My Lexus Isupra Conversion

[gsportcars]

looking very nice gav, can not wait to hear the sound of that exhaust looks good the way you have it as well.

gav you can get intercooler pipe/work kits of ebay and just cut weld to customise it to fit :winky:

Yeah mate i seen that on eBay and e-mailed the person to see if they could supply me with the specific bends that I need. I explained that I was doing my intercooler piping in 3 different diameters and that I would have to buy 3 of his kits and prob still would have all the right parts and he just said he couldn't supply the parts needed. I think he was expecting me to go ahead and buy the 3 kits

I wanna gradually increase the diameter of piping from the turbo to the inlet of the intercooler. Partly due to lack of space but mostly because it should gain boost quicker that way. I will be going from 2" diameter from the turbo, then into 2.5" diameter just before the intercooler inlet and then it will go to 3" diameter at the intercooler inlet and will be 3" all the way to the intake manifold.

[marcus]

wow gav you got your work cut/out for you there mate, why dont you just go with 2" from turbo to intercooler inlet & 3" from the outlet to engine and see how that works...........

[gsportcars]

I heard that a gradual increase in diameter is better. Although I don't see how that could be.

I would have thought that the less air space you had to fill in your intercooler system then the quicker you will get boost. It could well be a better idea to do it as you have said then.

Any intercooler/ boost wizards that could tell me what is the best way to go about this????

[RoadRash]

That looks bad a$$!!! B)

Congrats bud, you will really get some fun with that ride!!! :winky:

[gsportcars]

I have been busy as usual so not had the chance to post up any progress.

Anyway everything is basically fitted now and I had to start on the wiring. As the is200 uses the electronic throttle control to control the idle etc It didn't haver an idle control valve. The supra engine fortunately does. The only prob being that it needed to be wired up to the ECU. I got a lend of the Autronic user manual with the wiring diagrams for this and got to work.

First I had to find the correct wires coming from the ECU. After a bit of stripping and testing some wires I eventually found the 4 i needed which were already extended into the engine bay. Here they are below. I simply extended them further and connect them according to the wiring diagram

Another main difference in the wiring of the two engines is the coil packs. the IS200 uses 4 wire coils and the supra uses 2 wire coils. For this reason the Autronic ECU will not support/run the supra coils without a Bosch driver module. I had to find these wires also and connect up the driver according to the Autronic manual.

Here is the driver mounted in the engine bay

The coils themselves are powered straight from the Battery using a relay and 30amp fuse. The relay is triggered through the ignition. Here is the relay mounted on the strut for the strut brace.

I had to also weld a small pipe onto the intercooler piping for the dump valve to fit onto.

Due to layout and lack of space it is mounted below the throttle body on the intake pipe. here is a view from the top looking down.

and a view from below looking up

When I fitted my radiator and tried to fill the coolant system I discovered that my rad was leaking in 3 places .

I don't really know how this happened but I assume it has been damaged while lying arount the garage. Anyway I did get a new one which wasn't cheap , so here is a quicky

Here is the intercooler piping made up and off the car

This is the intercooler piping coming from the turbo and going down towards the bottom of the engine bay

A pic from below shows the piping going into the intercooler

and also coming out of the intercooler but now the piping diameter is 3" instead of 2"

[gsportcars]

I eventually got a hold of the pics taken before of the exhaust while it was off the car. They are from another camera so quality isn't that great.

Anyway here is the down pipe with the flex and part of the rest of the system.

this is the centre section whic was also heat wrapped until I ran out of wrap.

This is the rear of the exhaust with the twin boxes.

And finally a full view of the whole system from the rear.

The car has been started but just barely. the engine is only running on 3 cylinders as we think there is a short in the ignition wiring. I need to test the wiring loom to make sure everything is as it should be and if it is all ok then it has to be a faulty bosch driver. anyway I will keep you guys posted and hopefully should have a couple of video clips of the car running.

After listening to advice I have decided to only put a base map in the car for about the first few hundred miles. Just to make sure there are no teething problems. once I am happy that everything is ok then we will go for full mapping.

[aido]

Awesome news mate, glad to hear she's fired up, good luck sorting the issues with the engine, can't wait to hear what she sounds like, it's going to be an amazing car when done :)

[IRLRs200]

Would have been nice to see yours at the rolling road Gav! Maybe next time!

[Rikos]

This is an awesome conversion and can't wait to see and hear the finished product.

All the best with it and hopefully see you at a show this year. :D

[gsportcars]

Managed to get the car fired up over the weekend there. Jonny plugged the laptop in and we tried a few times to start it and it would only fire for a second or two at a time. While I was away getting some petrol it was discovered that the fuel pump was priming when turning the engine over but as soon as you let the key go for the engine to idle the fuel pump would cut out. This is prob down to a snag in the wiring or a fault in the ECU causing the pump to switch off sometimes. Rather than waste time trying to diagnose the exact fault I will simply rewire the live to the pump using an ignition triggered relay and a power feed straight from the Battery.

We did make up a quick straight feed from the Battery in order to get the car idling and the idle map is now done so the car will start and tick over fine now.

The other problem we had is that the throttle position sensor on the supra engine is different from that on the IS engine. They look the same and use the same 4 wire connection plugs but the 4 wires used are wired in a diferent order. For this reason we have fried 2 throttle position sensors already. I now have to get another TPS and get the volt meter onto a friends supra to find out the correct wiring. It is for this reason we could not map the car yet.

To my horror I took of my oil cap to find it full of nice white cream . This is after running the engine for about 30 mins. Worst case scenario is a fooked head gasket but I have a feeling there may have been some lying water in the engine. I had removed the cam covers to sand blast and paint them before. I used a hose to make sure all the sand was washed out from the nooks and crannies in the covers. I did thoroughly dry them and left them overnight before re-fitting them but there is a chance that some water has stayed in there somewhere. I am hoping this is the reason as I do not want to have to change the head gasket at this stage

I also found a tiny water leak in the coolant system but it just looks like the drainage plug in the rad may be loose.

All in all i am happy the car is now running as it is much easier to diagnose silly problems like above.

What i ain't happy about is that after waiting 3 1/2 months for my new bumper the courier company managed to loose it somewhere on the boat from birmingham to belfast. Have to wait at least another 4 weeks for a replacment to come from the states now!!!

[Rikos]

Glad to hear the cars getting sorted and the few problems you've found should be easily fixed.

Sorry to hear about the bumper though stupid couriers, hope it makes it to you this time. :)

[Bazza]

this has been an immense project from the start

and with quite a few problems

i admire the way you take them in your stride, i have no doubt in your ability to see it all running

i for one cant wait to see it finished :)

[aido]

Same here, you've got skills Gav!

Wish I could turn my hand to this stuff the way you have!

If there was a project of the year 2006 / 2007 I think you'd win it mate :D

[gsportcars]

Thanks for the comments guys.

progress to follow.

[Adie]

Great work there Gav. Well done mate. I think it would have saved me a lot of hassle going a similar route to yourself. :)

[gsportcars]

Yeah mate i thought about engine rebuild and higher boost and after looking into it and getting some quotes for parts etc etc I decided otherwise. It is a lot of money to spend to end up having limited results due to the lack of strength in the gearbox etc etc.

Don't get me wrong though as I think what you have done with your car is fantastic and it is of course unique in it's own right. Just a shame you are having such a hard time with it at the minute but as you can see, mine isn't all plain sailiing either LOL.

[RayKhan]

I'm impressed with the work you are doing and with the updates you also seem to have time to do.

I always think I don't have enough hours in the day so I have no idea how you do it.

[marcus]

Hi mate, Hows this comeing on, you have not posted for some time now hope all is ok with the swap....have you had it dyno,ed yet? what would make you happy 400/500 BHP. can not wait to see this up and running.....keep us posted please :D

[gsportcars]

Apologies guys!!

I have been messing about with the wee man, and other things about the house etc etc that I haven't had time to get the progress posted!!

Anyway we got the car running and did a bit of mapping!

after 3 3rd gear full throttle runs and 1 4th gear full throttle run everything was fine until..............

I slowed down and the car started filling with smoke ...........

We stoppped and I jumped out with the fire extinguisher ready for action!! It turned out to be an oil leak from which I thought was the sump as I had already removed the sump.

I now had to strip the lower section of the car. I removed the steering rack along with a few other bits to get the front subframe dropped and that gave me access to the sump! after removing the sump and stripping and re-sealing it I realized that the sump wasn't the problem. It was the crank shaft oil seal!!!

I ordered the parts from toyota including another timing belt as it was covered in oil too. After fitting and a test run There has been no leak so far!

The car had about 20mins mapping done before the oil leak appeared and I have a short vid of the car after the crank shaft seal was sorted!

The car is still cutting out and only just comes on full boost before doing so. I will be posting new pics and vid very soon!!!!!

http://media.putfile.com/isupra

http://media.putfile.com/MOV00149-95

The car is away getting some cosmetic changes at the minute so pics will follow too!

[Bazza]

sounds awesome :D

was that bus trying to catch up

[aido]

Now that is immense!

Nearly done now fella, you've got to be proud of yourself here :)

[Pip]

Sounds cool

[Gord]

Well done Gav, its good to see it running :D

[Adie]

Sounds good Gav, nice one mate :D

[Unregistered_User]

Nice work pal, great to hear it and see it up and running.

Jamie