Drinking beers and shooting the shit on Discord voice chat has become the nightly norm for our gang during all of this COVID nonsense. While on another YouTube/Reddit stroll over Discord with Alex tonight, he brought up a simple, but excellent question: why don’t you see more Toyota-based swaps on crawlers and real-deal touring trucks? So, I’ll try to breakdown here what we discussed.
First things first, I’m going to give it to you plainly: keeping an OEM-only powertrain and driveline is something of a fool’s errand unless you:
A. Are specifically looking for a challenge and want to brag about your one-off
B. Have extra time, money, experience, and PATIENCE
Now, I’m admitting this as someone that constantly daydreams about doing a Rubicon driveline swap with a ZJ or 2nd gen Ram powertrain in an XJ. Or doing dual Diamond/Tundra 10.5s in a Toyota PU with a Yota 4.7 and FJC t case. While those would let you brag about your built Jeeper’s Jeep or True Toyota Mutt, they’re extremely impractical for the reasons I will list in a moment. Put simply: if you want to SAS/build out a swingin’ dick 4x4 (especially a Yota), you should put that misguided brand loyalty to bed, unless you already drive a domestic (GM, especially) and have a line on a good yard that won’t bend you over the barrel for a mated engine/trans.
Okay, so with that out of the way, let’s talk about the first issue: COST/AVAILABILITY. Seems that everyone and their mom has an LS (or at least a small block from that lineage) swapped YJ or FJ60 these days, right? One of the main reasons for this, if not the main reason is that a Vortec 5.3 or 6.0 can be found on everything from Craigslist to Facebook marketplace, and always for an almost criminally-low cost. These engines have been put in dozens of different models of vehicles for over a decade, which means that there are tens of thousands of them sitting in clapped-out Express vans and half ton Silverados, or collecting dust at Pull n Pay. Consider the following: you can pay $1000 for a 5.3 with a mated 4L60 trans and pick it up from the yard in 20 mins…or you can pay $6500+ for a Yota 5.7/A750F and hunt the combo down for weeks or longer. Freight shipping not included, of course. If you go the LS route, you can also pick through the axle housings on site and grab yourself a Kingpin 60 and a FF 14B for another $500, or a pair of Super Duty 60s from the dumpster fire that was the 6.0L Super Duty platform for even less. Meanwhile, Yota yards will demand easily twice as much for 80 series 8/9.5s. Or you can swallow the pre-fabbed housing cost, then fork over another pile of cash for a built 3rd member. And after you’ve burned through that ten grand, you’ve got an even higher hurdle to jump…
EASE OF INSTALLATION. This is the gatekeeper for any successful project, more than anything, me thinks. Because there are certainly a lot of “project” trucks that get abandoned by people with plenty of pocket change to finish them. But when you bite off more than you can chew, sometimes the best bet is to just excuse yourself. By choosing a common (read: domestic) donor powertrain/driveline, you get a giant leg up by having:
A. Wiring harness/PCMs/etc. available with nearly idiot-proof diagrams
B. A bevy of build threads and other people who have done the same thing to leech knowledge from
C. Far more options for burn-in adjusted motor mounts, bolt-in radiator brackets, shackle hoops, blah blah blah
Meanwhile, the one-off builder is doing constant geometric calculations and measurements, tacking things in, cutting ‘em back out, adjusting and repeating ad nauseam without a jumping-off point. Looks like your high school teachers were right: people do use this math shit in the real world. It will add tremendous amounts of time, effort, and annoyance to a swap when you’re assembling something from scratch. Making sure you retain Ackerman, don’t bury the tire in the body mount halfway through uptravel, and can actually drive it in a straight line are pretty important steps. That’s not to say that there’s not fabrication in any large-scale swap project. But a 72” WMS pair of 60s have threads on 10 different forums for how far inboard the outside of the front LCA mounts were placed from the WMS on a Taco running X amount of lift on Y size tires with Z suspension. That’s a much better jumping off point than trying to make your own showcase 4th gen T4R on 80 axles with a Tundra engine/trans, and FJC transfer case (with trans adapter) that’s never even been done as a SEMA exhibit. Commonality brings a streamline.
Okay, so you’re still deadset on building your project with only your favorite manufacturer’s parts. It’s going to cost a lot more money, take longer to do, be far more difficult, and painful to source. But you don’t care. Just ask yourself one last question: to what end? Theoretically, any 4x4 swap is based around a lack of performance in the current setup. So to what end is this brand loyalty addressing your perceived weaknesses compared to a Frankenbuild? What can a purely Toyota swap do that a Frankenbuild can’t? Answer: nothing. In fact, in all likelihood it can’t even meet the Frankenbuild’s benchmark. Ford’s 9” rear end is an awesome donor because it offers a larger ring gear and tube diameter than the old D44 (m0ar stronga, duh), but is very cheap and readily available…while using a dropout 3rd member like Toyota. Find some run down OBS half ton and pull it, then walk down the row and grab a Dodge D44 front end. Once you get home, hop on your local listings and nab that Chevy 6.0 from that Suburban that’s being parted out. And both NV4500 transmissions and NP205 T cases were available in vehicles from the big three domestic companies for decades. Maybe you need a bolt-in bellhousing adapter from AA? Simple enough. Boom, your lightweight compact wheeler now has power/drive components that can handle hauling horse trailers. To what end does narrowing the donor field to only half a dozen options serve you, compared to choosing only the very best options from 50 or so domestic variations of work trucks and toy haulers?
I’ve mused over the same lineage and “pure” project ideas myself. I get it. There’s just something cool about keeping it original. You know what’s cooler than that, though? Wheeling the fuck outta your truck. I’d suggest picking the option that allows you to do that quicker, easier, & cheaper. Mo’ beer money is mo’ betta.
-JOSH