Let me start by saying this I have no intention of brand bashing, this is just my experience thus far. I chose to go with the Spitronics as it’s a system I understand, easily DIY and Peet has always provided excellent service.
The engine bay prior to the conversion....
First step to the installation was getting rid of the old Mr Turbo setup; this took quite a bit of work and as I’d never worked on a Lexus engine before I was pretty nervous. I started by removing all the little covers and worked my way up to the throttle body. So far so good.
Thottle body stripped off and realy for rewiring...
I opened the wrapped loom and cut out the injector harness, crank sensor and coil inputs. Then things got more interesting. I removed the cubby, passenger kicker panel, and centre portion of the dash. I disconnected the old EMU, gearbox controller and ignition controller and pulled the loom through the firewall. Cut anything holding it back and threw it away.
I did hit a snag when I removed the plug to the gearbox solenoids to find that it had become so brittle that it literally disintegrated when I removed it. SO I ended up removing the gearbox sump to get to the rest of the wiring and discovered that one of the 6 pins had broken off making it impossible to attach the new loom. Thankfully Peet managed to find me a replacement loom in Pretoria, and a day or two later the replacement was installed new gearbox harness soldered on (I couldn’t find an original 6 pin plug to fit) and sump refitted.
The loom inside the gearbox
Then to the engine loom. The new loom was pulled through the firewall and cut to the necessary lengths. I soldered Peet’s injector harness onto the injector plugs and ran the necessary power cables via relays to the coils and injectors. The inputs from the EMU to the water temperature sensor, air temperature sensor, coils and harness were soldered and connected.
Something new to me was the installation of the speed sensor on the rear prop shaft. The sensor was removed from the front of the gearbox and I believe was originally meant to be used by the OEM EMU as a secondary rev counter of sorts. Anyways the little mag sensor was removed and the hole covered with a small blanking plate. A small bracket was bent from angle iron and the sensor mounted above the rear prop in such a way that the 4 bolts on the rear drive flange ‘activate’ the sensor. This tells the gearbox controller to shift to 1st gear below a certain speed.
You can just see the speed sensor peeking out from behind the bracket.
Possibly the biggest hitch was removing the old crank sensor and installing the new 36-1 gear. To do this the radiator had to be removed, the serpentine belt removed, AND the crank pulley removed. After all that the gear was pretty simple to get to and replace. Everything was reassembled and the mag sensor for the crank gear wired into the EMU.
The wiring was wrapped and taped, the relays and fuse box connected and the throttle body and covers reassembled. I wired in the TPS and mounted the MAP sensor nice and high on the firewall. The final bit of wrapping and taping and the engine was done!
From there I moved onto the interior stuff, the old gear shifter was removed and the linkages disconnected. A 22mm hole was drilled through the floor pan to allow the new shifter cable to be fitted in place. Conveniently the cable is supplied with the correct rubber donut already in place.
The gear shifter was screwed through the floor using aluminium plates underneath to act as uber washers. The wiring from the shifter was connected to the corresponding wiring on the gearbox controller loom and the cable connected. Setting the cable to the correct position took a bit of trial and error but it didn’t take too long in the end.
Then the moment of truth, I turned the key and listened for the fuel pump to prime. It did so perfectly. I connected the laptop to the EMU and double checked the settings, took a deep breath and turned the key. Nothing. Panic. Open a beer.
Whilst sitting in the drivers seat drinking my beer admiring my new gear shifter I noticed the shifter is not in ‘neutral’ or ‘park’. After putting the shifter into the correct position, I took another deep breath and turned the key. Engine turned over and fired. Music to my ears! I played with the fuel mixture till she stopped ‘hunting’ and let her idle happily.
A day to two later the Hilex was taken to Schalk for dyno and produced fantastic results. 165 HP on 35” tyres. The Spitronics never once missed or showed any interference no matter the temperature or rev range.
On the way back from the dyno I spent a bit of time programming the gearbox; which turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought. I didn’t make any major changes as Peet had already pre-pre-programmed the unit. I just calibrated the TPS positions and played with the RPM correction until the gear changes occurred at my preferred limits.
There is still one last thing to do on the conversion; I want to fit the original idle control valve. The EMU can control the original Lexus stepper control motor, BUT the guys who did the conversion on the bakkie removed the stepper motor and blanked the inlet. So I need to source a stepper motor and then wire in the idle controller. This will allow me to set the revs nice and low while still being able to cold start, and have the fans and aircon run.
I have to admit the installation was extremely DIY friendly, the only hiccup was that some of the activities took an extra pair of hands, but they were by no means difficult
Excuse the poor photies guys, I’ll take some more over the next day or three....
interesting
