1987 D21: TD27T swap into US-spec truck

[Sonny Diesel]

I'm 35 years old, a professional driver, and a mature, easy-going guy. I almost never drive faster than the posted speed limit, and I'm proud of that fact. Why? Because I'm native to an island that is one of the most peaceful places on Earth, and speeding would detract from the sanctity and serenity of my home. Afterall, birds don't s*** in their own nests, right? Right. I don't need a lot of horsepower, and I'd rather get better fuel efficiency, since gas prices have neared $5 a gallon lately.

For this reason, I've been looking for TD27T engines to transplant into my American-spec D21. Obviously, the easiest way to do a proper engine swap is to buy a whole factory diesel equipped truck from Mexico or Canada. In this way, all the necessary parts will be present, including (but not limited to) the transmission and driveshaft, fuel tank and fuel lines, the p/s & a/c accessory brackets, vacuum lines, etc. However, importing these trucks is tricky because of emissions laws, as well as my residency status.

On the other hand, Shoshin USA imports JDM engines like the TD27T, but I'm sure it would be more cost effective to buy a whole used truck.

Which brings me to my questions:
1. Is it possible to import a Mexican diesel Navara as a parts truck?
2. Does the TD27T require an ECU & special wiring harness, or can I just drop it in like an old carburated motor?
3. Does the engine bolt up to a US-spec 5-speed transmission?
4. Do I need a different throttle linkage, or can I re-use the one in my Z24-equipped truck?
5. Will I need a different alternator, considering that diesel D21s have a vac line on their alternators?

I'd appreciate any and all help on this topic, particularly if you've done the swap or worked on TD27s in the past.

Mahalo!

[MaximA32]

Aloha and welcome to NICO! I'm going to move this over to the trucks side of things as I'm sure they have better ideas on what precisely you're going to need.

[Novajoe]

well to start, you would need pretty much every piece of the powertrain from the donor truck to swap into your US hardbody. Accessories and all. Once you do that you've only effectively made your deisel truck meet US crash safety standards. You may possibly still fail emissions.

I'm guessing you live in hawaii. The first thing you should do is compare your state's emmissions standards with that of the truck you're looking to import. Most of the time meeting these standards can be as easy as changing out the catalytic converter. Other times you may need to add extra emmissions equipment and possibly reprogram your PCM.

The biggest difference in US crash safety standards opposed to foreign standards lies with the glass and the bumpers. Most of the time if you import a vehicle and swap to a US equivalent of these you'll pass inspection. Of course simply putting an imported vehicle through these inspections can get pretty costly.

What I would try to do is source the vehicle/powertrain you're looking for in a country that has similar/higher safety/emmissions standards than the US. Like many places in europe for example.

Of course by the time you're done going through all this trouble you could have bought a US built diesel truck and saved yourself some money.

as for the specifics, you can reuse your fuel tank, but will have to change the fuel delivery system. Your alternator won't work, but I'm not sure about p/s or a/c. You may or may not be able to bolt your stock trans to the diesel you want, but the extra torque produced by the diesel will more than likely cause you reliablilty problems down the line. You should just plan on getting the corresponding trans, driveline, and rear end that goes with it.

[Frankie Pintado]

Fascinated. I want my d21 to be a diesel.