I’ve got great memories of the awesome adventure I took in that car. It was an expedition to Magadan on the Road of Bones with our friends at 4×4 World Explorer and the photos are taken in Siberia.
For starters we picked up an 80 series locally with a petrol engine that ran well, but wasn’t suited to the vehicle’s upcoming life touring the world.
On a previous trip along the Canning Stock Route with Thomas and his friends at 4×4 World Explorer, I’d noticed (and discounted) a 105 vehicle with a wrecked body, but had a good chassis. After my return to Perth when I decided I needed one for a Lexus LX470 bodied, 1HD-FTE powered 105 I made contact with the owner. We found that the 1HZ motor seemed okay, but started and stopped with a problem that was likely related to the electronic controls on the injection pump.
With the body off, we cleaned up the red mud off the 1HZ, installed it into the 80 with a Grunter Extreme from GTurbo and a large bar and plate front mount intercooler and exported it to Kuala Lumpur for the start of it’s adventure. We kept the Eastern Goldfields 4WD Club number plates in recognition of it’s past touring the interior of WA. The very first owner turned out to be a mate around the corner who proposed to his wife with this vehicle!
So with plenty of adventures already under it’s belt, my friend and his son joined the convoy from 4×4 World Explorer and drove north from Kuala Lumpur, through Thailand, the mountains of Laos, and into China. I joined them in northern China with my wife and father in law and we headed west into Mongolia, then north into Siberia where the real adventure began and the party thinned out.
Over the next month we made our way along the renowned Road of Bones to the farthest eastern part of Russia accessible by road, and then to Vladivostok. Plenty of mountainous scenery and dirt roads with a few falls of snow just so we knew it could get really cold there.
Performance of the package with the GTurbo and front mount intercooler was exceptional. Fuel economy was far superior to the non aspirated 1HZ in the convoy, as was performance. The ability of the vehicle to easily maintain speed up the long mountain passes in China quickly became legendary as the other 1HZ’s fell away at the high altitudes.
Not only did this vehicle live a full life in the rough goldfields of Western Australia, and drive to the most eastern point of the Asian landmass possible, it’s next trip took it back into China, Everest Base Camp, Moscow, the top end of Norway, down the coast and into London. So it’s been the furthest east, the furthest south, the furthest north and the furthest west of the huge landmass of Asia and Europe. It’s completed a 2 month trip into Africa and next year will be off to South America for another 2 month trip as the main support vehicle so its heavily loaded.
These trips alone give proof to the capacity of a well tuned 1HZ to handle a properly matched turbocharger and the power and efficiencies of a front mount intercooler