Corsetti Cruisers is a California-based 4x4 shop specializing in Toyota Land Cruiser and International Scout restorations. Passionate about bringing these classic rigs back to life, the folks at Corsetti have carved out a niche of swapping LS3 and LSA motors into Land Cruisers for their customers. But the most impressive part is how quickly they do it, with the team giving themselves just five days to complete the swap.
For this particular resto-mod, the crew at Corsetti Cruisers was tasked with putting an E-Rod LS3 motor and 4L65-E automatic transmission into a 1990 FJ62 Land Cruiser body. To make it even more interesting, the client wanted it all to work on a 1996 FZJ80 frame, allowing the 80-Series’ four-link suspension to provide a smooth, comfortable ride.
Having done similar swaps before, the team was off to the races getting the drivetrain added to the Land Cruiser and mocking everything up, but that’s the easy part. Making everything work together on a chassis and in a body that wasn’t designed for it is what’s hard about a swap like this, and it’s only exacerbated by having just a week to get it done.
Something as simple as hooking up the shifter and linkage caused an issue, forcing the lead fabricator to extend the shifter by five inches while figuring out the perfect angles for it all, otherwise the linkage wouldn’t budge. Another seemingly small issue they had was finding the right bumper, with the team thinking they had one in stock only to realize it was mislabeled and not actually for a 60-Series body.
It’s the little things like this that start to add up over time, and that doesn’t even include something like changing client needs, which, as anyone who builds cars can attest to, is one of the biggest hurdles in this kind of work. In this project, for example, after the transfer case was fully assembled and ready for installation, the client decided they wanted it to be twin-stick instead of the stock single. This required disassembling and rebuilding the entire T-case, which took the better part of a day.
To make things even harder, the folks at Corsetti were going through the wringer when it came to availability due to travel and sickness. The lead electrical installer was out of town for the majority of the build, the top mechanic running the project ended up missing two days, and the owner himself, Brian Corsetti, took a day off during the build due to illness.
Even with all that, the crew finished the swap in six days and the Land Cruiser fired right up on the first try. Hearing that V8 roar to life brought me back to my own race car builds and all the nerves I had ahead of the first start every time I took it apart. Hearing the startup and knowing everything is working right is one of the greatest feelings in this industry, and seeing the pure joy on the faces of everyone at Corsetti Cruisers is what it’s all about.
Well I mean I guess what it’s really all about is the build itself, and this Land Cruiser is pretty dang rad. The four-link suspension provides a way better ride than expected in an FJ62, and the EROD LS3 gives it a heck of a lot more power than before, along with the sweet sounds of a Chevy V8.
Topping it off, the team had custom 17-inch aluminum wheels built to look like the original 15-inch steelies that came on these rigs. This is one of those little touches that might go unnoticed by the casual person walking down the street, but it’s what makes a custom build a custom build.
This swap is the second episode from Corsetti Cruisers that entailed putting an LS3 into an old Land Cruiser, and I’ll be checking back to see what other cool builds the shop rattles off next.
