defigh

OK I need some opinions...I have the opportunity to pick up a great condition LN130 Halfcut with the 2LTE turbo diesel motor for a pretty good price. I was planning on swapping this into my 88 4Runnner to eventually run biodiesel and save a bit at the pump.

I'm just wanting some opinions on wether I should spend the $ on the turbo diesel, or put that money into other areas of the truck?

By the way, I bought the runner with a rebuilt 22re that only has about 30k on it. I am currently fixing a few rust spots on the rig, but everything mechanically speaking is in great shape. I recently drove it approx 2000 miles up and down the east coast.

decisions....decisions

Thanks for the help.

FilthyRich

I can't help, but I like what you are thinking about. I had the EXACT thought yesterday.
I subscribe to this

gwhayduke

Yep, you can do it and it should drop right in since you have the 22re. Go to Toyota Diesel Madness for more specifics. Where'd you find the 2LTE? And if you decide to not do it, how about tossing it my way?

99_Runner

The diesel sounds sweet. Would make for a unique trail Toyota.

Diesel_Freak

I've been looking into Diesel swaps since before I got my Runner, but I think the small diesels are pretty damn weak...but, the more air you feed a diesel, the cooler it runs, so there's power to be made there for sure... I did my Firefighting School "dissertation" on Biohaul/Diesel... really cool/simple technology, adn actualy what Rudolph Diesel's engine was intended to run on... not to mention it smells kinda good coming out of the tail pipe... Go for it, it can't be a bad thing, and it should be a direct swap....with a few things here and there.

KZN185W

iTrader: (1)

If that LN130 is a JDM, you're looking at potential overheating problems, including a cracked cylinder head. Otherwise, it's a good engine. You might like to check out www.toyotasurf.asn.au to see how the guys down under have solved overheating problems with the LN130. There's a ton of info in that site about the LN130.

One more thing, If your truck has a solid axle up front, you'll need to change the oil pan of the 2L-TE to be able to properly mount the engine. There's a guy from the US (west coast, I think) who did the same thing on a solid axle pick-up. This guy has some posts in the Oz Surf forum, too.

HTH.

aNUT

I did some research online about the performance aspects of the 2LTE. From what I can recall, the 2LTE produces slightly less power than the 22RE, but the torque is pretty close to that of the 3.0 V6. If you decide to do the swap, you're certainly not going to have a race car, but I think that off-road perfromance should be improved because of the immense low end torque that diesel motors offer. Unfortunately I learned about the diesel motors that are available overseas after I rebuilt my 3.0 gasser, otherwise I would have tried to get a motor out of Japan or Austraila and done the swap myself.

Another cool thing to note is that diesel engines will run quite happily on vegetable oil, provided you can reduce its viscosity, and that you start up, and shut down on diesel. Fortunately, the viscosity of vegetable oil is inversly related to its temperature. (the higher the temperature, the easier it flows) Conversion kits are available, and essentially consist of an auxillary fuel tank, pump, fuel lines, and a fuel heater. To run on vegetable oil, you would start on diesel, wait for your vegetable oil fuel lines to warm up, and then switch over. You have to shut down on diesel so that the fuel doesn't gel or coke on the injectors when the engine stops.

This makes for interesting scenarios for road trips. (switching between fuel types on short trips around town would be impractical, and BioDiesel would be a better alternative) If you had a built in recovery pump and filter in the bed of the truck, you could fill up at the fast food restraunt of your choice and essentially cruise the highway for free!

I second having a look at ToyotaDieselMadness.com. Also, with a bit of looking you should be able to come across English or Austrailian websites with specifications of the 2LTE. Try googling "Toyota Surf, Prado, Hilux, specs" and see if you can find it.

And finally if you do decide to go with the swap, it would be super cool if you documented it on YT with lots of pictures to make it easier on the next guy that catches he diesel bug.

-aNUT

Keggo

Vegetable oil contains Glycerin, which is the agent that will gum up the injectors and fuel lines if you don't do as specified above... (my friend and I were actually talking about diesel, bio diesel, and vegetable oil today) heh heh. I just thought it was ironic. Good luck on this... I'd swap in a diesel if it was permitted in Cali... (you'd think it would be.)

elripster

I say do it.

The yota diesel will be new enough that it doesn't have rubber hoses/seals. They should be Viton. Biodiesel eats up rubber.

As for injectors, etc... it should not clog them at all. In fact, bio has excellent lubricity and should greatly extend engine life. Sometimes coking is an issue but injector cleaners can take care of it pretty easily and it won't be needed often at all. If you use recycled cooking oil, it needs to be prepared for road fuel use. IE, spun in a centrifuge to get the glycerins out, filtered, etc... but if you use SVO (straight veggie oil) it should not.

Retrofit kits are available and easy to fab up for many vehicles where you will use engine coolant to warm the SVO tank. You start on diesel, then switch when it's warm enough.

Frank

defigh

Thanks for all the replies. It is in fact a JDM 2LTE but I have a video of the Hilux running and driving so I'm not too worried about the HG/overheating issue. It ran strong, boosted well...everything seemed to check out. I think that as long as I'm careful and install an accurate coolant temp gauge, things should be ok.

I actually still have the IFS on my 88 so the oil pan won't be a problem.

I don't know if anyone caught "Trucks" this past weekend, but I saw the host making biodiesel with this http://www.biodieselsolutions.com/pr...uelmeister.asp but holy ˟˟˟˟˟; $3000?! I think that I will attempt to make my own kit...or possibly consider the SVO idea. Thanks again, and keep the ideas coming.

gwhayduke

You haven't searched the web on biodiesel then. Folks are building crackers out of old electric hot water heaters for less than $400 total. The "Fuel Meister" is generally looked down on after folks turn out a few batches of "biojelly." The most prominent site is the "Journey to Forever" site. And if works best if you can find nice clean oil that has not been used to fry animal products. Chinese resturants and fast food factories are considered the best sources.

DavidA

I caught the episode and have recommended it to several friends with Diesels. I did some calculating and you would recover the cost of the Biodiesel unit, depending on the size of your fuel tank, at between 20 and 45 tanks. After that it would cost you around 70 cents per gallon to produce your own diesel. The Glycerin byproduct can then be used for soaps, etc.

I think it is a very viable alternative. Make it in your Garage, store it in 50 gal barrels or one of those farm fuel tanks on legs. Get like 4 barrels of used veggie oil and make enough fuel for a month or two at a time.

fierohink

Duke's right, the fuel meister is the lazy-mans approach. If you check out places like toyotadieselmadness or The Diesel Stop, and check out their biodiesel sections. You'll find that it's really not that big of a deal to run wvo (waste veggie oil) or to mix up your own batches of true biodiesel.

My bro runs a pretty hopped up ford superduty with the powerstroke 7.3 turbo diesel, and we've looked into mixing and making homebrew fuel. But what "Trucks!" failed to mention about the veggie oil and the glycerine is great you can use it to make soap... but whens the last time you rendered your own soap?

If I had the $$$ and the connections to get a diesel toyo motor, living on the east coast adds to shipping costs , I'd swap out in a heartbeat. I'm hoping my new 268c cam will help in the fuel economy.

gwhayduke

The glycerin produced during the biodiesel process is a small problem. As Keggo said, vegetable oils have a glycerin unit attached to the molecule which is broken off during the cracking. Fortunately glycerin is biodegradeable and the reports I've read suggest composting it with a lot of dry vegetable matter (sawdust, leaves, etc.) or trickleing it in the sewer in small quantities. If you go the sewer route, you might titrate it to a fairly neutral pH first (close to 7.0). And either way, potassium hydroxide might be a better choice, once you get past the experimentation stage. Potassium is a very water soluble ion that is necessary for healthy plants. Chemical fertilizers generally contain some potassium or potash. So after you cook up some fuel, you could cook up some compost from the leftovers that could make your yard healthier as well.

And for those of you that didn't see the "Trucks-Biodiesel" episode, I found the episode on the some biodiesel site after it aired the first time and posted it to my file download page. It's about 20 mb in Quicktime format.

Diesel_Freak

Read, "from the Fryer tot the Fuel Tank" it's really the best book I've read for getting started on the De-Estherification process or what you refer to as "cracking"... That's the real hard part anyway, the rest is mechanical pressing and Oil extraction. Greasel is probably the best known converter of waste cooking oil, and they started with VW diesels and a re still running strong, in that case, you need a tank heater to pre heat the goup and get it liquified, My uncle built a really neat custom tank for his 79 VW Caddy (Rabbit PU) it has an agitiatir and a really efficient heater ... but you do still have to run regular diesel on start-up and shut-down... thing is, when you buy diesel as "hewating oil at say 1.00us a gallon, it makes it all really cost effective eh... just don't get pulled over on the freway and give the officer a reason to "dip" your tank and see that there's no red dye in your fuel...

Dave

surfmobile

I've been doing research on swapping my 22re out for a diesel and the more I search the more i find out that noone knows where to get them. Well just out of curiosity I stopped by a toyota industrial plant in my town, all i've ever seen them work on is forklifts, but I stopped by to see if they could get dielsel engines. long story short, this place had more toyota diesel than most junkyards have regular engines. If anyone is interested, you should see if theres a toyota industrial plant in your town.

I know this doesnt directly relate to your topic but I see alot of people thinking about the dielsel swap.

1989toy4wd

You dont run straight up vegitable oil in your truck, you buy a kit http://www.biompu.com/ has one other people do to, but this is the first website i searched for, because you have to treat it before you run it through your engine, otherwise you would not run at all...the good thing about this kit is that you can start up, turn off, drive, on the same fuel, also, there are no modifications needed to run it!! Just fill er up and run

Biodiesel also runs cleaner, has better performance, better mileage, and it smells like a frenchfry cooker driving down the road....

PS there was an episode of trucks that showed all of this...you should check it out!!