daltongd

Can you tell I took a lot of pictures

daltongd

The last of the pictures

carguy07

Thanks for all of the pics. They are super helpful for understanding where stuff is on this car even if you're not following the swap progress.

hypervish

+1, thanks for the pics. And, keep them coming! Wish you luck.

thomas1

I agree, those pictures should be put in the favorite area to use as reference for pointing out locations on parts.

salimshah

Select 6 or 8 (different views) from the posted or fresh ones and I will figure a way to stick them in the FAQ or one of the stickies (I am open to suggestions)

Salim

daltongd

So I have a new problem that I need to deal with

I went down to LA and picked up a 1MZFE VVTi JDM engine. The AWD and FWD have different engine mounts on the blocks and I picked out a engine with the correct engine mount and brought it home.

I spend all morning taking things off the JDM engine getting ready to start transferring things from my engine over to it. When I got to the power steering pump I noticed a big difference. Take a look at the two pictures,

The JDM engine has a cast iron engine mount on the bottom of it and I thought I could just take and it off but it is tied into the power steering attachment. Notice how the belt tensioner is off to the side when compared to my Lexus engine. There is no room in my Lexus for that big cast iron engine mount the way it is.

So the way I see it I can use the JDM engine as is and cut the cast iron engine mount in half. Or I can take the oil pump assembly from my Lexus engine and put it on the JDM engine but that seem like a lot of work.

Does anybody know what vehicles have that cast iron lower engine mount like I have on that JDM engine. The tensioner is different than the one on my Lexus and I am concerned about future timing belt replacements.

jnovak01

The tensioner being different would concern me that I had a different engine than needed. Something sounds strange. Can you take a closer picture of the tensioner and the mount? Maybe I can help.
Great Work so far!

Cleanshots

iTrader: (2)

holy crap!!! thats awesome you did this with no lift.. wow. just wow. i used a lift but after seeing this im impressed.

buy parts for the rx300 that you have and change the oil pump and the tentioner pulley and the tentioner itsself.. use all the mounts from your rx engine and put it on the new motor.. as well as old sensors and wiring from your rx.. basically just use the block and heads from the new engine and everything else from the old motor.. just awesome.. and check out my 330 converion 99 rx awd.

jnovak01

Now how can you argue with a man who has a miniature horse! There you have it Daltongd from a man who knows a thing or two about engine swaps. I wonder what engine uses that kind of tensioner?

Anyway, Keep Calm and Lexus On! Great Job - both of you! Really Top Notch stuff.

daltongd

So it's been a week or so and lots have gotten done.

Taking the passenger side CV axle off was a major pain. We could not get it to come out and ended up taking the engine mount off the car with the axle still attached. The are some alignment pins on the block that the mount sits on so you have to clear those. It was a major pain with the engine out of the car so I could not imagine how bad it would be in the car. Somebody needs to make a DYI on how to do that. I took the cv axle and engine mount and put in a press to get them to separate.

I separated the engine and it was not easy. It took several tries on how to rig it up and I had to put a jack under the tranny. Ended up moving the engine hoist so it came in from the crank side instead of sideways like I was coming in by the radiator. That way the tranny jack didn't interfere with the engine hoist. I had to pry it apart with a large screw driver because of the way the engine lifted and the tranny still being attached. It was gapping at the bottom and pinching at the top. Any way I got it out and do not look forward to putting it back together. I am going to play around with making a new lifting sling.

I swapped out the oil pump and its all put back together again. The oil pump has these gears or vanes in it and according to the manual you are suppose to check clearances. One of the checks is for the large gear and you are suppose to verify the gap between the gear and the housing. Both my original oil pump and the JDM oil pump failed the test. Seems like something is not 100% right in the manual so I ended up putting the JDM gears in the original Lexus oil pump housing since that set had the less miles on it. Both were identical. I did have to move a stud into another open threaded hole, its the one the power steering bracket attached to.

By the way the JDM engine looked really good inside,very clean, in fact it had 5 quarts of oil still in it.

Next I will be mating the new engine to the tranny and putting on the rest of the hardware on.

MovieStar

Great Job so far. We are just putting the finishing touches on replacing the motor transmission on my 2003. I regret not seeing this post earlier however I wouldn't have much to add since I paid a friend to do the job and I have only been there towards the end (reassembling), he has a hoist and it is still a lengthy process. What I mean by finishing the process is that it appears that since the ecu was unplugged so long it erased my keys (all three) from memory, the the ecu has been sent out to be reflashed. I really hope this doesn't happen to you. Again great job and imagination!
Another side note..... it maybe worth while to thing about replacing the water pump, timing belts while you have it apart. It's a lot easier now then later as well as those darn rear spark plugs LOL

daltongd

Can anybody comment on the latest bit on information about the ECU being unplugged for so long that it doesn't recognize the keys. Its been at least 3 weeks and it might be another 1 or 2 before I finish. I was unaware that the keys had chips in them. Is there anything I can do to prevent, not sure what it would be at this point.

I replaced all the all the timing components including the water pump and I also put new plugs into it

Bobster999

It sounds odd to me. I have never heard of that happening to any other type car.

hypervish

I wouldn't worry about it. This seems like a unique situation.