Twintim88

Hey all. This is just a post about my conversion, the experience and where im at with it all. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about anything. About 2 years ago I bought an IS200 a car that I have wanted since they were first released. I had always been looking around at these cars over the years but never found one that had caught my eye. Finally stumbled across this bad boy. At the time it looked very appealing. 2000 IS200 with 1g-fe motor and had a t25/28 hybrid turbo conversion.



Took it for a spin and fell in love. Had a few problems along the way. First thing to go was the clutch as it had never been replaced before so had changed it to a heavy duty sports organic clutch, worked very well. A few months after that my diff decided to go. Replaced it and finally took it for a long drive went through the burnley tunnel in Melbourne and my timing belt snapped.



So with all of this in mind I just thought this running gear had to go. Was looking around for standard engines but people were quoting me AU$4000 just for the engine, otherwise I had the choice to completely rebuild the head with brand new valves, valve springs for around that price. Bloody expensive.

I Had a look around for other conversions that people had posted up onto blogs and forums, considered a lot of options
- 1UZ-FE
- 1JZ-GTE
- 20b Rotary
- 2JZ-GTE VVT-I

After doing some light research it appeared that from what people were writing, the 2jz conversion was the way to go. By buying a JZS161 halfcut the engine would basically drop in and bolt up with no issues with the sump hitting the kframe or problems with the engine mounts. Told my twin brother about the conversion idea and he said go for it. Not long after that he passed away and 2 months following I decided to go ahead with the conversion to 1. To get my mind off things and 2. Because he had told me to.

Found a Toyota Aristo motor, auto tranny with loom and ecu interstate had a look at it over a video call and decided to buy it AU$2000. Following getting the engine I had to find someone that would put it in for me. Now in Victoria Australia I had called many workshops and searched a lot of aus forums to find out if it had been done and unfortunately nobody had done it which meant it would be a hell of a lot harder for someone to put it in having lacked the knowledge.



OK so first mistake
I had read up on the conversions and COMPLETELY misread the title of a post. “IS300 to 2JZ-GTE” It is much easier to do this conversion in an IS300 than it is IS200 as of my experience. Now as said before my car was 1G-FE manual turbo with intercooler, exhaust, piggy back link ecu, no decomp plate and running 10psi high comp. it did not make a lot of power in kw but it had heaps of torque.

Removing the existing engine and gearbox was really easy. No stress took it out neatly and tried not to molester any of the wiring.





Prior to dropping the 2j into the bay I had also read up that some people had problems fitting the twin turbos into the bay and even had to bash the strut tower get a bit more room, so I gave the guys at Garrett a call and explained what engine Ive got and what power I would like to achieve. They had advised me to run a GT4088r. so ordered the turbo, along with a manifold and turbosmart 40mm progate.







Manifold was purchased from ebay which clearly stated “Aristo single turbo manifold JSZ161”. After receiving these parts we decided to fit everything onto the engine whilst it was out of the car as there will be no room to work on it once its dropped in. had problems fitting the manifold. Did some research and found that the supra and aristo heads are different just by a few millimeters.





Had to dy grind into the thing to fit it. Got it on along with the turbo and gate and decided to drop it in. fit perfectly as most people had advised.







The power steering lined have to be relocated, have to get new aircon lines made up aswell. Decided to chop up and fit my old cooler piping which after a lot of trial and error functioned properly. The cooler I had at the time was 300x400 so very small and would have to be changed later on down the track.



I decided to look into the auto and bought an is300 shifter. Tried to fit it and bumped into another problem. It wouldn’t fit into the dash surrounding and as I was going for a standard look this was an issue. Ended up losing hope after several tries of fitting the damn thing and it just wouldn’t sit flush. I decided to get a b&m proratchet shifter and fitted that up nicely.



Next on the list was the tailshaft, had to get it remade, chose to keep the is200 diff for now and later down the track will change it once I go for more power. Fitted that with ease.



Now the major problems and I guess where I need answer and a lot of help. ELECTRICS grrrrr
The ecu the seller had given me with the engine was a Lexus GS300 ecu which ran a 2JZ-GE. Connected it to the loom and it fired up, only for me to find the dy grinding of the manifold had made a massive exhaust leak. Decided to give it several revs to find that it was rev limiting very low.



Chased up a JSZ161 ecu, and when connecting it, there was no power or crank to the engine at all. Researched it and found that in the IS200 ecu, it had the immobilizer built in within the ecu, and the aristo ecu did not. They have a separate module that connects to the ecu. Another issue I found was nothing on the dash was working at all. IS200’s have a multiplex system which controls all of the instrument cluster gauges, ac, fan and so on. So my understanding is that I need to keep the IS200 ecu in place and get an auto elec to wire in an aftermarket ECU to run the engine. I asked around at a few performance shops that dealt souly with 2js and they advised me that haltech platinum sport was probably the way to go, however they seemed quite unsure that it would work with my auto. I have been told that the aristo auto is electronic in some sense and im guessing it had the solenoid on the side to control the gears. They had also advised me that I would have to get rid of the electronic throttle control system which would mean I would have to get a plenum and a manual throttle body.

I have also been having problems with the alternator. When running the engine it slowly starts to die. Researched a bit on this problem and found a video explaining the new alternator charging system which had been put in place with the aristo. Apparently the charge light on the dash controls whether the current from the alternator goes to the battery. Have checked if the 7.5 amp fuse is in the drivers side kick panel fuse box and everything seems to be fine in there. Have tested the alternator with a multimeter and found that it outputs 13.4v when running.
The car has been sitting in the same spot for about a year now because in terms of the ecu and electrical side of things I do not know which direction to go in and where to source the information to proceed. Which has lead me to forums. I would appreciate if anybody could source an Australian is200 wiring diagram, and a diagram for the 2JZ-GTE VVTi, and also possibly give me advice on engine management systems that will be effective in running the car. Would love to hear your feedback and I will keep posted if I do find answers for this for anybody who is thinking of doing the same conversion.

Tim
Timkralik@gmail.com

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

I can help get an AEM EMS running in that car

I'll do some research in to it for ya...

The AEM EMS 30-6100 (Toyota Supra version 2) will control the Aristo transmission, so long as it is an a340e unit, not an a650, which I dont believe ever came with Aristo's, but then again, you got the wrong ECU, so who knows... Wiring the two computers together is not as bad as it seems - I have documented my experience and wiring diagrams here on these forums and the my.is forums... by looking at my wiring diagrams, you should be able to see what needs to be shared in order to maintain some functionality of the stock ecu...

Twintim88

thanks heaps mate would be much appreciated if u could look into it. however Im really unsure if there are any tuners her that can tune aem ecu's. ill have a look at your posts

jimboozy

Looks good so far. Good luck w/ finding an AEM tuner