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Turbo 3vze

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Old Mar 12, 2022 | 10:47 AM
  #1  
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Turbo 3vze

Alrighty guys, been doing as much research as I can into this forbidden subject and I know I’m gonna get plenty of ˟˟˟˟ for it until I make it work. Putting a turbo on my 93 4x4 3vze. My end goal is to get the HP from 150 to around 200. Trying to piece together the fuel and ignition stuff I’m gonna need.
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Old Mar 13, 2022 | 08:10 AM
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Im all for you doing this because, why not? But, might as well put head gaskets with head studs and exhaust wrap for the crossover tube (unless your eliminating that) on your list now.
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Old Mar 13, 2022 | 08:15 AM
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Heck yes man! I had always thought about doing the same to my old 3.0... Ultimately I went for the 3.4 swap, but I'd love to see your progress!
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Old Mar 13, 2022 | 08:43 AM
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I was just thinking about it the other day as well so I'm super curious to see how this project goes. Getting a bit of extra HP might bring this anemic motor into the mediocre to good range. Some low RPM boost would be nice but even if it's just in the power band that would be great too.
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Old Mar 13, 2022 | 01:04 PM
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I don't really feel the 3VZE is that anemic, especially with a 5 speed behind it. Now a 22RE, that's anemic especially with an automatic. I've had two 4X4's with the 22RE, an '86 4-Runner with an automatic and an '89 X-tracab with 5 speed. I had an opportunity to drive a friend's '86 22RE turbo with 5 speed back in the 80's. I was able to compare it side by side with my '86 back then. Compared to my 4-runner it seemed to have twice the power. Of course his truck weighed less but it was a night and day difference.
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Old Mar 20, 2022 | 12:41 AM
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My first experience with the 3.0 was when I bought my 93 pickup back in 07. At the time I had only owned 4 cyl cars, so it felt great out of the lot. It wasn't a week later that I took it out on the interstate and realized my little 1.3L 4 banger could outrun it, and cost less doing it.
Otherwise, yeah it was great. It clocked 365K before I yanked it, and it wasn't blown up.
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Old Dec 6, 2022 | 07:58 PM
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Turbo 3vze


Rear mount turbo, exhaust side is down just have to make the turbo back/downpipe! Still have to connect cold side to turbo and run oil lines.

Has alot of goodies and I’m looking for insight of other things I need to do to make this work!



I just rebuilt the motor due to headgasket failure… now it has hyperpnuematic pistons(for boost), stock rods, stock crank, brand new bearings, all new gaskets, Copper sprayed mls headgasket, DOA cryotreated head stud kit, 4 hole injectors, magnecore spark plug wires, FAST coil, Fast I6, TRC-2 with proportional boost sensor, wideband o2, intercooled, hybrid t3/t4 turbo, 400hp rated clutch, new flywheel, new pilot bearing and throw out bearing, marlin crawler thrust washers, 4.10gears(oem for my truck), electric fan converted, egr delete, vsv delete, cat delete, charcoal canister delete, pcv system switched to dual inlet catch can, still have plenty more to upgrade and I’m sure I’m missing plenty of things!
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Old Dec 19, 2022 | 09:15 AM
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Intercooler

Are you considering an intercooler? It would greatly enhance the overall performance but will be a trial to work into the grill.
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Old Dec 20, 2022 | 02:52 AM
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Turbo 3VZE

Hi.
Toyota engineers didn't turbo the 3.0 engine because of the design of the cylinder heads.
The valves are too small. and the placement design of the head bolts is such that there is inadequate clamping force trying to keep the head from squirming around during heating and cooling cycles.
Studding will be of marginal value as the bolt hole placement in the block is the major factor against boosting this motor.
It's not that the engineers overlooked a lot of stuff during design. but, for the sake of SALES in the U.S. and Europe. they had to design an emissions compliant motor that fit the regs. of the time.
Basically speaking it is a smog motor.
A turbo on a 3.0 is much bux for marginal performance gain, and more bux when the HG pops.
The 3.4 motor is the choice to boost. The valves are bigger, they are unshrouded, and bolt/stud placement is optimized for boost purposes.
This motor was factory available boosted, and although rarer than a unicorn, it shows that the platform is boost designed.
Also if you are going ahead with this project, do not copper spray an MLS H/G, put it on dry. if you don't. you will find out why when it pops in about 6 months to a year.
Do not use reclaimed head bolts!!!! Buy a new set of OEM, or ARP bolts only. They are cold rolled.
Toyota bolts are not torque to yield, so the claim is that reuse is allowed, Don't do it
We all know what opinions are like, so here's mine.
A turbo'ed 3.0 is like bringing a pig to a prom.
Just sayin'
Good Luck
Art

P.S. You should consider machining for an "O" ring on the head and block. This would have to change your choice of H/G, but it would be an extra margin of safety against a blown out H/G.


Last edited by ZARTT; Dec 20, 2022 at 03:32 AM.
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Old Dec 29, 2022 | 06:21 AM
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Why not copper spray the mls headgasket?

Originally Posted by ZARTT
Hi.
Toyota engineers didn't turbo the 3.0 engine because of the design of the cylinder heads.
The valves are too small. and the placement design of the head bolts is such that there is inadequate clamping force trying to keep the head from squirming around during heating and cooling cycles.
Studding will be of marginal value as the bolt hole placement in the block is the major factor against boosting this motor.
It's not that the engineers overlooked a lot of stuff during design. but, for the sake of SALES in the U.S. and Europe. they had to design an emissions compliant motor that fit the regs. of the time.
Basically speaking it is a smog motor.
A turbo on a 3.0 is much bux for marginal performance gain, and more bux when the HG pops.
The 3.4 motor is the choice to boost. The valves are bigger, they are unshrouded, and bolt/stud placement is optimized for boost purposes.
This motor was factory available boosted, and although rarer than a unicorn, it shows that the platform is boost designed.
Also if you are going ahead with this project, do not copper spray an MLS H/G, put it on dry. if you don't. you will find out why when it pops in about 6 months to a year.
Do not use reclaimed head bolts!!!! Buy a new set of OEM, or ARP bolts only. They are cold rolled.
Toyota bolts are not torque to yield, so the claim is that reuse is allowed, Don't do it
We all know what opinions are like, so here's mine.
A turbo'ed 3.0 is like bringing a pig to a prom.
Just sayin'
Good Luck
Art

P.S. You should consider machining for an "O" ring on the head and block. This would have to change your choice of H/G, but it would be an extra margin of safety against a blown out H/G.
Why not copper spray the mls head gaskets I just put mls headgasket and copper sprayed them to fill in microscopic imperfections
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Old Jan 22, 2023 | 10:07 AM
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Surface Prep for a MLS headgasket.

I have researched MLS headgasket prep thouroughly. The MLS gasket is designed to move. The copper spray prevents movement. The MLS gasket requires almost a polished surface on the heads and I removed the surface grinding marks on the block. I got a 1/2 thick piece of glass larger than the cylinder heads. I got some spray contact cement. I went to Harbor freight and bought a bunch of wet or dry sandpaper fron 220 to 1000 grit.. I sprayed the glass and sandpaper with contact cement and attached the sandpaper. I started with 220 grit and sanded till all areas were clean. You can use a very fine oil on the sandpaper or water to sand cleanly. Then went to 400 grit and kept sanding moving the head back and forth on the sandpaper covered glass. You can clean off the contact cement with fingernail polish remover from Walmart. I got the heads flat and you could not see any sanding marks at all. 600 sandpaper will get it where you can't see any sanding marks but I went to 1000 grit on the heads. I then put oil soaked rags in the cylinders and sanded the block with 220 grit sandpaper attached to a sanding block. I carefully sanded all the surface grinder marks off the block. I took about 20 thousanths off the heads so i used a block shim set and did use coppper spray on the shim. If your heads aren't warped at all and in pretty clean shape you will only sand off a few thousandths. Just keep checking when first sanding with 220 and stop sanding when the head is clean. You can skip the block sanding iIF using a shim like I did. I did all this prep and installed my heads and the gaskets blew out in about 8000 miles. I took it back apart and found out I did NOT GET MLS gaskets. I cleaned up the surfaces and got a MLS headgasket set and put it together and it is running fine. All that work the first time for a graphite gasket. You DO NOT want an almost polished surface with a graphite gasket.

Last edited by Nuckleblood; Jan 22, 2023 at 10:17 AM.
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Old Jan 22, 2023 | 10:32 AM
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How is your turbo 3VZE project going?
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Old Jan 22, 2023 | 11:24 AM
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Update on turbo 3vze

I haven’t had much time to work on the ole girl, got a scavenge pump on it now and have the oil feed and return setup, charge side and intercooler is completed, I ordered some clamps and a o-ring fitting to run a rising rate fuel pressure regulator


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Old Jan 22, 2023 | 11:56 AM
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Totally surprised me on turbo location. Looks like your not far from firing it up. I wouldn't be concerned about the copper spray. The MLS gaskets also move between layers of the steel. If they do fail either sand the surfaces like I did or find a machine shop that can surface the heads smooth enough for a MLS gasket
. Ive seen a guy on Youtube that turboed a 3.0 but he didnt do it right with a good wqstegate and a proper tune. He blew it up the first test run. I would guess you will be over 200hp' I did put 4 hole injectors and headers on mine. Deleted everything you did except the charcoal cannister. It just sucks fumes out of the tank to burn. The headers and injectors did give it some low end torque.
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Old Jan 22, 2023 | 12:47 PM
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Startup soon

Yes very close to starting it up and charcoal canister I would recommend keeping it I only deleted it because I needed the room, I currently have 4 hole injectors but I’m thinking in the future of getting 6 22ret injectors because they spec way higher than 3vze injectors, should only have to change the injector connector on the harness everything else should fit and work properly, if my mls head gaskets fail I’m gonna get the block decked, and order ported heads from lce they also come with heavy duty springs. Thanks for the support!
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Old Jan 30, 2023 | 12:30 PM
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Almost ready just waiting for a fuel line fitting and stainless steel pipiing

charge pipe is completed secured and clamped, rising rate fuel pressure regulator, 850ml coolant reservoir metal vacuum/coolant line that bolts under plenum is deleted with re routed coolant lines and yes there is an intercooler behind grill aswell as a 16row oil cooler. Might record first start up and post it on YouTube if anyone is interested in seeing it start! P.S. don’t mind the birds nest of wiring in the corner after I get it started and verify that the computer works properly I will clean wiring up.



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Old Jan 30, 2023 | 01:21 PM
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Very nice intake pipe plum job. Everything looks well thought out. I would definitely be interested in a first start video. There is only a couple others that have turboed a 3VZE I can find. Lot more have done the 5VZE. Any idea how much boost you want to put to it?
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Old Feb 1, 2023 | 03:43 PM
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Boost

Originally Posted by Nuckleblood
Very nice intake pipe plum job. Everything looks well thought out. I would definitely be interested in a first start video. There is only a couple others that have turboed a 3VZE I can find. Lot more have done the 5VZE. Any idea how much boost you want to put to it?
starting out at 8psi and then gonna be adjusting, boost, timing and fuel to be pretty reliable but also yield some decent power, I have the option to advance or retard timing by 1-4 degrees per psi of boost, fuel can go anywhere from 35-80psi, and boost my max is probably around 15-20.
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Old May 16, 2023 | 12:42 PM
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Turbo 3vze

Well it’s been a long road I had to stop working on it for a while but I’m back to it with many changes and big progress!

Bought a TIG welder and built this custom pipe

Added a flex pipe and y pipe to it

Mounted the turbo and Relocated the scavenge pump

With this new set up it lifted everything up about 6-8inches giving plenty of ground clearance and hiding the setup much better.
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Old May 16, 2023 | 01:17 PM
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Nice fabrication of stainless piping.

Originally Posted by grvan
Well it’s been a long road I had to stop working on it for a while but I’m back to it with many changes and big progress!

Bought a TIG welder and built this custom pipe

Added a flex pipe and y pipe to it

Mounted the turbo and Relocated the scavenge pump

With this new set up it lifted everything up about 6-8inches giving plenty of ground clearance and hiding the setup much better.
Why did you cover the ends with a line connected to the end? Flowing some sheilding gas in while you weld it? looking good for sure.
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