Hey all!
I know a 1UZ conversion has been done a few times before but thought i'd share my experience putting one in a RHD (from Aus) IS200. This is currently my third weekend spent building it and we test drove it last night which passed with flying colours. We have previously done a few conversions in my shed (skylines, silvias, volvos, corollas etc etc) and i'm lucky enough to have a couple of mechanics for best mates to help me out. We like to get things done at a fast and hard working pace, so apologies i didn't get a heap of pictures along the way.
The wiring was clearly going to be the hardest part, I built a spreadsheet of the IS200 pinout and the 1UZ pinout including body plugs well before starting off and labeled/tested all the wires on the car before dismantling as well as some on the motor (mainly using a multimeter/test light.
Car wiring pinned out before starting removal
A couple of Saturdays ago we pulled the 1GFE out (nothing out of the ordinary here, was pretty straight forward)
Letting the aircon gas out
Motor out, tying the tailshaft and exhaust out of the way :grin:
It didn't take as long as expected so we decided to trial fit the 1uz already:
There is mixed talk around this but.. in my case the motor and gearbox bolted straight in (using the 1UZ 5 speed and all the factory mounts) and using the IS200 auto gearbox cross member. There was a few small rubbing issues, one on the back of the left head looking in that required a massage of the firewall, the lower heater hose needed an inch cut off it and the cross member needed some hitting on the front face to clear the sump properly.
Once this was in I spent some time doing the wiring and getting little bits and pieces plumbed up. I had to repin two of the original IS200 ECU to body connectors into two 1UZ connectors accordingly as well as repin the 1UZ body wiring into the IS200 body (EA) Plugs
Used the factory lower 1uz rad hose with a duty clamp and another hose slipped inside on the rad side - a cut up bit of old rad hose for the top and the factory IS200 heater hoses bent and trimmed a little for the heaters.
Test fit of some plumbing etc.
You can see there also I opted to use the factory intake pipe but the crown motor i had uses a cartridge type slot in AFM for which i didn't have the airbox for, a mate of mine welded up an ally pipe/flange to suit.
The radiator sat nicely and there was plenty of room to run the factory thermos.
At this point my mobile hydraulics mate came around and begun making the new high pressure power steer line (using braized factory ends to AN fittings with gates hose) the fuel line from chassis rail to fuel rail and also the air con lines (these were tricky, we end up cutting up both IS and 1UZ hoses to make one out of two to suit!)
Fuel Line
Power Steer
Had the tailshaft made to suit the different flange on the 1UZ box
It was also longer than the stock front half (about 82cm face to face IIRC)
The wiring was mostly done at this point, the motor came with an ECU and key and appeared the security was working, however no matter what i tried the ETCSi elec throttle motor would not work. After a week of pain and running numbers i discovered i was sold the wrong ecu (UCF21 celsior ECU/UZS171 motor) for the motor I had.. so i got my hands on a crown ecu to suit which worked fine - however has the security flashed out of it :frown2:
Once the tailshaft was in we found that the clearance for the rubber donut was nil for both the shifter base and the shifter arm.. we pulled the shifter out and spaced it up around 10mm to suit and then had to bend the linkage away from the donut as well as putting 5mm spacers under the gearbox crossmember to also assist.
Shifter out
We also had to add around 1" to the rod between the shifter arm and the box selector.
Pic showing it all in place
Once this was sorted we started on the exhaust - the manifolds would not fit past the steering shaft between rack and column - i tried both castlemaine rodshop headers and other factory 1uz headers with no joy. The original crown headers were the closest - so we cut the interfering section out and welded a scallop in to suit + spaced the motor up by placing 7mm plate under the mounts and 4mm washer above the rubber mount/ally bracket. We also couldn't use the 3 bolt cat flanges due to having no 1uz cats in Tasmania that i could find. So we heated up the manifolds and welded normal two bolt flanges on
Pic showing the scallop and flange
Spacer
Then we built the Y pipe to connect to the factory exhaust under the back seat
Simple 2.5" 2-1 with a flex joint
Installed
Finished off the plumbing and fitted everything in
Here's how it looks:
We took it for it's first drive last night and overall it's spot on.
It drives like factory, no major rattles or drive ability issues, goes well and is dead quite except for the induction noise.
Proof it works
https://youtu.be/wgVjAOYdoVc
Current issues:
Econo gauge is stuck on full as soon as the motor starts
Fuel gauge flashes empty light even though it reads what's in the tank - when driving though it does drop quickly (assume due to the econo being on full)
Trac control not working and flashes at me
CEL (need to get scanner onto it)
Small hiccup at low revs that may just be plugs or crap in the injectors etc.
I've written this in a hurry and will try to edit and add more pics in time, let me know any questions.
Cheers,
Tobbie.
I know a 1UZ conversion has been done a few times before but thought i'd share my experience putting one in a RHD (from Aus) IS200. This is currently my third weekend spent building it and we test drove it last night which passed with flying colours. We have previously done a few conversions in my shed (skylines, silvias, volvos, corollas etc etc) and i'm lucky enough to have a couple of mechanics for best mates to help me out. We like to get things done at a fast and hard working pace, so apologies i didn't get a heap of pictures along the way.
The wiring was clearly going to be the hardest part, I built a spreadsheet of the IS200 pinout and the 1UZ pinout including body plugs well before starting off and labeled/tested all the wires on the car before dismantling as well as some on the motor (mainly using a multimeter/test light.
Car wiring pinned out before starting removal
A couple of Saturdays ago we pulled the 1GFE out (nothing out of the ordinary here, was pretty straight forward)
Letting the aircon gas out
Motor out, tying the tailshaft and exhaust out of the way :grin:
It didn't take as long as expected so we decided to trial fit the 1uz already:
There is mixed talk around this but.. in my case the motor and gearbox bolted straight in (using the 1UZ 5 speed and all the factory mounts) and using the IS200 auto gearbox cross member. There was a few small rubbing issues, one on the back of the left head looking in that required a massage of the firewall, the lower heater hose needed an inch cut off it and the cross member needed some hitting on the front face to clear the sump properly.
Once this was in I spent some time doing the wiring and getting little bits and pieces plumbed up. I had to repin two of the original IS200 ECU to body connectors into two 1UZ connectors accordingly as well as repin the 1UZ body wiring into the IS200 body (EA) Plugs
Used the factory lower 1uz rad hose with a duty clamp and another hose slipped inside on the rad side - a cut up bit of old rad hose for the top and the factory IS200 heater hoses bent and trimmed a little for the heaters.
Test fit of some plumbing etc.
You can see there also I opted to use the factory intake pipe but the crown motor i had uses a cartridge type slot in AFM for which i didn't have the airbox for, a mate of mine welded up an ally pipe/flange to suit.
The radiator sat nicely and there was plenty of room to run the factory thermos.
At this point my mobile hydraulics mate came around and begun making the new high pressure power steer line (using braized factory ends to AN fittings with gates hose) the fuel line from chassis rail to fuel rail and also the air con lines (these were tricky, we end up cutting up both IS and 1UZ hoses to make one out of two to suit!)
Fuel Line
Power Steer
Had the tailshaft made to suit the different flange on the 1UZ box
It was also longer than the stock front half (about 82cm face to face IIRC)
The wiring was mostly done at this point, the motor came with an ECU and key and appeared the security was working, however no matter what i tried the ETCSi elec throttle motor would not work. After a week of pain and running numbers i discovered i was sold the wrong ecu (UCF21 celsior ECU/UZS171 motor) for the motor I had.. so i got my hands on a crown ecu to suit which worked fine - however has the security flashed out of it :frown2:
Once the tailshaft was in we found that the clearance for the rubber donut was nil for both the shifter base and the shifter arm.. we pulled the shifter out and spaced it up around 10mm to suit and then had to bend the linkage away from the donut as well as putting 5mm spacers under the gearbox crossmember to also assist.
Shifter out
We also had to add around 1" to the rod between the shifter arm and the box selector.
Pic showing it all in place
Once this was sorted we started on the exhaust - the manifolds would not fit past the steering shaft between rack and column - i tried both castlemaine rodshop headers and other factory 1uz headers with no joy. The original crown headers were the closest - so we cut the interfering section out and welded a scallop in to suit + spaced the motor up by placing 7mm plate under the mounts and 4mm washer above the rubber mount/ally bracket. We also couldn't use the 3 bolt cat flanges due to having no 1uz cats in Tasmania that i could find. So we heated up the manifolds and welded normal two bolt flanges on
Pic showing the scallop and flange
Spacer
Then we built the Y pipe to connect to the factory exhaust under the back seat
Simple 2.5" 2-1 with a flex joint
Installed
Finished off the plumbing and fitted everything in
Here's how it looks:
We took it for it's first drive last night and overall it's spot on.
It drives like factory, no major rattles or drive ability issues, goes well and is dead quite except for the induction noise.
Proof it works
https://youtu.be/wgVjAOYdoVc
Current issues:
Econo gauge is stuck on full as soon as the motor starts
Fuel gauge flashes empty light even though it reads what's in the tank - when driving though it does drop quickly (assume due to the econo being on full)
Trac control not working and flashes at me
CEL (need to get scanner onto it)
Small hiccup at low revs that may just be plugs or crap in the injectors etc.
I've written this in a hurry and will try to edit and add more pics in time, let me know any questions.
Cheers,
Tobbie.
