Commodore/Lexcen partnership; how it should of been VL 1UZ

[TA22 1MZ]

A friend of mine recently purchased this VL station wagon from Victoria.
Except, this is a real car now thanks to a Toyota heart transplant which has given the ol' VL a new lease on life.

The attention to detail is awesome. Traction control remains, the engine mounts, wiring and overall fitment looks absolutely factory.

Anyway, thought I would share a couple of pics on Tims behalf.

The car drives beautifully, gets 500-550km a tank around town and really does show what the Holden/Toyota partnership could of been.

[Robbos_Toyotas]

wow thats a tidy VL - well done

[love ke70]

where is da turbo bruva?

[setsuna]

I agree!
... nice conversion =)
... and where are the turbos =)))

-DAvid

[Bananaman]

Haha thought this sounded familiar, i bought a motherboard off Tim the other day and was talking to him for a while about such things

[Mr Ed]

Very nice work but if Holden and Toyota made a partnership back when the VL was being designed I would have expected something more along the lines of a 7M-GTE powered Commonwhore.

[Robbos_Toyotas]

Very nice work but if Holden and Toyota made a partnership back when the VL was being designed I would have expected something more along the lines of a 7M-GTE powered Commonwhore.

lol just imagine a toyota lexen, powered by nissan engine and box, holden frame with differential and interior....and a toyota badge!

[Andrew162]

Holden and Toyota are renowned for going to bed with each other around this period... the VN Commonwhore/Toyota Lexcen, the Toyota Camry/Holden Apollo, one of the Toyota Corolla's/Holden Nova, etc. quite a lot is interchangeable between the two marques and their respective offspring, just like the older Nissan Patrol and the Ford Maverick. refer also to the TIO thread in this forum for Toyota/Holden stuff.

PS: re 4wd's, a lot of people say that if you take the engine and box out of a LandCruiser and stick them into the body/chassis of a Patrol, you'll have a 4wd that will go on forever.

[mtp_69_i]

shoulda dropped it inna calais ule!!11!

lol, very tidy conversion. I've always had a soft spot for the VL, my 88 Berlina did over 400K before I sold it.

[Norbie]

It's interesting to note that Holden originally went to Toyota to design and build a stopgap engine for the VL, but their proposal was deemed too expensive for a taxi engine. Rumour has it Toyota submitted an M series of some description, possibly a dumbed-down 7M-GE.

So Holden tried Nissan instead who came up with the cheap n cheerful RB30E, which incidentally was designed specifically for the Australian market; none of the JDM Skylines came with this engine.

[4agte]

PS: re 4wd's, a lot of people say that if you take the engine and box out of a LandCruiser and stick them into the body/chassis of a Patrol, you'll have a 4wd that will go on forever.

or you could just buy a landcruiser and save yourself a whole heap of trouble

[love ke70]

patrols are better than landcruisers...sorry

[Robbos_Toyotas]

patrols are better than landcruisers...sorry

landcruiser utes r better trust me

[PuGZoR]

I like it, haven't seen the conversion done before. I wonder what kind of problems were encountered in this conversion. What box is being used too? Oh yeah, bigger pics too. Wouldn't mind seeing if there would be actually space for a twin turbo conversion, heh.

[bansheebuzz]

You should tell your friend he has his radiator hoses back to front. Thermostat outlet should go to there fitting on radiator