JDM LN107 Hilux build thread

[Ray_G]

Good day folks-
Spent a lot of time on ExpO awhile back, mostly in the Land Rover section. Then I got sent back overseas, during COVID, into an absurdly busy job so the time to build trucks waned and those trucks didn’t come to Japan with us. Towards the end of the time there the wife finally hit a tip over point where she said “if you buy one of those Hiluxes you keep showing me, will you stop talking to me about them/showing them to me?”

Of course.

So we became the proud owners of a 1995 LN107. I now have enough content from initial ownership, the transit to Hawaii as our next duty station, and the subsequent build using a mix of US and Australian parts, and just a little bit more time on my hands for the moment, to warrant starting a build thread without leaving everyone hanging.

Basic specs:
1995 model year
LN107, meaning IFS front end (for my purposes that is fine compared to the solid axle LN106).
2.8L diesel. Was naturally aspirated. No longer. That will be its own specific post.
5 speed
Factory locked in the back.
2” lift, was initially the high school special (cranked torsion bars and rear shackle lift-now mostly OME)
32” MTs, started with KM2s, now running KM3s

The real intro:

How she looks now, in Hawaii, with a front bumper and sliders on the OME lift.

How she looked in Japan. Note the add on bar, it looked cool…but with a tiny bed it just ate up too much functional space.

Bed was barely big enough to carry my rock climbing stuff….while I’m mostly kidding, it will demand discipline in the build.

Was a great cruising around Okinawa truck. Came from the mainland so not the typical rust issues you find with vehicles that spend a lot of time there.

Ultimately the truck is being built mostly to see what fun I can have with a low miles RHD Toyota. My ‘toy’ in Hawaii, akin to how my LR3 was my Abu Dhabi project, expectation is this will come back to the States when whatever comes next comes next. Building it for light/moderate wheeling, mostly on the East Coast but with the desire to stretch her legs across the US at times. In most cases with this truck less will be more to keep the weight down and rely on the torque of the diesel, the locker, winch, and traction aids for when she inevitably get stuck. I’m not a point and shoot skinny pedal wheeling guy anyway. It’s also really nice to wrench on a Toyota compared to the usual Land Rover rusted bolts and such…the build quality of this truck is superb.

 

[Ray_G]

Initial mods

Getting the truck with ~140k on it meant she was barely at 80k miles. Based off condition of the paint and interior, I don’t think she had a hard life up on the mainland. It appears someone used her for mostly show, i.e. the faint outlines of vinyl BFGoodrich, Rancho, and other stickers were apparent and the stance of the truck was more form than truly functional given the stock torsion bars and shackle lift.

I started with the usual baselining of fluids, and then started to determine what I could actually do at the far end of the supply chain in Japan. You can get parts there, but mods…that can be a challenge. So I started small, knowing we’d move back to the US at some point within about the next 7-8mo (I got her fall of ‘21).

Some things I did out of necessity-blue tooth enabled head unit, for example.
Of course the only handy pic I have of that involves a corn dog.

Some b/c I wanted to protect the seats and wiring in seat heaters for an eventual return to the US allowed me to try the Wet Okle seat heaters and using an eBay kit to give a more factory like look to the switches. Let’s not focus on the fact that we moved from a tropical island to a tropical island eventually…

The factory speakers were lacking and being a fairly basic unit, the doors had no speakers in the. So I modified a Tacoma overhead MOLLE panel and added some storage and speakers.

A new momo wheel…just b/c

Final big mod in Japan was a factory clinometer + unit…just bc.

 

[Ray_G]

Two other minor mods before the truck left Japan:

-4 runner console to replace the stock one, gives two cup holders and more space for storage.

Headlight upgrade. Didn’t want to go full LED, thus retained the traditional but upgraded to halogens and upgraded bulbs.

 

[Ray_G]

Shipped the truck off Oki in May of ‘22 via the slow boat (thank you Jones act) but the price was right. Truck went from Okinawa to mainland Japan, to Korea, to LA, then to Hawaii but it eventually arrived.

JDM car scene in Hawaii is strong these days, mostly centered around Kei trucks/vans that are far cheaper than new or even many used cars in Hawaii, and perfect for the island life. Having met one of the importers who can assist with registration I handed over the keys and two days later she was titled/tagged/taxed/inspected. Which was weeks faster than our Tacoma went through coming from WV.

Being in the US opened up far easier parts options, even with the premium that comes from shipping stuff to Hawaii. First up was giving it a proper lift. I went through Rocky Road for the tried and true OME setup.

Shocks went on easy. That was the last of the easy in this part of the journey.

The remainder of the front was the usual struggle IFS Toyota pickup owners have with 25+ year old bolts on the torsion bars. I was prepared with fresh hardware. I was not, however, prepared to get one out after a lot of torque being applied and eventual breakage of the bolt to determine that…I had been sent LC bars.

FML. Those aren’t going to fit. Credit to Rocky Road, they made it right-the timeline for new OME bars was awhile so we went a different direction.

The rear suspension took on a life of its own mostly due to the cheap shackle extension setup.

As is the way with such things, to the question of how many tools did you use? All of them.

Including heat. It cannot stick if its liquid…
Ultimately the springs went in the back, and the ride is much better.

Which was good b/c by then bumper, winch, and sliders were on the agenda.

 

[Ray_G]

For bumper choices I knew I did not want tube, which left me between ARB and the Warn. Just for the sake of trying something different (and deferring to what my wife preferred-if we’re being honest, but at least she had an opinion) we went with the warn.

Given exposure to salt water in Hawaii, and my affinity for the old school superwinch EP9 series winches, I decided to try Comeup for this build. Their seal gen 2:

Winch went on fairly painlessly, just a little bit of grinding.

Final outcome, with a set of Hella Black Magics filling the space for the moment.

Finished off the suspension upgrades with a Dobinson’s steering damper since the OME was back ordered at the time. Figure it’s just a different Australian company in the mix, I actually used some of their greasable shackles in the back too-good quality equipment.

 

[Ray_G]

Thus far the relative interchangeability between that gen toyota pickup and the Hilux made things easy.

Too easy.

I wanted sliders. I assumed, without measuring, that extended cab pickups and double cab Hiluxes are essentially the same.

That would prove to be a false assumption.

Though they would hook up nice to a Tacoma…

Given cost of shipping and the cost/quality of the Rocky Road setup I was not inclined to start again. Thus a plan was set in motion via peeps-it is good to make friends with the staff at places, who know folks who are fabricators on the island that also can do side work. So my oldest daughter and I, during her Xmas break, went and played assistant.

Cut out approx 9”, welded them back up with reinforcement plates inboard…

In the end, even with the little pipe weld bump, I’m really happy with the Rocky Road sliders and we learned a lot helping with the mods.

 

[Ray_G]

The next big leap would be going turbo…

This was not without significant consideration, but the truth is even trying to keep it light it had picked up some weight for a truck that was never going to have a lot of speed and top end power. Oahu has a lovely highway running through it connected leeward and windward sides, that I used everyday for my commute. By the top of the hill it was 3rd gear trying to maintain 80kph.

Since this was always going to be a ‘fun’ build to see what was possible in the platform, I was given the green light to explore the Australian penchant for doing hot side turbo kits. I went with the HD Automotive premium setup for the 3L/5L motor.
https://hdautomotive.com.au/product/ln106-turbocharger-kit-premium/
Thankfully the exchange rate made it more palatable…and it arrived in good condition.

Knowing that I’d want some adult supervision, the project was put on hold till I could recruit the best friend to fly out to Hawaii. In the interim some other small things came together, like putting Land Cruiser pockets onto the doors for a little more storage. eBay specials, they worked well even if the color is a little off.

 

[tacollie]

I love LN107s! Keep it coming!

 

[Ray_G]

The turbo…

I finally hit the tip over point where time + assistance + desire overcame trepidation. Bringing the best friend in from his off-road park in WV, we set out to ‘bolt on’ this turbo kit.

While not a Land Rover, by any stretch, one can imagine there was a lot of fiddling to get it done. Removal of the oil pan to then get a bung welded in was fun, with the IFS setup limiting flex ultimately we unbolted the engine to get clearance.

It eventually came off, was cleaned, and after an initial attempt to braise we just took it to a local speed shop to have the bung welded (which was the right call, and only took a day during which we worked the top end).

Top end wasn’t too bad up front. The HD Automotive components were def solid. Unbolting the a/c to give more access was clutch but exhaust manifold and turbo all slid into place.

Having a JDM LN107 ran us into inevitable challenge with the piping, i.e. having a 2nd battery meant that the air intake was not in the location I presume the Aussies have theirs. Likewise other components weren’t quite the same but with some trips to O’Reillys, and Napa, and scavenging we managed to cobble together an initial setup to get it running.

Clearance issues with the torsion bars meant that the 3” downpipe ended up being reduced to a 2.5” exhaust but on the whole given the very mild desires I have for the turbo and the relative size of the 2.8L engine, I’m not stressing on it.

Troubleshooting boost leaks (Homemade EGR blank needed better fitting), some small mods like a 10 blade fan, and careful test runs ensued.

This ultimately culminated in a few jaunts up/down the H3 to see how she’d perform.

Declaring success, we took the truck for a trip up to the North Shore to celebrate.

Including a celebratory dinner at the OG Haleiwa Joes.

Initial reflections on the turbo: it is achieving the intended result, i.e. the truck is noticeably quicker off the line and faster. The HD turbo spools quickly, and with the likelihood that the previous owner had slightly messed with the fueling given the black smoke at throttle under load the truck now runs clean with EGTs not being too high even at the top of end of a ~12.5 psi hill run. The components of the kit were excellent, even if the instructions essentially were enough to guide you but also insufficient to allow someone who wasn’t experienced enough to go all in and find themselves in a quandary. Ultimately I have no regrets about it thus far. I am considering a small water/air intercooler and will be keeping an eye on temps as summer approaches, but it is hard not to just smile when the little spool occurs.

 

[Ray_G]

A quick oil change to make sure any gunk was out.

The irony was the turbo was running smooth, my friend was safely deposited at the airport to return to the east coast, and I was enjoying a Mon am commute interrupted on the H3 by some unexpected stop and go traffic when the next challenge would emerge…

…as traffic broke I decided to use the new acceleration to pull past a dump truck going up the hill. Lights on the dash come on and the annoying buzzer goes off. Truck keeps running. Since I’m on a highway and its running, with no signs of overheating just some kind of duress, I get through the tunnel and get her down the hill and to work.

Where the internet tells me that it is likely my alternator no longer providing a charge.

Troubleshooting in the parking lot with voltmeter confirms. Still, she starts and runs, so we limp home.

Recognizing I have a rare vehicle, I decided that one is none and two shall be one with the alternator-pulling it to take to a local rebuilder while concurrently ordering a spare from Australia.

Removal was a PITA since it was a first time on this truck for me, but having spent plenty of time on that side of the truck recently, at least things like the A/C were familiar to me.

Ordering the Aussie spare was good b/c the local ended up being confounded and declared defeat, handing me back the alternator-at least telling me what was wrong with it…rectifier burned out in addition to brushes, etc. In fairness it was the OE unit.

Aussie unit arrived, was installed in no time. Truck is back in the fight and the OE alternator was prepared for shipment to Japan where peeps will get it rebuilt locally.

 

[Ray_G]

But wait, there’s more!

Drive the truck to work-turbo still working great, no lights on the dash. I’m chilling.

Wife and I walk to dinner, come back, truck looks cattywampus from the back. I walk around the front…

Tires were on the agenda, hopefully for later in the spring…especially since getting anything to Hawaii takes a minute. The decrepit dry rotting KM2s had other thoughts though. Thankfully facebook marketplace in Hawaii can deliver all things-with an indeterminate ETA on KO2s, a set of ~90% far fresher KM3s were sourced locally.

The great tire rodeo ensues since the bead locks that came with the KM3s were not my bolt pattern. I will say the KM3s are not quiet at 110kph. The good news is the truck is easily hitting 110kph.

Sadly I didn’t even get a pic of it, though it looks exactly the same since we’re still on 32x11.5s before I had to travel again.

Up next is electrical…using the fact that she has two batteries (Apparently JDM/ROW due this in parallel) to put in an isolator, and then a range of things associated with that. A little bit longer down the pike will be OBA and other stuff in the back.

 

[AggieOE]

Loving this build! Thanks for all the pictures! The JDM/OEM parts are well worth the cost to keep it old-school looking.

 

[thezentree]

This truck is so cool.

 

[Ray_G]

Wrapped up a whole bunch of wiring projects, need to take some better pics of the impact of them but can at least relate in part some of the components.

Blue sea system ML-ACR for battery isolation, made some brackets and used the back side to hold an upgraded H4 harness from Tacomabeast (https://tacomabeast.com/products/h4-9003-hb2-heavy-duty-relay-headlight-wiring-harness-upgrade)

Unexpected long weekend afforded the time to actually do the wiring for the ACR, put 3 of 4 mil spec terminals on, put an external Anderson plug for easier jumping/being jumped, as well as upgrading some lighting.

Gotta figure out how to protect the Anderson plug for eventual approach angle issues but most of my trucks have this integrated into them and I appreciate not having to pop the hood to jump vehicles.

The above shot shows the Anderson plug setup just below the winch hook, and highlights some Baja Designs fogs as well as ARB Solis 21’s that backfilled some Hella Black Magics. A side by side of the driving lights:

I opted to put in the black pieces vice red, the light output is NICE and the aesthetic is a bit huskier filling up the space so I’m not displeased with the upgrade by any stretch. Interior wiring…always fun.

Dual battery monitoring…too bright

Some tint helped calm that down. The ARB switch placement can be seen too.

Center console setup for the ACR, and the OBA switch-OBA is next but while everything was apart I did the wiring for the switch.

I need to go out at night and get some shots of what it all looks like.

 

[Ray_G]

However we did spend some time enjoying the limited wheeling here on Oahu, and that resulted in some glamour shots.

Other than private land, there are really only a few places to go. Most of that is up north, which is the part of the island we prefer anyway. Ka’ena Point state park has a few miles of unimproved roads in an absolutely gorgeous area.

We have a penchant for being on islands and circumnavigating (Okinawa was much larger), in this case this part afforded the chance to see albatross nesting areas, spot some whales, sea turtles, but sadly no monk seals. Still…I snagged some shots of the truck in her element.

Hard not to find good food here too…figure that is decent ExpO content too even if not pertinent to the truck build.

Up next…OBA, and then a storage solution for the back that will pull aspects from previous builds.