My New (to Me) Ls400

[Ruud]

Would be nice to fit DRLs in place of the bumper indicators.............

[steve20vt]

My thoughts exactly

[steve20vt]

Small update, I thought the handling was a little on the wet side and I could feel some fluffyness from the left rear and right front.

I sent the Mrs out for a drive in it and followed in the other car.

As suspected the left rear damper is not damping so well in spite d looking fine and passing a physical bump test.

I've decided to invest a little in this car as it's so nice, I've also decided that coilovers would destroy the ride completely.

So while trawling round for rear dampers I decided to use Bilstein B6 units, these are sport models uprated over stock but not too hard.

I've used B8 versions on other cars and could live with the extra hard ride of those so I imagine the 6's will be softer.

They're not exactly cheap at £560 a set of four but my relentless pursuit of improvement knows no bounds.

[steve20vt]

The new rear dampers turned up yesterday, the usual excellent Bilstein quality. I'll get them on at the weekend, then hopefully it won't be long before I get the fronts sorted too.

[steve20vt]

Took a while to find time to get the new rea dampers on, when I'd got the old ones offe I was surprised at how good they felt even though I knew they were shot.

With the new ones fitted the ride is noticeably stiffer, much less body roll and a vast improvement in the handling even considering the fronts are well worn.

Due to this it does want to get sideways at any given opportunity, with the fronts replaced soon the balance should be restored.

I'll be swapping back to the original wheels for winter as although the 18" wheels give a nice "feel" to the handling the tyres are only cheap nasty things and are lousy on wet roads and will be lethal if shown any cold temperatures and God forbid, snow.

The original wheels and tyres have much more roll but decent Continental tyres on so will do for winter while I get the 18" wheels refurbished and some premium performance tyres fitted for the spring time.

Next on the list after the front dampers will be a case of renewing as many bushes, ball joints and arms as I can lay my hands on.

[steve20vt]

Well the old girl is still running sweetly, when the mot ran out I almost pulled the engine and box out, but after giving it a once over it didn't seem to need anything for its mot. 

So it's survived another year. No advisories either. I did change the rear discs and pads for peace of mind. 

Since the car WILL be being broken next year (rust around windscreen top) the engine will find its way into my project car, but in the mean time I will use it to develop the engine. 

I've been building up a nice collection of bits and pieces to turbocharge it. As space is a bit of a premium I'll be doing what's known as a remote mount turbo conversion.  Something our cousins across the pond favour with corvettes and such. 

It will be a low boost set up running up to 8psi and aiming for modest gains in the region of about 70bhp 

its a challenge and I'm aiming to get before and after dyno runs to see how well or not it's done. 

Budget wise I'm being pretty insane at hopefully under £1500 but not exceeding £2000.

when the engine is fitted to the project car I'll retain most of the parts I'll buy for this set up but it will be twin turbo and full standalone management and aiming for 500bhp

pics and such to follow. 

[Chasdad]

Havent you got this up for sale. I thought the engine was going in a fiat 

[steve20vt]

Nooooo it's not for sale, too much fun! Yes it's heading for my fiat, probably next year. 

I have another 1uz soarer engine now to use for mocking up in the fiat. 

It's a bit of a hybrid, lexus engine, mazda mx5 front subframe and wishbones, ls400 rear axle, mazda rx7 front hubs, fiat coupe body. 

Frankensteins Monster. 

[plastic orange]

I briefly considered using the engine out my LS when the rest of the car's time is up, but I feel it's a bit too wide for fitting in another Morris Minor. Good luck with your project though. Post up some build pics please.

 

Pete

[steve20vt]

I don't think it's any larger dimensionally than a rover v8. 

I'll post some pics up later

[plastic orange]

It's very wide across the heads compared to other V8's - I've used Rover, Ford 302 and Chevy LS before.

 

Pete

[steve20vt]

SBC hell yeah

[Chasdad]

Was it on pistonheads ive read about your build. Theres one similar to yours for sale on gumtree i think. Ive an vr ltd eunos thatll be getting my ls430 engine if it ever goes wrong

[steve20vt]

Yes I've just started a thread on PH. Nothing for sale though. I'd quite like another Ls400 though as a daily but I'll probably end up being more practical and get a Mondeo diesel. 

 

1uz Eunos conversions are awesome! I'd have considered it myself if the mx5 I got wasn't rotten in the rear inner sills. 

[goldtop]

70bhp seems a bit low for all of the work you'll be doing, no?

Of course, if you're also putting in a manual gearbox (which one, out of interest?), it would be a completely different drive over the LS with slushbox.

[steve20vt]

That's 70bhp on the standard ecu with only light modifications to the fuel system. 

Aiming for around 330bhp on this set up, later on I'll be adding another identical turbo and running a fully mappable management system so won't need a lot of extra stuff in the future. 

The Fiat will be built ready for manual, but I'll be using the auto till I can justify the cost of the supra TT box and kit to fit it. I've got another auto box that I'll be modifying for a faster change. I did some to the current box in the ls400, it worked wonders but was a bit of a cheat and the pressure was a little too high. 

[steve20vt]

I spent about four hours undoing the cat to manifold nuts, I didn't want any shearing. Eventually after loosening and tightening millions of times they all came off and the very rusty cats and Y pipe could be dropped away. 

Id already had the carpet out a cpuple of weeks ago and planned to start removing bits from the car to make it lighter, but I missed the comfort and compromised by cutting the carpet into four sections so I can still get access to the floor and o2 sensor plugs. 

My £1500 budget covers everything I'll need to turbocharge the the car and where possible it's all new parts. The turbo is a cheap Chinese special and basically a copy of a Garret GT35. These can be hit and miss and I've had this one to pieces and aside from smoothing (finishing off) some casting lumps and bumps it's not bad. 

Some people have had failures and other people have had them running for over 3 years without a problem. If it lasts 6 months it's still cheap enough to replace. 

In a front set up its good for an apparent 600bhp  but a rear mount runs much cooler exhaust gas which although could still deliver me enough boost pressure for over 100bhp extra, I  being conservative with the boost keeping it below 7 psi.

a bonus of the much cooler exhaust gasses is much reduced heat stress on the turbo so that may help its longevity. The trick with bolting a turbo at thre rear of the exhaust is sizing, the exhaust, the boost pressure pipes and the turbo.

for front mounting the turbine is too small and would choke the engine, but for rear mounting the T3 flanged AR .63 is about as small as you'd want to go giving fast spool up and just about able to cope with the exhaust flow. The compressor side is larger at AR .70 and will provide enough air to feed the engine. 

Exhaust wise I've got the downpipe flanges ready to make up a cat less system that's 2.5" in diameter on the down pipes into a Y pipe and single silencer less system also of 2.5" intentionally to speed up the flow into the turbo.

from the turbo will be a 3" outlet pipe into an electrically operated butterfly which when open will let the exhaust straight out to the tailpipe. When closed the exhaust gas is diverted through a small rear system with a couple of silencers in it. 

Although the turbo has an internal waste gate I will use an external unit mounted just before the turbo which once operated will send gas through the silenced rear system. 

The turbo will get its own oil supply via a sump mounted where the spare wheel well was. It's actually from a fiat coupe and together with its oil pump driven by an electric motor I'll be able to supply the turbo with the perfect amount of oil.

the oil supply is usually an oil line from the engine to the turbo and an electric scavenge pump back to the engine. I just wanted it to be separate and fully controllable.

 

 

[steve20vt]

[steve20vt]

So far I'm in up to about £800, the exhaust proving to be the largest expense so far. 

A quick run down of the costs for all items. 

Turbo & lines £185

Turbo oil lubrication system £109

Complete exhaust including electric cut out £447 

Boost piping kit including intake system £203

fuelling including pump & regulator £123

engine service parts £137

Electrical, wideband kit, gauges etc  £188

Transmission including oil cooler and oil flush £104

Miscellaneous, hose clips, welding gas etc £50

Total £1437 or there abouts, this will go up I'd imagine. I've not factored in dyno runs before and after or more spending on pipework but that's basically it there. 

Ive another early 1uz in the shop that's been rebuilt and being a 1990 engine it has the larger rods able to take much more power than the post 1995 engine. 

 

[Caractacus]

I would relish the chance of some chrome wheels like you bought, as i have fitted chrome wheel arch spats and a chrome grill to my Ls400, also green in colour.  I was lucky enough to acquire a 1 owner example.  Poor chap  lost is ability to drive.

[steve20vt]

My £1500 budget is ever evolving, and has popped the £1700 barrier. £800 more than I paid for the car, we all need a hobby though. 

Hopefully I'll have everything needed soon and I can begin to weld the exhaust together. 

The cradle for the turbo is almost complete and soon the oil pump drive will be ready for testing properly. 

Updates and pics soon. 

[steve20vt]

Well it’s 2019 and I’m still using the old girl. The V8 Fiat was put on hold when I couldn’t get the engine to physically fit in the space I had. It’s  just too tall. I really didn’t want to cut the bonnet.

so that Fiat Coupe is currently being restored and the “spare” one has a VVTi 1UZ sat resting in the engine bay waiting for a decision to carry on at some point. 

In the mean time I’ve been doing bits and bobs to the LS400, every time I got ready to fit the turbo the MOT loomed so it didn’t happen.....

However,  now I have come up with a fool proof plan to extricate the catalysts while still being able to pass an MOT. 

Since id been pretty horrid to the old girl over the last couple of years with the mindset of “it’ll be broken up at some point” so it’s seen some abuse for which I was feeling bad about. The Grey interior having been treated like a work van was looking terrible. 

So deciding I now had a few 1UZ engines and looms kicking around now, I figured I was rather attached to this car. I felt it needed rescuing and so procured a complete interior in lovely black.  After a good while I also treated it to a nice black carpet courtesy of another forum member. 

And before I begin to finally get around to upping the power I feel it’s best to start replacing the many soft and worn out bushes and other little bits and bobs. 

I will put up some photos of how the car is currently soon. In April started on the YouTube, where there are now a few videos on this car and my three others. 

More info very soon 🙂