TR7 1uz conversion

[jammez]

Hi Folks

New to this site but thought I'd let you know about my TR7 project.

I bought it back in 2009 as part of  a crazy pub conversation! I go to Le Mans every year to the 24hr and we wanted to do it in something a bit different so we set ourselves a top Gear style challenge to buy sports cars (i use the term loosely) for less than £400 with an additional  £100 for necessary works!  

I ended up with a 1977 FHC TR7 for £150 with a knackered engine & a spare one in the boot!

After getting the car up and running & passing it's MOT I got ready to head to Le Mans. The plan was to head from Scotland to the Midlands via Bolton for a work conference, meet up with friends in the midlands then head down to Le Mans. 

The night before I left the alternator packed up so I charged up the battery + chucked a spare in the boot & headed to Bolton. I arranged for a new alternator to be waiting in Birmingham, just had to get to Bolton, stay over night charge up the batteries again then head to Birmingham. 

All went to plan, made it to Bolton with a stop to change batteries (I got some funny looks from the hotel manager when I walked in with 2 car batteries to charge up!) Next day I headed off to Birmingham when disaster struck & the car blew a spark plug out due to a dodgy thread on the head. Not to be deterred I put the plug back in wrapped in some foil from a piece of chewing gum + some of the chewing gum. Believe it or not this actually worked & I made it to within 100 yards of my destination before it blew out again but the car was going no further. 

12 months later, head sorted I set off again & made it to Le Mans with no problems - on the way back the diff started to make horrible noises and the car limped the last 100 miles to Scotland with the diff sounding like a bag of gravel in a a washing machine. 




Once back I took the decision to strip down the car completely & start a rebuild! This was 5 years ago and it's still going on! I'll post a bit more to bring you up to speed on where I'm at & any comments greatly appreciated! I've always serviced my own cars & bikes but prior to this the biggest project I'd undertaken was a strip down of a Honda Hornet which is a doddle in comparison! Every day's a school day & I'm having great fun & learning loads, just wish I had a bit more time!

[bob1957]

Your car looks great mate, will be watching with interest!

[jammez]

Sometime in 2010!



So the plan was to strip the car down and do a V8 conversion. I started to strip the car down in 2010, whilst the car looked ok on the outside it soon became clear it had all the usual TR7 rot problems, sills, rear arm mounting points, floor pan, wheel arches blah, blah, blah!



No surprises really as I'd read plenty about what to expect.
 
Out came the interior




I'm lucky to have access to a really great workshop with some handy stuff like a lift, fork lift, welding gear and plenty of space - I couldn't imagine trying to do this elsewhere!

[yorkebar]

What an epic start. and what a good choice for an engine swap!

[Mercdan68]

Bookmarked, I remember sitting in one of these brand new in a lex dealer in bexleyheath must have been 1976/77? As a nine year old boy these were just sensational, as I got older I admit to ridiculing them...now? I'd love to own one, bookmarked and watching with interest, good luck and please keep the updates coming

[DWDarkWheels]

Nice, simple, risk-free car to start and learn from. And I do like a TR7 FHC.

I hope we don't have to wait 5 years for the next update

[paulwoods]

Bookmarked, should be epic!

[jammez]

Thanks for the comments so far, I condensed the Le Mans part of the story. In reality it was much more of a comedy of errors but just don't have time to write it all. If you ever meet me in the pub I'll tell the story!

At some point towards the end of 2010 I managed to get wind of a stalled v8 conversion that was up for sale. The plan was to get hold of this and use the parts to build up my car. After a bit of negotiating my father in law, Graham and I acquired 2 convertible shells, a couple of rv8 engines and a whole pile of parts, all for £800.

Going through it all we soon realised that the one shell was rubbish but the other was very good, in amongst the boxes of bits we found a receipt for over £3k for panels and body work! So Graham decided to build up the good shell in its own right which left me with no parts again!

Meanwhile the strip down continued





Budget was was tight so I started to learn to weld so I could fabricate and repair as much as possible myself. My first attempts were ok but I look back at it now and I want to redo it all!

[Richard TR7]

Never enough TR7's on here! Good luck with the conversion, I shal be watching with interest. Did you know that the 1uz in to tr7 has been done before, There is a guy in Oz who did it, coincidently in a yellow one as well.

Having had a quick google - there have been a few done, you have this to look forward to:

[jammez]

Yep there's a couple of conversions in Oz and the US. I think the 1uz is much more popular over there and there's a much bigger tuning scene for the engine. £ for BHP I don't think you can pick a better engine. everything I read about them seems positive. I'm doing something a bit different with the Lexus bits & I'll come to that shortly!

[jammez]

So along came the chance to get hold of a nice 7 series BMW with a 3ltr v8 in and the original plan was to try & drop the engine and gearbox in the TR7. To be honest whilst the 7 series was worth practically nothing it was just too good to sacrifice!

After a bit of internet surfing I came across a guy called Rodney Wells who had dropped the Lexus engine in his Tr7 and the conversion looked neat & pretty straight forward so I then started to look for a suitable car. Courtesy of ebay I located an early model LS400 and £375 later it was mine!



It smelt like a wet dog, was pretty tatty inside but the engine started on the button & ran super smoothly. So the next challenge was how to make this fit in the TR7! Oh yeah it even came with the cool number plate which was probably worth more than the car!

[bazzateer]

Keep going!

[qwerty]

Excellent project. Keep the updates coming!

[jammez]

Hi Folks

Been on hols for a few weeks, back now so time to continue with the story. At this point I think we're at about October 2011. Various panels were replaced along with arch repairs but progress was pretty slow. 

[jammez]

Throughout the first half of 2012 lots of time was spent stripping out the Lexus, it was at this point that the rebuild took on a whole new dimension! I removed the rear suspension from the Lexus which turned out to be this lovely looking subframe with, a nice diff, disc brakes & a great looking prop shaft. I got the tape measure out at this point and started measuring up a few bits and figured out that with a bit of modification the whole assembly could probably be made to fit in the TR7! As if I didn't have enough to do!


           


So throughout 2012 I spent time stripping down the suspension components, I cut about 5 inches out of the subframe & welded it back together to make it fit the back of the TR, butchered (that's the best word I can use!) the rear of the TR and cut various bits of the lexus chassis to use as mounts for the TR7. 

I was also offering up the engine & gearbox to see how that fits, which I have to say was remarkably well!

[jammez]

2013 was pretty much a write off as far as the car was concerned as I spent the whole year working on our house putting in a new kitchen & bathroom. When you have a 130yr old cottage it throws up as many issues as a 1970's TR7! So fast forward to 2014 and thing did start to move along. 



The subframe was offered up and the modifications to the TR made to hold it all in place.  Once in place I built up the suspension dropped in the diff and it looks very different to the normal back end of a TR, god knows if it's actually going handle when it's finished but I guess we'll find out!

[jammez]

Various other parts were sourced, a set of MX5 shocks which seem about the right size, they're pretty knackered but they'll do for the purposes of sizing things up. Quite a few of the bushes were shot on the lexus suspension arms and they cost an absolute fortune to replace. I had a go at making up some from polyurethene rod on the lathe. They came out pretty good, but time will tell if they last




When I bought the job lot of Tr parts I got a set of princess calipers & vented discs. I painted them up & they look great but they weigh ton! I started to look around at other options & got my hands on a set of 4 pot AP calipers & discs from an MG TF. Much lighter & with a bit fiddling I'm sure they'll fit. 


The car now has the rear suspension fully built up, it's sitting on for wheels (ignore the lexus wheels on the back they're just so we can move it about) front suspension & steering rack is in, Graham used a modified MG F electric power steering conversion on his so he's been building that up for me. The engine & gear box are back but only sitting on temporary mounts at the moment, prop has been shortened and is fitted and the drive shafts have been cut down & welded to allow us to see how it all fits. I'll get new custom one's made once I'm ready. That pretty much brings us up to date. I stumbled across this forum via Pauls 944 1uz conversion. He very kindly sold me a sump he had which will allow me to move on with the final install of the engine & fabricating up the engine mounts. I'm hoping to get some of that done this weekend & I'll get some more pictures of the car in it's current state. Next big job is wires!

[Paul Barrett]

Cool, another 1uz build! Keep at it, mines at a little standstill with a baby due any day now.

[omega]

very nice

[Anglia68]

Lovely looking car and I'm enjoying the quality of your work and am looking forward to more of it.