Just when we thought we’d seen everything, a Malaysian tuning shop with a taste for JDM vehicles shows up with some crazy engine swaps that are likely to please some but aggravate others.
Yung Lee Auto in Malaysia isn’t shy about mixing and matching brands, with engines from Toyota finding themselves in everything from Nissans to BMWs. Nothing is sacred, and everything is on the table.
The tuner seems to have an affinity for the 2JZ engine, and we can’t really blame them. The 2JZ was available in many different vehicles other than Supras, and although rising in price, offers excellent bang for your buck.
The 2JZ must be like the small block chevy of Malaysia or something. We can count 13 vehicles on Yung Lee’s YouTube Channel that have been converted by the shop to run them, including a Toyota Hilux 4×4, a Ford Transit Van, and one that’s bound to cause aneurysms for Nissan fans: an R34 Skyline. Don’t worry, the RB25DET that came out of the Skyline found a home in one of the other vehicles in the shop.
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But it’s not only Toyota engines that have been swapped where they shouldn’t belong, the channel also features a number of Nissan SR20 swaps where only four cylinders will fit. One of our favorites has to be a Yaris with a 2ZZ-GE engine, which was sourced from a Celica.
Fans of Mazda’s rotary engine had better look away, as multiple RX-8s lose their spinning Dorito in favor of V8s, 1JZs, SR20s, or just about anything that’s physically incapable of blowing an apex seal.
One of their latest projects is a Nissan Cefiro A31 with R32 Skyline body panels running a turbocharged 2JZ. If that’s not enough to annoy every purist, we don’t know what is.
The shop appears to do quite clean work, as you would likely never tell that the vehicles have had engine swaps. There is something special about opening up the hood of a BMW to see a Toyota engine, especially considering how upset enthusiasts got about the new MK5 Supra’s B58 powerplant sourced from the German brand.