Miles Baker wrote on Thursday, April 05, 2007 - 03:19 pm:Too true. The 1UZ is old though and wasn't designed for sports cars. They needed low down torque and 6500rpm redline was fine. It can be made to put out 450+: have a look at the NZ cars. But yes, Toyota did release it in pretty feeble shape, even for its day.
The motor for my '55 is something else I have compared to it. It's the bottom of the range GM crate motor, at $2800 brand new. It's 5.7 litres. With a $200 intake manifold, $400 carby, $200 exhaust manifold, $300 ignition and $500 of other accessories and gaskets, it puts out a dyno proven 350hp. With a $650 pair of heads and a $250 cam it will hit 400hp at the crank. That's about $5k, and by no means are any of those components considered "performance parts". Likewise the motor itself has the cheapest cast pistons and crank GM could lay their hands on, and sports compression below the 1UZ and only 2 valves per cylinder, pushrods and a 6000rpm redline. The motor itself is a 1970s design, and the heads are late 80s. And it can make 70hp per litre. The 1UZ is quad cam, 32 valve, designed in the late 80s with forged crank and 6 bolt mains. It makes 65hp per litre.
Toyota got some 'splainin to do.