[humbucker87]

Hard to believe I purchased this car nearly 6 years ago now (I typically sell cars every 9-12 months). Honestly had I known prices were going to go crazy I should have just kept it original and sold it. But here we are. You can follow my original build thread here (Diamond in the Rough - Slow 02 5spd Build) although most of my pictures don't work anymore

Thanks to the power of social media peer pressure and a long desire I've always had to do an engine swap, I decided to put a 3UZ in my IS300. What I wanted to do here was document the process for others so that hopefully future swappers can get some value out of what I did.

Step 1 was to plan out what engine, transmission, and major parts I wanted to go with. I decided to go with the 3uz due to being slightly easier to find, closer to matching the electronics of my 2002, and slightly higher power output over the 1uz. I decided not to go with an LS swap mostly due to the ease of fitting this engine given that toyota had cars where both the 2jz and uz series bolted in.

For the transmission I would love to have used an R154. However, when I looked at used market pricing I decided to give the CD009 a shot, especially given I was able to buy one brand new direct from Nissan for ~$1700. Got some strange looks when I drove my electric car to the Nissan dealer to pick up an entire transmission, but it worked!

Creatively unloading this beast by myself.

Insanely good packaging by Nissan.

I have never once in my life driven a car with <100 miles on a manual transmission. All my other cars have had 60k miles or more (sometimes much more). So clean...

All of the stock release bearing that would be removed.

 

[humbucker87]

For the engine I ordered one straight from ebay from a JDM engine importer/reseller. I didn't necessarily intend to go with a JDM import engine and I'm sure I paid a bit more over finding one at a salvage yard. But it was nice being able to view high quality photos of exactly what I was getting rather than not knowing the condition until I'd already paid for it.

They claimed 190psi on all cylinders. I have my doubts as to whether they actually tested that

The engine arrived straight to my house and was well secured. Had my big helper to remove the saran wrap.

I knew the swap would present challenges along the way, but little did I know they would start on day 1. I bought a harbor freight hoist, which for the price works great. What I didn't think about was the fact that the legs for the hoist are meant to go under a car and the pallet was quite solid. I was able to shift the engine by hand to the edge of the pallet. But that still wasn't enough. So I then had to cut away the pallet around the engine to get it loaded on the hoist. Fun times.

I then began my teardown of the engine on the stand. Overall it is in excellent condition and while I don't quite believe the whole 50k miles thing, it certainly lived a good life with minimal rust and seemingly regular oil changes.

The only real damage I noticed was that they cut the wires for the transmission as well as the trans cooler lines. Both ok considering I was doing a manual swap. Also several of the hoses were pretty crusty and some of the wiring connectors broke upon removal.

I went through and did a thorough cleaning of everything. I also replaced most of the gaskets and the timing belt, water pump, and spark plugs.

While I was at it, I also decided to paint the valve covers and timing covers. I didn't want anything too flashy and had some gun metal paint laying around that worked well.

 

[humbucker87]

For the trans adapter I decided to go with the high dollar Fisch Racing Kit (although I did get it on their black friday sale). Even still this single kit was the most expensive part of the whole swap which is pretty wild. It's also crazy to me that the CD009 doesn't have a bolted bell housing. So I broke out the angle grinder and destroyed the value of the only brand new transmission I've ever had.

It certainly is a well thought-out kit and extremely high quality.

Then we were on to removing the 2J. Honestly, aside from spilling every fluid known to man on my garage floor, removing the engine was very very easy. I removed the front radiator support and propped the hood up a bit higher than the stock location and that was basically it. Disconnected all the lines. Spilled tons of fuel all over my floor even after trying to put a bolt inside the banjo hole to stop it. Such an awesome feeling having it completely out and getting to really clean up the engine bay.

I bought the finishing lines ABS relocation kit. The hoses themselves are high quality, but I was surprised that for the price it didn't include any mounting bracket or anything besides hoses. I also thought it was one of the least fun parts of this whole swap and I honestly have no idea how you guys do it with the engine in the car. For the feed line I cut off the line back near the firewall and routed the hose from the new mounting location to it. Also I ended up hacking up the original ABS mount and then riveting it to the stock battery tray leaving room to also put in a small lightweight lithium battery. For the lithium battery I also hacked the stock battery holder and welded it back together shorter. Doesn't look perfect, but it's pretty close to OEM.

 

[humbucker87]

For the throttle pedal I decided to use the IS250 DBW pedal rather than the one from the SC/GS 430. Pheonix wiring has a youtube video showing that without a proper pedal stop, the SC430 pedal could send over 100% WOT and cause the throttle body to snap shut. Yeah, that sounds bad. So I bought a used IS250 pedal (for too much money because I wanted it fast....the rest of you should just troll salvage yards) and bought a new wiring connector from Ballenger motorsports and wired up a firewall connector.

I also needed a way to mount the pedal under my dash. An awesome UZ swap expert actually made a small run of aluminum mounts for that purpose. While they looked awesome, the price was a bit steep for me, so I decided to try and make my own. For $50 I bought a hunk of aluminum off ebay and went to work cutting, drilling, and tapping holes. The result is something that works extremely well even if it doesn't look that pretty.

Another side project I did was putting a larger bore clutch master cylinder in to accommodate the hydraulic release bearing in the Fisch racing kit. I went with a Wilwood 3/4" integrated master cylinder. I also bought the adapter kit from chase bays to mount it to my firewall. What I hadn't anticipated was two things. One the fact that the hole in the firewall would need to be enlarged and two that neither the master cylinder or chase bays kit came with a clevis. Cue taking the stock clevis hacking it apart and welding a couple of nuts onto it for a hacky clevis that worked just fine. I also ordered a custom clutch line from HEL products to fit my needs. Seriously such a great website to customize a brake or clutch line and the quality and price were top notch.

While I had the harbor freight welder out, I tackled another side project too. The SC430 power steering pump has a solenoid for telling the car to idle up under heavy load. That solenoid bumps into one of the frame rails and needs to be modified/deleted. I cut off the solenoid, welded a washer to the top of it, and then attempted to make it look OEM'ish.

Speaking of questionable welds, I also decided to hack off the stock manifold flanges and put v-bands, because I've always wanted to, and what a perfect project for it.

 

[humbucker87]

For the wiring I decided to take the stock harness of the 3UZ and simply repin what was necessary to get the car running and working. Alongside that I sent the ECU off to Quantum auto to have the manual swap coded, EVAP/O2 codes removed, IS300 MPX data added, and rev limiter raised to 7k rpm. At the time I thought I could get away without removing the immobilizer. Something I later found out was wrong in my case (more details later).

Because I didn't care about auto transmission wires or rear O2 sensors/evap there were a good number of wires I didn't care about. To organize my thoughts and potentially help others I've created this spreadsheet about exactly what I did: 3UZ Swap Wiring

While going over the harness I replaced any broken connectors with new ones from Ballenger and also wrapped the entire harness in fancy electrical tape and removed the factory conduit. I also had to wire in a new CD009 reverse switch so that I'd have reverse lights.

To try and keep the factory immobilizer I used an EEPROM programmer to transfer my keys over from my stock ECU IC900 chip to the 3UZ's board. I think if I'd had a GS430 ecu this would have worked. Unfortunately the SC430 uses an extra key immobilizer box that's wired into it's MPX system as well as other systems that I didn't have the will power to figure out. I'm sure it's possible, but I wanted the car to run, so I sent the ECU off to Quantum again to have the Immobilizer removed.

Did not work

I finally got techstream working to help diagnose the issue and it did help greatly.

I also decided to add some proper gauges for oil temp and pressure and water temp.

 

[humbucker87]

It was now time to test fit the engine. Of course gentle massaging of the passenger side firewall and both sides of the subframe was required. That subframe especially is some beefy metal.

Per recommendations of folks online I used a button head bolt to ensure the steering rack joint would clear the new manifolds.

However, after that, the engine went in fairly easily. I did have to loosen the header on the driver side so I could manipulate it on the way down around the steering shaft. It's a snug fit, but honestly there is still plenty of room to work on most things while in.

Might as well mount the flywheel, clutch and pressure plate while it's in.

And after that, time for the trans to go in. As with normal CD009 swaps on this chassis, massive clearancing of the trans tunnel to fit the CD009 was needed. Not sure I realized ahead of time just how big this box is, but it just last and hold power at least

I also ran into an unfortunate issue caused by my own purchasing. I bought with my swap a super nice Fisch trans mount. But for engine mounts I went with the Xcessive poly mounts. Apparently the two don't play nice with eachother and I couldn't get the Fisch mount to align in either the forward or reverse direction. Seemed like the easiest thing was going to be just making my own mount. So I bought some 3/4" aluminum and went to work. It's not pretty, but it should work.

 

[humbucker87]

For lines connecting to the engine here was what worked:

Fuel lines - I bought 6AN fuel line and connectors and made a y-piped fuel line that goes to both fuel rails from the stock fitting. I bought a radium fitting that adapts the stock hardline to 6AN fittings. So far they are working great.

Coolant - For the most part you can use stock lines here. I did have to take a spare hose I had in the garage for the top radiator hose, but for the rest, the stock SC430 hoses work fine.

Power Steering - For these lines I also made a 6AN PTFE high pressure line from the solenoid I welded above to the rack. Then for the lines from the rack to the cooler I used 8AN line and hose clamped it to the cooler lines and from the cooler liens to the reservoir. I did have to buy a GS430 power steering mount from the junkyard and hack and bend it to work.

A/C lines - For the hard line from firewall to the condenser I used the stock IS300 line as is. For the line from the condenser to the compressor I again used the stock IS300 line, except you have to significantly bend it where it connects to the SC430 compressor. Then for the line from the compressor back to the firewall I used the stock GS/SC 430 lines as is and they fit great.

 

[humbucker87]

For connecting the trans to the diff I went with a completely custom driveshaft from DriftMotion and man is it a work of art. Super happy with how nice it is. It comes with the output shaft for a CD009 and I ordered the billet adapter for the IS300 diff flange.

I also decided to go ahead and paint my stock diff with some POR15 to make it look shiny.

 

[humbucker87]

It was now time to connect all the wires, hoses, etc and try to start this thing. Aside from the immobilizer issues I mentioned above, once I got the ECU back from Quantum the car fired right up. However, it sounded pretty rough and immediately threw a code for misfire on Cyl 7. I swapped the coil between cylinder 5 and 7 and the misfire followed to 5. So I thought oh, must be coils and ordered some new ones. However I was also getting a few other codes for VVTI timing. When I googled those codes it mentioned timing issues (like skipping a tooth). I thought "there's no way I have a timing issue". Got my new coil on and some misfires and roughness persisted. Did some research online and determined I completely mistimed the engine and got lucky it wasn't off enough to cause interference. Basically there are two marks on the cam gears, "I" and "T". The T is not for timing and you must the I. I regrettably tore everything back down and redid the entire timing belt job in the car (plenty of room with the radiator out).

Super excited to have that fixed I was ready to drive the car! However, when I went to put the car in 1st and start moving I hear a large clunk clunk clunk. So I put the car in the air. I don't see any damage and I can rotate the driveshaft by hand without any issue. With the car in the air I put the car in first and drive slowly and don't hear a thing. I put the car back down and again on the ground get a large grinding/clunking noise. Long story short, turns out the large u-joint on the driftmotion driveshaft contacts the heat shield for the gas tank. I couldn't get the heat shield to deform so I added a few washers temporarily to the front of the diff mounts and voila my sound is gone.

Finally time for the first test drive (fire extinguisher in tow). The car feels amazing. The trans is definitely loud between the lightweight flywheel and the poly mount but it at least feels very direct and responsive. The torque of the 3uz is amazing and is exactly the power and powerband I was after. There are still some things to wrap up and some improvements I want to make over time, but the swap is mostly done and it drives so I am super happy.

 

[humbucker87]

Reserved for updates 9

 

[humbucker87]

Reserved for updates 10

 

[Piggity]

None of the pictures work...or is it just me?

 

[humbucker87]

None of the pictures work...or is it just me?

Oh no! Really? Will work on that.

 

[Piggity]

Just the text and the youtube video.

 

[humbucker87]

Thanks for letting me know. Will take a while to replace them, should be up soon.

 

[Piggity]

Great swap man....thanks for the great writeup on this! I've been researching this swap for a while now.

 

[humbucker87]

Great swap man....thanks for the great writeup on this! I've been researching this swap for a while now.

Thanks! It wasn't all that difficult in the end. It did end up being pretty expensive for the added power, but it was still a fun undertaking. If you ever have any questions I'm sure there are things I've forgotten here and could help answer.

 

[theraflu]

Great work. I know I’ve been seeing your post updates on other platforms but nothing compares to a proper forum thread. I probably won’t ever do this swap but I appreciate you taking the time to document it.

 

[humbucker87]

Great work. I know I’ve been seeing your post updates on other platforms but nothing compares to a proper forum thread. I probably won’t ever do this swap but I appreciate you taking the time to document it.

Thanks man! I'm sad that forums were basically killed by facebook, instagram, etc. I still love forums too and still find a ton of useful info on them.

 

[Hodgdon Extreme]

nothing compares to a proper forum thread

Facts!

Thanks for sharing your build with us, Humbucker87. Love the ingenuity and can-do effort to get it TF done. What exhaust arrangement are you using? Sounds pretty loud in the video.