I am new to the forums, sorry for any issues I may have. I have a 1986 4runner with the 22re. I have been wanting to do a v8 swap in it for a while, but am having trouble deciding what to swap into it. Money isn't an non-issue, if it takes a long time no worries, but I'd like to keep things fairly reasonable. I also want to avoid an excessive body lift, and I know that's hard if not impossible to avoid, but I want to limit it as much as I can without having to modify the heck out of the firewall and whatnot. This will be my first time doing anything outside of routine maintenance, so I'm excited to learn. I would appreciate any input.

 

I really don't know much about V8 swaps, but here it goes.....

If anything, I would do a 1UZ-FE out of a Lexus LS400. They are very well built and smooth V8 engines. There are a few threads on here from people who have done (or are doing) this swap.

I have never really been a fan of a Chevy engine swap. I feel that it makes owning a 4Runner pointless as the drive train is what makes these Toyotas well..... Toyotas.

Buying a Chevy Blazer would be better if you were going down the GM V8 road.

Either way, an engine swap like this is quite a bit more involved than routine maintenance.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

 

It's all in the details.

Are you set on 8 cylinders? What kind of power are you looking for? What transmission do you want to run? How much fabrication are you willing/able to do?

 

Another issue here is going to be emissions regulations, and how they might affect your desired configuration. In California, for instance, you are not necessarily required to run the EXACT transmission that the engine comes with. BUT, you must run a transmission of the same TYPE. This means that, because no Toyota V8 was sold with a manual transmission in California, you are REQUIRED to run an automatic with, say, a 1UZ. In fact, you are probably in this case going to need to run the very transmission the 1UZ came with if it is controlled by the ECU. Manual transmissions are out. If you want to run a manual transmission with a V8, you must run a V8 that was available with a manual transmission in California. GM V8’s were in some models, which is why someone here might prefer to run a GM engine over Toyota.