Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 11:15 pm, by: Terry Kilpatrick(Terry_kilpatrick)
well after buying my MZ21 soarer the engine has given me nothing but trouble. having the 7m-gte engine in it which had a slight heating problem and could not hold down a head gasket. i had already blown the turbo up and replaced it with a big one and the car was really starting to cost me some money and heartache. well the 7m is actually a legendary engine and capable of some calateral hourse power if wanted. but to get it fixed properly would have cost me almost as much as the total conversion e.g. needs water pump, head and block surfaced, knock sensors, radiator fan etc. so after replacing two head gaskets i decided to cut my loses and take the engine and transmission out and replace it with a 1jz-gte on an auto gearbox. i would have liked to convert the car to a 5-speed manual but that would have cost alot more and i am not really fussed as i just want a nice car not a racing machine.
I started taking the car apart on a weekend. this poses a great threat as you can be easily distracted by other events...
first i removed the bonnet and then drained the water from the radiator and then the oil. Then I just started removing things off the engine that might get in the way or hold it in the car. removed radiator and fan, all intake pipes up to the turbo and the exhaust from the turbo back. The more I pulled off the engine the better i felt about doing the conversion as problems where found such as alot of oil in the intake system and alot of corrosion around water pipe conections.
Wiring! in a few write ups i have read that it is a good idea to keep your old wiring uncut as they might need to be used later. there is a length of loom around the throttle body which i left weaved throu it and unpluged it. a very good idea when unplugging any wiring is to label both male and female connections with masking tape. because i have no idea what each plug does i labeled the ones i didnt know with a simple 1,2,3... and so on.
the engine mounts where then unbolted, all it needs now is the tail shaft disconected from the gear box as well as a few crossmembers and then the engine and gearbox can be lifted from the car in one piece.
this is as far as i have gotten so far. enjoy the pictures and i will post more as i go.
