilt ebay head I ordered on top and the cracked up rte head on bottom. You can see the chamber difference between the two.


I should throw in hear that I totally forgot to mention the first owner had swapped out the cam for a DOA cam at some point. It was still in great shape so it was placed into the new head and then everything was torqued down nice and tight.


Well I will leave you guys tonight with the completed longblock and then next time we can get into the fun bits.


So remember I don't mind questions or comments. :D
 
#21 ·
Son of Mayham-I got shit milage before and now I get shit milage still. I keep track of every tank on all my cars and I am getting about 11-13 mpg. I was getting as good as 16 but switched to 32 inch tires. If you can stay out of boost than you do great but the more I see that AFR go to 11:1 under boost the worse I get.

Dropthattaco-I am currently running everything at stock settings other than playing with the air flow meter to make sure the AFRs are ok. As soon as I get the setup complete(intercooler, stand alone ecu, etc.) I will bump the boost but I want to do it safely. I am only planning on about 12-14 psi but it should be fun. I have been too busy on custumers cars to even wash my own lately.

But moving along. If you have been to my website you have seen that we are primarily supra guys. I had heard about the CT26 upgrade and figured I would give it a try.

I was able to transfer the coolant and oil pipes over to the CT26 from the CT20. I had to bend one water line slighty to clear the wastegate actuator rod, and reclock the center section. I disassembled the turbo to clean it and mocked it so that the oil drain pipe was vertical when installed on the engine. Once I got that marked I used the locating pins on the housings to calculate the angle that the center had been reclocked relative to the exhaust housing and made the intake housing match so basically all that moved was the center section. Here is the modded CT26 next to the big bad CT20.



Here are the turbos from the exhaust side.



And from the top. This shot shows how the CT26 mounting holes had to be elongated to fit the stock manifold.
 
#22 ·
what kinda power gains do you get from going to the CT26? I don't know much about these turbo engines... Are both of those ball bearing turbos? So even after the rebuild, you're still getting below 15mpg's? That's ridiculous!
 
#24 ·
Niether turbo is ball bearing. Honestly in it's current setup I don't beleive there is a significant power increase but the the turbo has to work a lot less to acheive the same result and is much less prone to cracking than the CT20.
Once the stand alone and intercooler setup are done I will be upping the boost and see what this setup is really worth. I will dive more into the results at the end of the build thread though so stay tuned. Yes milage sucks but if you can disipline your foot, which I can't:eek: , it helps big time.
 
#26 ·
Fwiw I can actually get better mileage in my built 'Runner then I ever did in my 100% stock turbo pickup, and the pickup was much lighter then the 'Runner is.

IMO the factory tuning on the turbo trucks sucks. It was before ECU's got very advanced so to keep things safe they dump in tons of fuel.

The factory combo of no intercooler + crappy turbo + potential for crappy gas = ECU tuned to poor in lots of gas to avoid detonation.

Running larger injectors, an intercooler, a larger turbo, and knowing it'll always get at least 91 octane I see an improvement in both city and highway (a lot on the highway) and I drive harder then I did in pickup.

I think the best I ever saw from my pickup was 18mpg. I can get 18mpg with about 70/30 highway/city. I needed to be going down hill and have a tail wind most of the tank to get 18 on the pickup.

In a few weeks I'll be taking an 1600 mile trip (800 one way) in the 'Runner so I'll for the first time get an almost 100% highway mileage trip.
 
#29 ·
Wow man that is strugglin. I think the worst I have ever seen is 10 and I drive like a lunatic.

So more of the build. I made some mods to the manifold as well. Here you can see how I opened up the exit to match the CT26.


If you look at the two runners on the far left side of this pic you will see how blocked they are from the casting around the bolt hole between them. I smoothed this out as well on the manifold on the left.


And here is the EGT probe for my Zeitronix ZT-2 wideband sensor.


So here she is mounted up.


From the front.


And from the back.


Here is the completed setup ready to go in. The original heat sheilds had to be bent, cut, and generally worked over to fit. The coolant pipe had to be throughly massaged to fit but after coming on and off a hundred times it finally clears everything. I also fabbed up a brace that runs to the exhaust housing using the original Supra brace.


I will leave you tonight with myself in the truck making the last minute preparations to the engine bay.
 
#28 ·
holy cow, 8!!! Yeah check the timing, tps, plugs, wires, compression, etc. Even when I hammered the crap out of the truck an entire tank I got more than 8.
 
#30 ·
haha nice dave! Thats driftmotion status right there. Ill see what pics came out good and post them up, but the night was effin with my focus but i got some good ones, man dave this thing kicks ass at calico and on the freeway it was actually a good feeling waving at the V6 tacomas as we drove by them up the inclined freeway hills :D lets just say jealousy is a fat bitch, one hell of a runner.
 
#31 ·
ok yea im uploading some pics onto photobucket now, ill post them right after, they kinda suck cause all of them were at night with a crap camera and i was running most of the time haha I have no clue why i thought that was a good idea esp. with razor sharp rocks around lol
 
#32 ·
ok heres some pics up at calico, were going up i forgot what trail but DLM can fill you in on that, i forget the names to easy:( anyways onto the pics
please premeber night and crap camera and lots of running doesnt mix for good pictures

ok the front wheel is maybe 9inches to a foot off the ground, it was some pretty hairy stuff


get it!

When Dave thinks hes pro-level like me :D

we used a bit of rockslider on this, pretty big boulder


yea thats about it all the other ones were way to blurry, all i know was that boulder action was sweet
 
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