Video: Larry Chen, 2JZ-Swapped Toyota Tacoma Of Your Dreams From Hawaii

Larry Chen Video Transcript

You know aside from being really high off the ground it just feels like a normal Tacoma right now yeah oh brand new 2003 Toyota Tacoma now let’s talk about the truck that you built okay when I pulled up here I was just so blown away you know

Because I’ve shot an Oahu a couple times now and I know that classic JDM Toyotas Nissans Mazdas they’re really popular in Hawaiian car culture right what I didn’t expect was this Behemoth of a Tacoma my goodness what’s the story with this truck so I started off with my uncle

Um he got it from one of our cousins and it was just sitting in the back of the property it was food rubbish it didn’t run so he brought it to me and he’s like can you can you make it a little higher so I started off with a three-inch

Three inch and then you kept going from a three inch yes and then he was like oh it looks good I want to paint it so we end up painting it and then you painted all this no I had artworks looking I’ve done all the the lift and

Everything else the biggest feature of this build is the 2J Was this a four cylinder or a six cylinder this was originally a V6 uh 3.4 yes got it so we did have a chance to take it for a drive already and I was just so blown away at how much power this thing has look at this okay I love

Seeing Alex just try to yeah yeah so when we were going for our drive you were saying that you actually didn’t need to cut anything on this to make this fit yeah no cutting so your uncle’s like hey I got this Taco it’s kind of

Rough I need your help to build it up and then where did it go from there so I started as just a backyard project truck to get it going so he could use it for fishing or hunting and when I first did it it was so nice he was like I just

Want to keep continuing building it so I started off with um just this color with a three four and he’s like uh I want to do something different he told me so after a good month of research and you know looking at things I had a Toyota Tacoma transmission and I also had

I have a few Toyota Supra Transmissions so when I looked at those Transmissions the Bell housings looked the same so I I took off the bell housing off of my 1JZ and it bolted right up to the r150 four-wheel drive transmission and so that’s a five speed five speed and then

It has a transfer case built yes into or it’s it’s behind the transmission yeah it’s a factory it’s a factory 1995-204 r150f transmission that comes in any V6 Model Toyota Tacoma I can’t believe it just bolts up yes I have CX racing motor mounts is it a

Common swap well back when I was doing it no then why is it that they they actually made those they make it for a pre-runner gosh they don’t make it for a four-wheel drive because most most of these Toyota 2js they didn’t know that they could mount it to a four wheel drive

Transmission they’re usually running a Toyota Supra transmission with a pre-runner I see I see so after you know a few months and you know leftover parts that I had in my my garage one day I grabbed the bell housing and fit right in I looked at the spline I grabbed my my

Clutch disc from my Toyota Supra it fit right on top of the the transmission so I knew my clutch would fit I knew the bell housing would bolt up to the motor and the transmission so it was a bolt up Affair at that point I’m really surprised actually that the the engine

Bay is long enough for this motor yes on top of that you have a pretty big radiator it looks like you have a front mount fan setup you probably uh you have to do that for packaging yes and I do that because I have AC as well

So where’s the condenser right there oh it’s right it’s right behind the fans yes got it and then the inner cooler so it’s funny because on a lot of 2J swaps you just don’t have the room for the intercooler right but no the fact is

This is so tall that it actually kind of looks cool right underneath the the intercooler is just right underneath the radiator huh yes or it’s at least like kind of in front of it but halfway down yeah that is so neat another thing I’m really surprised about is that where the shift

Knob and where the transfer case all the controls it actually lined up pretty good huh it’s actually a little setback it is set back two and a half inches so I took off this the original Factory um shifter boot and it’s just set back it’s it’s actually not bad it’s okay so

By right it’s supposed to be right up to here oh it’s supposed to go a little over ah so we didn’t finish with the interior in here this is a 97 with a 04 interior so it has power windows and a newer Dash so it’s actually a 97 so then 37 inch

Yes or 38 38 yeah 26. so by 26 by 16s it’s a cell ready so it’s a little stretch on this Rim I a little bit okay yeah I see that yeah those are custom rim we ordered as well as the name of the car on the truck

Excuse me uh what is the name Poor Boy’s dream but it’s like Alex right there yeah amazing you know the thing is there’s just a certain Hawaiian style when it comes to building these Tacomas as a lot of people probably know or may not know the Toyota Tacoma is the most sold vehicle

In all of Hawaii the entire State yeah but why is it so popular they’re really reliable they get a lot of miles pretty simple to fix too and it’s like a complicated you can go to the beach you can put yourself forward in the back you can go anywhere on the

Island Hunting Fishing take your family you know some of us have four doors and stuff so our whole family fits in the feature that is so important on this build is the fact that you retain the four-wheel drive functionality including low range yes the transfer case all of it works as normal yes

Like a regular Tacoma did you have to modify the frame at all or anything no no frame modifications the cross member boats up the steering boats up I did I did use a rear a rear oil pan so I could clear the the differential for the four-wheel drive

And what is that out of the so mark IV Supra oil pan okay it’s a rear sump got it got it yeah so Supras they make you know mid-sumps and and uh front sumps so then how much power does this make you think the way it sits right I would

Say definitely in the 380s 400 yeah the way it spins these 38s yeah easily it’s so it’s making maybe three times more power than stock yeah right how much did these make the three fours like 180 or I think so something like that I know these two JZ engines they

Make just as much torque as horsepower so that’s why it likes to just spin the tire like nothing so then what kind of Turbo is this this is a CX racing turbo kit I bought that with the motor mounts so that’s basically what I have is my

Turbo kit and my motor mounts and the intercooler is CX racing everything else on this engine is completely slow including the computer it’s reliable and from what I can tell yeah very dependable you can turn the key and drive anywhere on the island any time of the day the fact that you’re

Able to get the speedometer to work correctly right it’s accurate right the speed and also on top of that the attack everything all of that works yes yeah including some of the warning lights too yes all the warning lights were check engine light as well yeah

So I had it specially wired for that so if something you know trouble code comes on it’ll go on like a normal car you just plug it into the OBD2 port yeah incredible I love it I just I didn’t expect to see this here I think it’s so cool

You know us just driving around the block people were just so stuck to see it yeah yeah it’s definitely a head turner yeah It sounds good it’s not very loud well it has a full exhaust three inch it’s a tanabi the the turbo kind of really Amazing I love this thing man so cool I hope you guys enjoyed that I’ll see you guys in the next video hey thanks for watching if you want to support us directly go to larrychanprince.com I print and sign every single one of these this is the perfect gift or it’s the perfect piece

Of art for your wall Thank you [Applause]