1JZ VVTI Starion Narrowbody

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Well I bought this flatty back in 2011. Had around 124k miles, maroon interior, and auto. I was told the auto was rebuild at some point and it worked fine. I had the interior swapped to black by my friend and got 83 tails. I drove this car as a daily every winter but it somehow always managed to take itself down for the summers.







Drove the car for a little bit and then blew the headgasket which was around a coolant passage in the back of the head. I didn’t know what the issue was and it went away for a bit. Then came back in full force. I had bought all the parts from dad(starion parts shop) to rebuild and put back in. But its never that easy. Pulled everything apart, exhaust manifold is cracked and so is the head. The valve tool I rented from Advance auto even had directions for a starion head. I got Schneider springs, and stock size stainless steel valves and threw those in. I also bled all the lifters and replaced all studs and gaskets. The head was replaced with a non jet one of a Raider. Exhaust manifold was stress relieved.

[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdBKelH43-U[/ame]

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Drove it for a few months and the neutral safety switch for the auto started having issues. So I ended up jumping the plug for the switch and routing the 12v around it making it useless. After which I drove it for two more months and spun the rod bearings. Which meant a teardown of the engine but I didn’t have a garage to use that time. So I ended up borrowing my friends. It was supposed to be a 3 day swap with a turnkey engine on the way from “YZRIDER” in PA. Turns out he sent me an engine that also had spun rods and refused to give me a refund of any kind claiming ignorance. The engine was however rebuilt rather recently and I was able to salvage many parts off of it. His crank was toast and so were the pistons which showed signs of detonation. The block was also 1mm over and no longer usuable. I had the entire top end from turbo to intake polished. Balance shafts were eliminated. I got ARP rod bolts and already had ARP head studs. The whole build ended up taking several months through the summer because of the porting which was done by a friend for free but received minimal priority which I had no problem with.

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I got the engine in the car around November. I misread a sign and the city and they towed the car and tore off my airdam. Making this the second starquest the city towed and damaged that I owned. I drove it till March or so and then I blew the automajic trans mission. I believe the oil pump in it went. So I decided this was the motivation I need to manual swap so I slowly gathered parts while the car sat.


















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Shortly after the manual swap the car started smoking ever so slightly on decel in gear. This time the car was going down in the fall. The smoking got worse and worse. I did compression test and got 60psi on cylinder 2 and could see the second exhaust cylinder leaking oil. Turns out the valve seal had gone but at the time I had thought that the rings were put in upside down or wrong. At this point I had quit on the g54b. I stopped driving the car and started saving some cash. A friend of a friend was parting out an IS300 the spun on the highway and smashed into a concrete divider with its side. The guy was supposed to sell me the entire swap for $1000. I gave my friend a deposit and didn’t know the friend never gave the deposit to the guy because the seller refused it. They shook on the guy holding the engine. He ended up reneging and selling the entire car to some Polish guys. My friend who was acting had a 2jz that he was planning on putting in his Cressida which he had por15’d the block and put brand new stainless steel hardware onto it. I ended up buying it off him for $1000 with engine, harness, and trans. He would also help me put it in since I had no space nor tools to do this. Currently I am slowly accumulating parts for this swap. I don’t care that its NA, I plan to build a NA-T later, I just want to drive my car and have it be reliable. I have never had success with the G54B and its just not for me. The 2jz-ge vvti will make more power than a mildly modded g54b and makes it better (flatter torque and power curve).

Some ebay cheap headers that should mate up with the starion exhaust I have now:


The whole package going into the car:


I also performed a 5 lug/6bolt subframe swap. I have 4 subframes (1bare, 1 6bolt/rusty/in-car, 1 6bolt/missing axles, 1 4bolt) and I will be cleaning one up meanwhile this one is sitting in as a place holder in the car.

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So then I put the 2JZ-GE VVTI in the car and what do you know, the headers don’t clear the frame rail and the engine mounts. So custom headers would be needed. I figured there was no use proceeding with non-turbo custom headers which then would be junked when I put in the turbo manifold. I scrapped the 2JZ project and traded it back to my friend in exchange for some work. Also we cut the radiator support since it was in the way of getting the engine and trans in.

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I decided I would buy a 1jz-gte VVTI, because I wanted turbo and wasn’t going to build custom headers for the 2jz. I bought the motor from jdmenginescorp. I got it from a jzx100 with the auto trans, came with all the sensors and ecu. It was a nice motor in really good condition. I also picked up a w58 with flywheel and clutch out of a sc300.

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Nothing special but here are the trans-mount, cooling lines, and shortening of throttle cable. Also brackets to hold up the new radiator because it sits in front of the rad support.

[GTShunter]

Nice. Love SQ's, especially swapped ones obviously (see sig).

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Nice. Love SQ's, especially swapped ones obviously (see sig).

Thanks! Still got loads of pics more to go to catch up to present day.

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Then I got my intercooler. Prepare your angus.

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Plans were drawn up.




Actual plans were made and executed. Rails were notched.

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Picked up a party mode switch to use as a low boost/high boost switch, bee-r rev limiter (good bye stock ceramic turbo),Tomei elbow and did the timing components.

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Also started prepping another subframe to go in along with new poly bushes.

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Installed the Aeromotive a1000 with pre and post filters. Also after dropping the tank I learned why my car would always reek like gas after a full tank or if parked in a garage. Out of the 5 bolts holding the pickup tube to the tank only 2 were still there.

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Picked up some D2 Coils and stainless brake lines. Also rear camber plates