Decided to start a build thread for my 1992 SC400 MANUAL CONVERSION + some (sr20 Nissan tranny and R154 tranny swap) almost did W58 for short term
Bought the car with no transmission and probably about half of a nissan KA24DE 5 spd swap going on, car was sitting in a mechanic yards way down south next a farm, trailer ed that sucker up and spent about 2 months fixing it up to run on the SR trans... I did the swap just to see how I would like it I initially did not plan on keeping the car, it felt satisfactory anyways so i kept it
I later met the previous owner who had traded the car away for an RX-7, this is in no way a wright up I am probably leaving a lot things out, this is just for the sake of documentation and progress for anybody interested. After riding with the KA24 / SR20 manual swap I decided I wanted a better transmission for the future so swapping in the R154 from the Mark 3 Supra!


How I got the car






Interior was dyed previously






After I cleaned up the motor bay I didn;t take any before shots :/ but it was sitting in a yard for about 8 months so was pretty dirty








My KA and SR transmissions, I drove on the SR20 transmission that was previously in my Fathers Nissan Silvia he gave me the transmission when he moved out of state I decided to use the KA bellhousing and SR gears and tailshaft because I wanted the new gaskets and parts from the dealership for the KA front



Resealing the trans






While I was waiting for the clutch parts to come in I redid my interior



New flywheel





Clutch setup





Got the transmission in by myself with Megan poly transmission mount, was quite a ***** but everything fit perfectly


2 piece driveshaft welded with the SR20 yolk, later Upgraded to a one piece










Drove the car for a day or two test everything out and and........................................................








Water pump and alternator take a ****



I just started tearing everything off and realized later somebody had made a mistake in the previous water pump job which I corrected with the right stud


New timing belt, New seals, and New water pump

 

Looking good so far! Sorry you had such bad luck right after getting the car on the road though :/

 

Nice start though

 

Got the timing belt back on was quite a fight to get the marks on point but no doubt in my mind that they were on when I put it back together


Putting everything back on ...


Finally was able to drive the car a little bit, drove nice



Found some Antera wheels for the car I really loved so gave up the other 5 spokes







After a real test drive I decided I wanted to keep the car, so I put a little bit more time and money into it to make it nice


Replaced the K-sports with my Meagan LPs I had in my previous SC, the K-sport is a bit bouncy for my taste


Also traded my friend for a set Rod Millen Mufflers, buffed em out




Replaced the old motor mounts with the MEGANS, I had the steering rack out so it made this job a hell of a lot easier, also put new rack bushings, Braided power steering line, Supra LCAS, and new sway bar bushings.




I replaced the front hubs as well I found some that had about 100k on em as my SC400 is probably in the 250k mark (bearings), also ripped out the entire interior for another interior I had in mind, I also put on a full body kit / ground effects for the car color matched

 

I wanted to try something different for the interior so I made some suede trims


Took a while to mold the fabric on but I was happy with results





Interior coming together again lol



I also figured I would do an ABS delete while I had all the brakes off, Installed LS400 brakes and drilled and slotted rotors along with brand new soft lines and bleeders.




Wheels and body kit fitted





Manual brake pedal installed




I found a one piece driveshaft from COLLINS with the solid adapter so I decided to trade it out for the old two piece I had






Interior just about finished I still have some changes I want to make but for now its ok






Brakes and wheels work well



After bleeding the brakes car was back on the road











More to come

 

Havent posed in a while, couple updates on the car, NEW Corbeau seats and I am in the process of putting the R154 in the car mated to my 1UZ

 

I've never been smitten by the grey interiors, but I think your bold decision to cover the wood trim in pink was a good one. It de-drabs the grey quite a bit.

 

wait, did you swap out the black for grey?

and are you swapping out an SR transmission for an R154?

 

Yo guys whatup, t2D2 the trim is red its just my crap camera phone doesn't take to light well, and yes im swapping in the R154 car has been down for a while I got my flywheel finished last month and now i'm still waiting on the last part to be done I got a REAL camera so I will be able to take alot better pictures to upload all this has been done off my phone and its PITA

 

Little update been having a bit of trouble with some of these kits that I will disclose later but Trans still not in, I almost used a W58 but decided against as I've had many of these transmissions and they are not the best but I liked the kit alot more for the W58 than the collins kit, so trying to get this R154 right so I dont have to do this trans swap a 3rd time also did a hydro fan delete/ E fan conversion because the pump was leaking and love having the extra room
will get some better pictures soon...

 

No interior was dyed black (and not very well) so I swapped ins some Grey interior parts I had lying around, yes still trying for the R154 from the SR collins kit

 

Awesome build man, great to see more and more manual sc400 swaps happening. What front lip is that? Looks kind of like one I saw on a supra.

 

Thanks! Yes SC400 conversions are a bit tricky but I believe I can make almost like OEM with this next setup, I don't know what front lip it is I got from a friend, what Supra lip are you talking about maybe I could identify it.

 

R154
Winded up returning the Akina Motorsports R154 kit as it was extremely unsatisfactory and had a very bad experience with their customer service it was not meant for the SC400 it was designed for a R150 / R151 truck and damaged my input shaft so I had to tear apart the transmission to put a another input shaft on. I decided to put a new Marlin Crawler thrust washer while it was open, although I was very pleased with the condition of the transmission, good opportunity to clean everything and reseal the transmission, it did not seem to ever be opened before

 

While I was waiting for everything to get sorted with the adapter kits and parts, I decided to swap to E Fan setup, as my hydraulic pump was leaking so I could not tell if their was an oil leak or if it was fan fluid, plus the room it created is AWESOME and will make working on the car in the future much easier, this only cost me 17$ for the LS400 belt the rest of the parts i had pulled off of some parts cars I had, i chopped up the stock fan shroud to direct some of the air to the fans, really happy with the way it turned out