J2JZ-GTE Motorbau

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The project "Pitch Black Supra" began in early 2004 with a question: How to build a driving machine with 800PS, which is still as robust and suitable for everyday use as the production model?

Clear that the answer was " With a durable engine ".

So it happened that for this project only selected components were imported directly from the USA by Christian Lutosch (Underground-Racing). In addition to well-known brands such as JE Pistons, Pauter, Clevite77 or ARP but also proprietary developments such as the SSE cam shafts or the Shim-under-Bucket Conversion were used, which allow a later speed increase to up to 9,000 rpm.

We were responsible for the engine installation and removal. With the advice of Christian and the help of a car mechanic, as well as the help of the workshop Bible, it was not necessarily an insoluble problem.

The engine was already on the first day. Even if each plug is different, each hose has its exact length to fit only in one place and thus actually a wrong reconnect almost impossible, nevertheless, all the separate lines were numbered as a precaution.

Starting with the expansion of the exhaust system and the cardan shaft, there were two ways to remove the engine: complete with gearbox or without gearbox.
The second way (which was also chosen) an extra key extension had to be made so that you could get to the upper transmission screws to the engine.

After the gearbox was unscrewed, the engine was fished out.

The dismantling of attachments such as the turbo system is of course much easier with the engine removed. Here it says only screw by screw and part by part.

The EFI system, on the other hand, has been dismantled in the installed engine condition as there are relatively many connections under the intake manifold.

Of course, one should nevertheless always take the workshop book to help.
For example, it is important to release the camshaft bolts in the correct order!

After dismounting the engine head one could make the first impressions of the engine inner life.
Incredible: Even after the 200,000 km was still the original honing on the cylinders as new. This fine cut is there to ensure that the oil is optimally distributed on the cylinder walls during operation of the engine and not easy to tear / rubbed off.

Thus, the engine block and the cylinder head is prepared for the repairer.

The following work was carried out by the repairman:

• Block and cylinder head are being disassembled
• Block and head are steam cleaned / washed
• Block and head are planned and ground
• The installation is being prepared
• Cylinder redrawn with the use of torque plate
• Crankshaft x-rayed and measured for hairline cracks
• Clean valves and, if necessary, grind in
• Installation of new components in the block / head

The following new components were used for the (pure) engine:

• Toyota complete seal set engine 2JZ
• HKS 1.4mm STOPPER metal cylinder head gasket
• Each forged pistons
• JE piston rings
• Clevites KW warehouse
• Clevite Pleullager
• Pauter Forged Rod
• ARP U / C headed bolt
• ARP crankshaft bolt
• SSE 272 sharp camshafts
• SSE Shims under Bucket Conversion
• Unorthodox Racing Cam Gears
• GReddy Timing Belt

Since you could not say how good the old honing cut was before the repair, JE oversized pistons were ordered and used. (Data will be submitted later) Since the JE forged pistons are made of aluminum, their material properties are significantly different than those of the original Toyota pistons. Thus, forged pistons expand much more in heat than others. For the forged pistons therefore much larger values must be used.

When building a (racing) engine, it has to be decided whether you want more power or a durable engine later on. The higher the performance, the higher the material load.

At very high power racing sprit must be used. At our petrol station, a power of about 600 - 700 hp on the crankshaft is possible. After that, the engine starts to knock, so you have to drive more octane. When using a different fuel, among other things, higher temperatures prevail.

In plain language this means that for a racing engine with over 800 hp a much larger ring gap must be used. At over 1000 hp this is even larger and so was the tabular list on the slip of JE piston. You can not drive in a moment simply a 330 hp engine and at the other moment a 1000 hp.

If the ring gap is set too low, the ring can close completely when the heat is high and thus begin to rub against the cylinder wall. The wear here is very high. A ringgap set too high will result in oil consumption being much higher than normal, and in the worst case, a piston tipper may destroy the engine.

It was decided in this engine for a ring gap for about 800 hp.

For the cylinder head, the original valves and valve spring were used again. A speed increase was not planned to date, and would be for the planned performance of 600 - 800 hp on the crankshaft with the right single turbo no speed increase necessary.

In retrospect, I can now say that with the currently used PHR (T67) turbocharger the full boost of 1.1 bar is already present at 3800 revolutions. You can extend the power so even more> 3000 revolutions. For a power of over 1000 hp, for example, a large turbocharger (eg T88) would be necessary, which only reaches the full boost pressure from about 5000 to 5500 revolutions.
A speed increase is of course recommended, because you can hardly extend this power with the rest of the speed range.

For the cylinder head only other (sharp) camshafts and other valve caps were used.

The function of the other valve caps is easily explained.

While you must originally set the valve clearance on the upper "shims" (Shims), these are used under the cap in the "Shims under Bucket" system.

Apart from the fact that this system is much lighter compared to the original system, so the cam shafts move now no longer on the shims, but directly on the whole cap (bucket).
Much higher speeds are possible, at least in this area.

Every shim (the little piece on the right side of the photo) had to be ground in to match the valves, of course. So the lower part was much too long and there was the danger that the Shim would push out the valve wedges right at the first engine start.

Thus, considering the material expansion, the height of the shim was shortened by 1.5 mm so that there is a gap of 0.15 mm between the shim and the valve key.

The relatively time-consuming and complicated adjustment of the valve clearance with the new system I will explain later.

After the repairer has completed the above points, the cylinder head and the engine block came back to the workshop.

Of course, a new oil and water pump should be installed in such a repair.

Instead of the original 2-mass flywheel now a Fidanza 1-mass flywheel has been installed. This is about half easier. By reducing the rotating mass one has a much better response of the engine.

Disassembling is relatively easy and even done quickly with a hammer.
To build something together a bit more complicated.

And that was it here too.

Starting from the bottom with the installation of the oil sump funnel and the oil pan, up to the engine firing
For info: The silicone seal tube costs at Toyota proud 70 euros.

Back on his feet, the cylinder head should be attached to the block, but then the shock. One of the US-imported ARP mothers had no threads and there was no other replacement. Strange but true.
After it was determined that it was not a metric but an inch thread, we saw the assembly of the engine for failed.
There was nothing left but to take a risk and cut the thread.
So the mother was brought to a specialist company, which tried to turn. There was only one try

"What kind of material is that," the skilled worker asked me after his first attempt had broken the knife in the machine. On the second try, the knife began to vibrate, so that the thread was cut in about 100 courses.

(right) Now the cylinder head could finally be fastened. The "Shims under Bucket" are already installed here

Even while the engine was at the repairer, I was busy with the brake system, because it had to clean new brake pads.
On this occasion, I have slightly improved the brake calipers.

After they were sandblasted, I sprayed them with ATU heat resistant paint.

Likewise, the turbo system was disassembled during this time. Since I had occasional dropouts of the 2nd turbocharger when accelerating on the highway, I wanted to see what state it is in.

The 2nd turbocharger had a small crack inside the exhaust case. Much could not be repaired here, only a new turbo would bring something.
But since a single conversion was planned, the turbos were given away only to a company for cleaning and polishing. Keep the turbocharger loose even a few miles.

Adjusting the valve clearance is a time-consuming story.

After the shims and buckets are placed on the valves, the camshaft is inserted from above and secured in the correct order with the correct torque.
The valve clearance is measured with a feeler gauge.
The cam guide must point upwards for the currently measured valve. Ie. the valve must be closed and at the highest point.

The values for the cold engine are:

Inlet: 0.15 - 0.25 mm
Outlet: 0.25 - 0.35 mm

So that the camshaft could be rotated for each measurement of the individual valve clearance, the camshaft sprocket also had to be mounted.

Note: At least for the adjustable Unorthodox Camshaft Wheels, the adjustment screws must be additionally fastened with an adhesive. This I had not done out of ignorance, so that the camshaft has adjusted by 1 cm after the first 150 km of its own. That the engine was not running well, of course)

With the timing belt then the camshaft was turned by hand. Tightening the timing belt to the crankshaft was not necessary, as the 2JZ is an overrun and therefore the valves never hit the pistons.

After measuring and recording each individual valve clearance on one side, the camshaft had to be dismantled again to grind in the shims.
Since the shims were much larger than necessary, the top layer had to be removed for each one.
Measured and abraded these are re-installed with the camshaft and the valve clearance is measured again in the same procedure.
The camshafts and camshaft bearings, and possibly also the valve bushes, should be slightly greased with oil during installation.

The adjustment can take a relatively long time, because you can not get a perfect value right off the bat.
It is important to know that too big a valve clearance is not as tragic as a too small valve clearance. If they are too big, they will just rattle a bit. Setting the valve clearance too low can cause the valves to burn.

After the valve clearance was adjusted, everything could be gradually installed again. The turbocharger system was reassembled and attached to the block (of course, the series and the torque note here), as well as the KW disc, the water pump or the tensioning wheel.

Important : For every oil pump change, it must be vented. This is an opening in the oil pump, in which oil must be refilled. If this does not happen, the oil pump will only pump air and the engine will break in the first run after a few minutes.
A normal filling of the oil into the engine compartment does not vent the oil pump!

Here was still an original camshaft installed, since the second Unorthodox camshaft sprocket had not come from the US.

Now that all small parts (except for the EFI system) have been donated to the block, the engine was finally able to get in again.

While the gearbox, cardan shaft and the original exhaust system were screwed back on again at the bottom, all previously numbered plugs and hoses were screwed and plugged together at the top.
This was even relatively fast and easy.

Now, at least in theory, everything is again installed and connected, everything again thought through and checked, loosely plug and hoses sought. Everything was okay and theoretically everything was done right despite hurdles.
All fluids were then replenished. Coolant, engine oil, brake fluid, power steering fluid.
The brake system was vented.
The power steering system is vented to the stop by the strenuous back and forth steering.

With the ratchet a few laps were turned on the crankshaft, so that the engine oil in the system can at least distribute.
Again oil was checked again and refilled.
After that, the throttle valve plugs and, to be on the safe side, the corresponding fuse were pulled so that the engine does not start when it is switched on. So with the starter also a few laps were turned in the engine and also the fuel lines were flooded by it and got back pressure.

So now it was time to start the engine for the first time. My knees were just too soft for that and I did not want to do it. I was with many horror scenarios in the head just not able to do this.

So the son of the mechanic had the mission to perform the first engine start, while I stood around ten meters further with fear and anxiety.

There were 4 possible scenarios.

• The car jumps on the first start immediately and runs
• The car does not ignite and only the starter turns.
• The car briefly starts and goes out again
• The car starts and breaks (piston, the shims under bucket, etc.)

The deeper you fall into the list of scenarios, the more terrible it would be. The plugs to the EFI and the fuses have been reinserted. At 11 pm the time had come and the mechanic said to his son

" Start "

He turns the key to ON ..... waits ...... and detonates.

He SPRAINS the same and runs and runs and runs.

After about 30 seconds, the engine was turned off again. In the first few seconds came out of the exhaust system some smoke, which is absolutely normal.
The engine oil was checked again and started again. He ran without problems.

Since a stone fell from our hearts.

The rest of the evening, only a few little things were done and then ended with a subsequent Feierabendbier (box).

The next day the car should be retracted.

About retracting a new engine could be philosophized for hours. There are different methods and theories.
Some people think that you should carefully drive in the engine for the first few thousand kilometers, not over 3000 rpm and without full throttle with the oil, which you will use later. The others think that they use a coarse-grained mineral oil for faster grinding of the components and only switch from 1000 km to a fully synthetic one.
Another theory for running a racing engine says that you should drive it from the beginning with full load (Of course, always after warm engine). If the engine has been well done, it stops. If not, it breaks quickly.

When driving in the engine, it may ultimately be crucial whether you will have low or high oil consumption.

It was decided for the careful approach method.

Here, a cheap mineral oil was used for the first 1000 km.
After about 15 minutes of engine idling, the oil (again mineral) and the oil filter was changed.
If necessary, open the oil filter and search for metal particles.
1000 km were driven with this oil and then with a renewed oil and filter change on the higher-quality synthetic Castrol RS 10w60 oil changed.
This was 4000 km driven.

When driving in, the speed of 3000 revolutions was never exceeded. Likewise, hardly or no boost pressure was driven and not greatly accelerated.

After the 4000 km a renewed oil and filter change.
Now the ARP head screws have been tightened. Thus, the engine should be retracted and you can gradually increase the speed.

I think that this is the best and most gentle way to retract the engine. The engine now has more than 50,000 km on the odometer after more than 2 years, between the oil change intervals of 10,000 km it has a low (below 100 ml) to no oil consumption.

And he runs and runs and runs .....

Hope you liked this report. Could finally get me to finish writing after 2 years. For my taste he might have been much more technical and detailed, but I do not have all the photos, information, and even more the memories of the engine conversion.