I purchased this 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser back around 2008 with a bad head gasket. I phoned a friend and borrowed their Ford pickup and car trailer, drove almost 2 hours and picked this beauty up from the original owner. This was back when Craigslist was the primary channel for selling cars. I was so intrigued by the fit, finish, and size of the Land Cruiser. The truck I had previously was a 3.0L 4Runner that I rebuilt the top end on. I couldn’t comprehend that there was an even larger Toyota SUV of the same era.
While the Land Cruiser wasn’t that much taller than the 4Runner it felt significantly wider. The windshield and distance between the front seats was the first thing that came to my mind and still sticks with me to this day. I pulled the head, took it to a machine shop and threw on a new head gasket. I loved it so much that I kept it ever since.
Around 2012 or so I found Treadstone, a company who sold custom cast exhaust turbo manifolds, intercoolers, and other parts. Turns out they had a manifold for the Land Cruiser. The rest was history. The full build thread can be seen on IH8MUD, a forum dedicated to all Land Cruisers and Toyota off-road trucks. I named it the DIY FJZ80 Low Budget Turbo Build. While some people disagreed, I kept costs as low as possible and documented everything.
In 2014 the rear main arch seal started leaking when I was towing a car to Ohio and back. This seal is part of the lower oil pan nearest to the transmission. I found a Supercharged 2013 Tundra that my friend was selling and the Land Cruiser sat for nearly 10 years.
I love the truck, the platform, the motor, transmission, and everything about it. Ideally I’d love to find clean body from the west coast to transfer everything over to and do a mini-restoration on this original turbo build.
The truck has a full custom 3″ stainless steel exhaust from the turbo to the bumper, AEM FIC-6, Garrett GT35R turbo, Treadstone turbo exhaust manifold coated in Swaintech White Lightning coating, a TransGo shift kit for crisp shifting under boost, and much more.
This turbo Toyota Land Cruiser is for sale at $8999 and is available for picking up in southeast Wisconsin. Contact us at taninjdm@gmail.com to purchase
