The seats are pullouts from a center row of a Dodge Caravan

 

Oh my....

 

Nice!

 

An 8JZ. I foresee a dearth of traction.

 

I concur....

 

The Magnum... close ratio



Narrowed the 8.8. Using two Right side axles(more pics of this later in the thread)


Old 22re


First round test fit


Wow. That went in a whole lot easier than I thought it would!

Mounting the twin disk clutch






This time was a bit more of a struggle



Turbo mounted



need more clearance!







Motor mounts in with the stock steering




Oil feed for the turbo.


Steering box and alternator clearance.

 

New steering shaft welded up, ready to go in... not too bad for a first-timer?!


Quickly decided that massaging the stock trans tunnel with a hammer was only going to get me so far.
























First attempt at Fabricating a trans tunnel.

Heat shielding

Notice the clearance from the gas pedal was pretty tight


Had to notch the hood to allow it to clear the turbo, so the hood could close





Hood closed. The goal for this sleeper is No Hood Pins.,





​​​​​​​

 

There’s plenty more pics to come a bit later... I’m off to work!

 

Nice work Chris! I was about to comment that the "clearance" between steering box and alternator might better be described as "gap" or even "lash"....LOL, but it looks like you solved that by moving to a rack. I've got a vintage Toyota and would like to move to a rack from the old manual steering box.

Can you provide details on the rack you chose?

 

Good work! tight fit in that little truck!!

 

check out StabFab.com his name is Jake. He’s a highly skilled fabricator. The kit is designed by him and has gone through many revisions. It works for 2jz swaps, Toyota v8’s, and ls n/a swaps and now turbo LS swaps is confirmed.

the only thing I had to do(aside from removing the old steering drag link, tre’s, and box), was put a small dimple in the #7 cylinder exhaust exit to clear the shaft. The biggest plus to the kit is that it moves the steering shaft to a completely new location and a different angle. I could have probably managed with the stock steering setup with A lot of grinding, but after he allowed me to test fit the new crossmember and not charge me for it, it was a no brainer piecing together the last few bits.

 

You got that right! every part of this build has required some trial and error, Brainstorming, starring for extended periods of time, re organizing, and moving parts around multiple times just to Barely fit and squeeze each and every component in there...

let me add that running A/C on a build like this is not possible with a front mounted turbo. Heck, I can’t even run a heater hose looped off the water pump, it’s THAT tight of a fit.

the hood had to be trimmed to clear the turbo. The top of the throttle body is about 1cm from the closed hood, while the shallow Holley oil pan was resting The drain plug on the crossmember( I cured this issue with the help of a 4” grinder)

 

Thanks for the stabfab reference - I'll check it out. Suspect I'll have to do the fab myself. If I try and use the stock rear-steer steering arms on mine - preserving proper Ackerman geometry, it's likely going to require a custom fabbed exhaust header as the shaft-to-pinion is going to be all kinds of in-the-way of my header. And if I move the rack to a front steer arrangement - then I'll have oil pan issues and complex steering geometry to work out. It's gotten so bad I've started seeking out company's that can refurbish the steering box! LOL.....

 

Talked to Jake at stabfab -- GREAT reference; found 2 or 3 folks that have engineered an 84-87 Corolla (rwd) crossmember and rack into the early rear steer Corolla's. Thanks again!

 

More Pics!




Solid aluminum bushings for front eyelets



Mounts for relocated Qa1 shocks.

5 gallon IC ice box, 3/4" hoses, battery, circuit breakers(one for the 3 pumps the other for the main fuse block under the hood). Running a 19 gallon ford f150 auxiliary fuel tank. Air compressor for helper bags(yes, I still use it as a truck), 2.5 gallon methanol tank. Bosch Water pump on LH framerail. Holley methanol pump near the battery.

Narrowed Ford explorer 8.8 with 3:55 gears and Eaton Truetrak






Hydroboost conversion. This is from a 78 corvette with a custom billet spacer to clock it the correct way for clearance.

new Coilover setup

Custom transmission crossmember. Bye bye torsion bars. This makes pulling the transmission a piece of cake now.

Diy raptor liner. It's definitely not line-x. But it costs a fraction.

SPC adjustable mustang 2 upper control arms. With the turbo manifolds under the hood, it made alignment with the factory bolts practically impossible w/o removing the hot side piping. Plus the arms give the clearance needed for some coilovers.

 

There is so much awesome in this!

This statement ia full of fun:
5 gallon IC ice box, 3/4" hoses, battery, circuit breakers(one for the 3 pumps the other for the main fuse block under the hood). Running a 19 gallon ford f150 auxiliary fuel tank. Air compressor for helper bags(yes, I still use it as a truck), 2.5 gallon methanol tank. Bosch Water pump on LH framerail. Holley methanol pump near the battery.

Great work, thusfar. I love the suspension work, and the fact that you still use it as a truck.

 

love this thing.

did you do the fab work? diff? headers?

where in cali?

 

That is sure cramming 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb package. Nice job on getting it all mounted and clearance. Save money up for rear tires.....

 

This is cool as hell!

 

What happened with the 8.8 part of the project? The original one looks different from the current unit under the truck.