new 2 toyota, please help with 81 truck

[ssteve]

Ok so my dad just bought a new toyota truck and so he gave me his old one. Its a 81 pickup with about 370,000 original miles on it, and he just recently took the head off to do a gasket and it was in surprisingly good shape. It also has a really sloppy 4 speed in it. Since it was free I was thinking of freshining up the motor but I dont have any experiance with the 22r's. Is it a fairly straight forward swap to do a 22re? I have put 5.0's in broncos and what not so the little stuff(wiring/o2s/senders)doesnt bug me, but will it bolt right in? I was thinking of gettin a turbo 4 out of something newer. Would that work ok? Also what about the tranny, what would be the easiest swap? I would like to do a 5 speed but I not sure what year and model would fit the easiest. I also have a chevy 350 and turbo 350 with an np205 laying around and I was contomplating hacking the whole thing up and sticking those in. Do many people do this swap? I know its a little much but what are your younger years for if you cant go out and brake stuff with over powered toys?

[Cyclemut]

I'm also contemplating an engine swap, but a little less horsepower. A think a 4.3, throttle body injected V6 would be perfect for such a small truck. It'll drag my '83 around, no problem at all. Heck, still use the stock trans, t-case (prefer the gear driven stocker t-case of the chain driven NP205 any day) with perhaps a Marlin Crawler gear reduction kit in it. Then the stock axles, with Profield Birfield joints with nice inner 300M Poly Performance axle shafts will do just about anything I ever want to do with her. A nice locker, or 2, would be sweet as well.

Using the '87 4Runner fuel tank, with the 17 gallon gas tank, and the in tank fuel pump, will be a nice addition over the stocker that we have.

There is a ton of information out there, and here.

I'd rethink the 350, personally. The weight, and the added problems with drivelines, springs, etc., wouldn't justify it. Just my opinion though.

You could just swap in the manifolds, the wiring, the pump and stuff for the RE conversion. Just get an early model version of the RE as a donor. You'll be all set.

[ssteve]

I think I am going to do a carbed 5.0 motor that I have laying around. It has about 260hp at the fly wheel N/A and a multi point N2O set up(125 shot) on it so I might just throw that in there with the stock drivetrain and when it goes replace it with full width stuff. Im not really worried about braking stuff cause chevy running gear is cheap, so Ill just end up going that route.

[jamesketchum]

yo i got a 87 toyota with a 350 i put inmy self its a lot of work and just to damn hard but i have twin turbos off a 87 peterbuildt its about a 2 mounth project and you cant use your stock any thing the differental is to weak so are the - axels, transfercase(if its a 4x4) infact about the only thing that dose work is the frame(with a few mods) and the body serious scrap it all and put in the 350
mines pushing 18psi and 559 horses an 610 torque

[CU@DCrest]

Ssteve,

There's no problem bolting on a later model 22re for your truck, the problem you'll encounter would be the injectors. I know the 22r are carburated, if you want more power for your truck, just install a headers, cam and a dual side draft Mikuni carbs. Your not gonna believe how much power you'll gonna get with these set-up, your gonna surprise people with V8 under there hood. Or you can also swap for the 22rt w/c is a turbo motor, only problem with these and the 22re motor is that they're fuel injection. You gonna have to deal with these unless you have a back ground in fuel injection system. If you planining to change your tranny from 4 speed to 5 speed, just make sure the bell housing is similar from your original motor. The obvious difference is the starter hump, one is kinna squared(for gear reduction type starter) while the other is kinna rounded. Also make sure you get the one with iron housing in the middle, not a whole aluminum tranny. Hope this helps good luck.