Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire We all dream of owning a diesel Toyota

Is there any issue with importing diesel engines from abroad and dropping them into our old Toyotas?

Japanese import motors used to be big business. But I do not hear so much about it the last few years.

If we could get our hands on the engine and controls, it could be installed in a weekend and no one would ever be the wiser.

People do engine swaps from 'salvage' engines in performance applications all the time.

Big 3 rotor mazda Rotary engines are a popular swap and street legal.
I knew a guy from Oregon who had a volkswagon diesel in a suzuki samurai 4x4, 35+mpg.

Good luck finding parts if something goes wrong. You might have to order parts from Down Under..... If you can fix everything yourself, great, but you'll never find a mechanic that knows the engines. I'd love to have a diesel Highlux with the snorkles, but stuff always breaks in time.

Nothing the simple application of money wont fix. There are Diesel engines available for my 2017 Tacoma.

Are they available in the US?

Except they aren’t weekend swaps.

Take much longer typically. Require lots of custom pieces, adapters,and fabrication from what I’ve seen done with fj40 and others.

You have to change a lot more than just simply motors. Fuel tank, lines, inline fuel filters, fuel pumps, ecm, wiring harness may need mods, transmission may need a adaptor.

There are thousands of Japanese box trucks on the road with 4 cylinder Diesels in them- - - -Nissan Toyota, Isuzu, etc. All a transplant takes is a healthy dose of time and money, and the stupid conviction that "I'm smarter than the engineers who built this vehicle!" Hotrodders have been doing it for decades. "There's no substitute for cubic dollars!"

My 2016 f 150 4wd with a 5.0l v8 runs better on gas than a buds 2015 tacoma with a 4l v6. After all the yups wanted autos and v6 power the tacoma went to hell for mileage. My 95 tacoma has a 2.7 4 cyl and a 5spd runs 20-25 mpg day in and out just turned 249 k. Buying and paying to install a diesel for it don't cash out for a long time at $5/gallon diesel price even at 35 mpg...mb

You can import whole rigs once they are 25 years old, Canadian diesel Toyota’s are becoming fairly common around here.
Diesel swaps are way more expensive than you would think, easier to import.

I was in Panama for a couple of weeks in March. Seemed as if every other vehicle there was a diesel Toyota Hilux.

I want one bad.

That's a dream I have never had.

+1

Anyone that is into Landcruisers has thought about it.
25mpg would give a cruiser a 600 mile range per fill up.

Never messed with a Toyota swap. But my buddy and I swapped a diesel into his GMC 3/4 T 4x4. It was not a big deal. Started Sat morning, was done by Sunday evening.

A couple years later we pulled the diesel back out and dropped a 396 back under the hood.

The Toyota might be a bit more difficult. But you sure as heck would not need to change the fuel tank.

I drove a 2021 Toyota Hilux this last January quite a bit in northern Peru. It was a 6 speed stick shift and pretty solid truck. Wasn’t fancy, but it rode great and accelerated ok. Not super quick, but it was a diesel and got pretty good mileage. It was a fantastic sized truck in my opinion for about any kind of hunting.

Trucks these days are way too big and I have two of them. A 2019 Ram 3500 crew cab Cummins dually long bed. Best damn towing truck I have ever owned for the open road. And a 2022 Ram crew cab Cummins 6.5’ bed daily driver. Super nice truck, but wouldn’t be as good for me when I hunt as the Hilux in my opinion.

I'm seriously toying with the idea of dropping a 12v in my 80 series.....

As if the venerable Land Cruiser isn't already good enough, THAT would be awesome.

The question remains. Does anyone import the HiLux or LC diesel powerplant? Would Customs let you bring one over the border?

Once the engine is here, nobody knows or cares what is under the hood of my rig.

This has been done many times, the main issue is depth of engine.

Pretty sure a minimum 6" lift is required.. The 4BT is similar