Hello everyone, I'm new to the forums, but a big fan of Toyota (despite only owning Nissan right now).
I have a 280z that has come a long way in the last 6 years and I'm hoping to use this post for the possibility of a UZ swap. I've never done a swap, but I'm running MS3X on my stock L28, and I'm assuming the difficulty of going full sequential fuel and spark with a standalone ecu on a 45 year old motor isn't too far off the difficulty of swapping in a different engine, except maybe the motor and transmission mounts.
I've seen a couple of these with early 1uz, but never with a 3UZ, and definitely not a 3UZ with a manual transmission. The car has slowly become slightly more of a GT style, and I'm currently installing vintage air for comfort. As I finish up the interior and creature comforts, I've been looking more at what my options are for more power. The stock L series transmissions aren't great for holding power, and upgrading to anything more modern seems to cost about the same as doing a manual swap on a UZ. Even a 3UZ is about the same price as a decent turbo and I'm still likely to break things on my engine.
The big hold up on committing to any sort of swap with the UZ is the ECU. Will a stock ecu work with a manual transmission? Has anyone used Megasquirt on a 3UZ and made the VVTi work? The threads on the msextra forums are mostly dead ends with a couple of sentences max.
Anyway, any help/tips/direction would be hugely appreciated
Some pictures of what I started with and where it is now for attention. If you're curious about specifics, you can read backwords through my Hybridz thread HERE
![20_08_Omar240z_ 027_1.jpg 20_08_Omar240z_ 027_1.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11896-d4713efe53b2d408723df59e8d4d31eb.jpg?hash=1HE-_lOy1A)
![IMG_1011_preview.jpeg IMG_1011_preview.jpeg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11888-b28e3bcdcab640381cab60c7eee13a1b.jpg?hash=so47zcq2QD)
![20200706_111744.jpg 20200706_111744.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11890-49f848edd3023c73852b8e53718ea3a8.jpg?hash=SfhI7dMCPH)
![20180803_111323.jpg 20180803_111323.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11893-a772d879d267bc12c61f4494e8f8e1a6.jpg?hash=p3LYedJnvB)
![20200721_203425.jpg 20200721_203425.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11889-c67d84c70988774ce0da99943e7afef9.jpg?hash=xn2ExwmId0)
![20200308_124930.jpg 20200308_124930.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11891-197042076d06edae106b9d9277aa943e.jpg?hash=GXBCB20G7a)
![20200421_230757.jpg 20200421_230757.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11892-62969779b5d7bcc029790f88c17b802e.jpg?hash=YpaXebXXvM)
![20200806_133019.jpg 20200806_133019.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11894-252f85d2eaf30923259680c740d29c9b.jpg?hash=JS-F0urzCS)
![20200821_161828.jpg 20200821_161828.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11895-a2ba78efa7426d6b16446b77d46669bf.jpg?hash=orp476dCbW)
I have a 280z that has come a long way in the last 6 years and I'm hoping to use this post for the possibility of a UZ swap. I've never done a swap, but I'm running MS3X on my stock L28, and I'm assuming the difficulty of going full sequential fuel and spark with a standalone ecu on a 45 year old motor isn't too far off the difficulty of swapping in a different engine, except maybe the motor and transmission mounts.
I've seen a couple of these with early 1uz, but never with a 3UZ, and definitely not a 3UZ with a manual transmission. The car has slowly become slightly more of a GT style, and I'm currently installing vintage air for comfort. As I finish up the interior and creature comforts, I've been looking more at what my options are for more power. The stock L series transmissions aren't great for holding power, and upgrading to anything more modern seems to cost about the same as doing a manual swap on a UZ. Even a 3UZ is about the same price as a decent turbo and I'm still likely to break things on my engine.
The big hold up on committing to any sort of swap with the UZ is the ECU. Will a stock ecu work with a manual transmission? Has anyone used Megasquirt on a 3UZ and made the VVTi work? The threads on the msextra forums are mostly dead ends with a couple of sentences max.
Anyway, any help/tips/direction would be hugely appreciated
![Smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png)
![20_08_Omar240z_ 027_1.jpg 20_08_Omar240z_ 027_1.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11896-d4713efe53b2d408723df59e8d4d31eb.jpg?hash=1HE-_lOy1A)
![IMG_1011_preview.jpeg IMG_1011_preview.jpeg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11888-b28e3bcdcab640381cab60c7eee13a1b.jpg?hash=so47zcq2QD)
![20200706_111744.jpg 20200706_111744.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11890-49f848edd3023c73852b8e53718ea3a8.jpg?hash=SfhI7dMCPH)
![20180803_111323.jpg 20180803_111323.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11893-a772d879d267bc12c61f4494e8f8e1a6.jpg?hash=p3LYedJnvB)
![20200721_203425.jpg 20200721_203425.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11889-c67d84c70988774ce0da99943e7afef9.jpg?hash=xn2ExwmId0)
![20200308_124930.jpg 20200308_124930.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11891-197042076d06edae106b9d9277aa943e.jpg?hash=GXBCB20G7a)
![20200421_230757.jpg 20200421_230757.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11892-62969779b5d7bcc029790f88c17b802e.jpg?hash=YpaXebXXvM)
![20200806_133019.jpg 20200806_133019.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11894-252f85d2eaf30923259680c740d29c9b.jpg?hash=JS-F0urzCS)
![20200821_161828.jpg 20200821_161828.jpg](https://www.lextreme.com/forums/data/attachments/11/11895-a2ba78efa7426d6b16446b77d46669bf.jpg?hash=orp476dCbW)
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