Well, it took a lot of effort to manhandle that big chunk of engine into the engine bay, but we did it! As you can see, it definitely fits without any major clearance issues. In these pics the engine crane is holding the engine about 10mm off the crossmember. It's hard to tell if the bonnet will shut with the engine in this position, but it looks like it will just clear.
Before we dropped the engine in, we fitted a pair of early 7M engine mounts which happen to bolt up to a 2JZ block with minor modifications. Because of their similarity to the 5M/6M engine mounts I was hoping they would pretty much bolt up to the crossmember as is. Not so unfortunately. :-( As these pics show, there is a gap of about 2 inches between the engine mounts and the crossmember brackets. It's not really feasible to bridge this gap with a spacer, and the engine can't be lowered any further without major modifications to the crossmember. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Out comes the exhaust! Not very pretty is it? In fact it appears to be nothing more than a factory system with a noisy muffler on the end. Off to the scrapyard with that - the new exhaust will be a full 3" system from the collector flange to the tip.
The Aristo instrument panel will be used in place of the tacky original digital dash, which I'm quite glad to be rid of! The Aristo instruments look really cool when they're lit up, and the analogue gauges are a lot easier to read than a digital readout. Not pictured here is the dark tinted glass which covers the gauges and renders them invisible when the ignition is off.
Here you get a glimpse of what it's going to be like wiring this thing up. The plan is to use the factory electronics to run the engine, transmission and cruise control. Removing the unnecessary crap from the Aristo loom (ie lots) and integrating it into the Supra loom will be a major challenge - but definitely cheaper than the alternative, ie forking out a couple of grand for programmable engine management.
Hmmm, the Aristo front bar doesn't seem to fit on the Supra.... damn! Oh well. At this point I should mention that I would never have got this far without the help of my friends. Thanks guys, you know who you are! :-)
So, the front end is stripped of anything that might get in the way and the engine looks like it was made to go there. Looking good, but we need to find a way to permanently mount the engine in its current position! More on that later...