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It's time for our first V8 engine in the Iconic Engines series and we are starting with some all aluminum, quad-cam Toyota muscle - the 1uz-fe engine!

The 1uz Toyota engine made it's debut in 1989 in the engine bay of the Lexus LS400. But to compact it's emergence on the market into this single sentence is a massive insult to the relentless pursuit of perfection made by Toyota engineers and designers that were part of Project F1. Project F1 was secret, and no it had nothing to do with Formula 1. F1 stood for Flagship No.1 and the goal was to make a luxury sedan that would rival and outdo American and European flagship vehicles. Toyota went all in to make this happen and had a small town worth of people working on project F1. 450 engine prototypes and 900 engine prototypes were made. 1 of those 900 that came on top was the 1uzfe engine.

After project f1 was finished and the receipts tallied up Toyota had spent over 1 billion dollars to give birth to the Lexus LS 400 and the 1UZ-FE V8 engine. But it was all worth it, when the LS 400 with the 1uz engine hit the market it was quieter, faster, smoother and more fuel efficient than it's rivals. To top it all off it was also cheaper.

But the 1uz engine was ambitious and wanted to do more. It wanted to fly, swim, save lives and race. And it did all of that, well it didn't really fly but it's one of the few automotive engines given production certification and permission to be used in airplanes by the US Federal Aviation Administration. It came from the factory in a few different Toyota boats, and is very loved by boating enthusiasts. Saving lives? It was the engine of choice for the Toyota HiAce HiMedic ambulance van. Racing? It raced in twin turbo form in the Le Mans in the engine bay of the SARD MC-8R. The 1uzfe can be proud of completing it's bucket list.

The 1uz has a pretty impressive specs sheet. Inside all aluminum engine block we have a forged steel crankshaft with 8 counterweights (six is the usual number for mass produced v8 engines) and 6 bolt cross bolted main bearing caps. The 1uzfe cylinder head is a bit less impressive, and while it has pent-roof combustion chambers and dual overhead cams, the 1uz cylinder head has a pretty narrow valve angle and port designs that are more oriented towards economy than outright performance. The 1uz camshaft profiles are also pretty conservative and mild.

The 1uzfe engine is very compact and lightweight for a v8 engine so it makes a great swap engine when you realize that Toyota 2jz, Nissan RB and other large swap engines have skyrocketed in price. the 1uz is still a relatively affordable swap that gets you into v8 land for less than you might expect. Tuning the 1uzfe engine in naturally aspirated form is best started by getting rid of the factory ecu. It has a pretty conservative tune and since Toyota ecu units can't be chipped or modified your only option is a standalone ecu. When it comes to swaps it's best to find a 1997 and later 1uzfe engine, these came with vvti and had the highest stock power output for a 1uzfe engine at 290hp (300 hp for the Lexus GS 400).

Because of it's smooth and linear power delivery and pretty good torque the 1uz makes a lot of sense in drift cars too. The power delivery makes maintaining those long, smooth beautiful drifts a real joy with a 1uz engine. This is probably part of the reason why we keep seeing more and more 1uz swapped 240sx Nissans and other popular drift platforms with 1uz-fe engines in them.

After you have a standalone ecu you can focus on increasing the power of your 1uz by replacing the headers, intake, cams and more. Porting and polishing the 1uz cylinder heads also helps as do other mods like two sets individual throttle bodies form a 20v 4age.

The 1uz has also proven itself at coping well with boost. Turbo, twin turbo, supercharger or nitrous builds that make tremendous amounts of horsepower are getting more and more common. The best candidates are early 1uz engines made in 1994 and before, these have stronger internals. But finding these early 1uz fe engines for sale is getting harder and harder which is why many people settle for the later engines and upgrading the pistons and rods. The 1uzfe stock block is "safe" at around 450 boosted hp, with the early 1uzfe engine often pushed beyond 500hp. With forged low compression pistons the sky becomes the limit for 1uzfe power.

----rap translation----
I am 1uzfe
You're a joke, Mercedes
I have a strong block
and I can fit anywhere
Turbo, supercharger or nitro
I'm a better neighbor, Totoro.

#d4a #iconicengines #1uz #1uzfe

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