ONE OF A KIND Engine Swapped 80 Series + MONSTER GQ! Tony from GME's INCREDIBLE 4WD Collection

We put the question out to you guys, what do you want to know about the big GME GQ and the 80 series? Well I've been lucky enough to get Tony to bring both vehicles out today, we're going to go through all the mods on each of them and more importantly why he's done the mods to make them work so well off-road. What do you reckon mate? I reckon we get into it. Sounds good to me. Righto Tony, so this is if I'm not mistaken a 1994 Nissan GQ. That's right mate, it's a coil cab Nissan Patrol. Right, I've got that right, thank goodness, because I'm a little bit out of my depth right now. Now look, I've seen this on many trips mate and when you talk about how this thing's been modified and why, I just want to say two words, Coffs Harbour. As you know, Coffs Harbour has some of the toughest, wildest tracks. If a vehicle has any weakness, it'll be exposed, usually by ending up on its lid and I've been there a couple of times. So how have you built this thing and why? We wanted it to drive tough tracks obviously, we wanted to keep the weight down, we wanted it to be as low as possible, wide wheel track, really stable off-road and no unnecessary accessories. So everything that we've got on this car serves a purpose. Factory TD42 silver top, so a naturally aspirated motor, it's got a non-intercooled turbo running 8 psi, that's it. Well we'll try and open this bottle, try not to get any oil on the lens and if you open it up, let's have a good look inside because I want to make a point about this. Standard, you said silver top? Yeah, that's right. I think the one to have, the silver top TD42. First question that was sent in, what horsepower does this big girl make and what aftermarket turbo do you have on it? It's called an AXT turbo, it's like a 90s turbo kit. I have absolutely no idea how much power this car makes but suffice to say, not very much. If it made 100 horsepower, I'd be very surprised but it's got enough for what I need to use it for. Well mate, that's probably all we need to see. This TD42 is starting to hurt my eyes anyway. Now the way you've probably overcome the lack of power is by changing the gearing of the vehicle to work really well and I think that's a really cool thing I want to touch on now. How have you geared this vehicle? So it's running GU diffs, they're a much bigger housing, they're stronger all around, bigger CVs, just a generally stronger diff. It also increases the track width, I think it's about 40mm over a GQ diff so it makes the car a bit wider and we've got 4.6 gears in the diffs front and back. Right, so straight away. Straight away, it gives you that low down grunt and then in the transfer case, we're running 85% reduction gears so this thing crawls. In first gear, you can literally get out of the car and just let it do its thing. It's the only non-factory part in the diffs is that we do have ARB air lockers front and rear. So of course, being able to flick the lockers on from inside the cab, it's just, you know, it makes all the difference. Magical little buttons. That's it mate. It's a very practical setup, it works an absolute treat. Now you've mounted it to a pretty standard looking bar but I must say you've got bar work around the whole entire vehicle for probably good reason too. Absolutely, so it's what I'd call a period correct bar. It's a 90s model bar and just modified it slightly to better suit the high mount winch. You're running two GME aerials up front. Do you want to talk about the communication setup on this vehicle? The reason we've got two antennas and we get asked this all the time is because we've got two radios in the car. Everyone thinks that bigger is better and in some cases it is but when it comes to antennas, a shorter antenna can often perform much better particularly if you're in somewhere like the Vic High Country or if you're in really hilly terrain, you're down in a gully, that shorter antenna is going to transmit far better than a longer one. Like I've always said, it's how you use it at the end of the day. That's true, yeah. That's what I always said. One thing I do admire about this vehicle is the rear end. Now I'm a big fan of it mate, it's built well. Why don't we go down the back and have a quick look? Let's do it. Now Tony, before we get down to the back of the vehicle, I've got another question as well. It was about what flares are you Well this is another quite unusual mod for a GQ. It's not a mod, they're a factory flare. So rather than running a garden edging flare like a lot of people do and that's all good, these are actually a factory GQ flare. Righto, this tray here mate has probably taken more punishment than most trays deserve to and you can see that by the amount of rock rash all over it. Take us through what we're looking at here. Yeah, so we deliberately built this tray out of steel. It operates like a big brush bar. The beauty of a ute is obviously you've got far fewer panels to destroy. We've got removable drop sides on it but they are alloy so we've saved a little bit of weight there but if I'm just going to go out for a day of social wheeling and rock crawling, I'll take the sides off it just so they don't cop as much punishment. And I can understand why you made this addition because when I first saw the GQ, we met up in Coffs Harbour, we were taking this thing for a bit of a wheel and I remember you must have pressed a button inside because you ejected everything you owned off the back of that tray. Yeah, we did some spontaneous weight reduction. For those trips where we are away for an extended period of time and I've got a bit of gear on the back, just having the tray sides makes a big difference. You can throw firewood in there, you don't have to tie it down if you're just going back to camp, all that sort of stuff. And the other major change that we made is we had sheet metal guards on it. Unfortunately they didn't make it through the first trip before I folded them and we've gone to a tube guard and as you can see by the rock rash on them, they operate very similar to a rock slider and again it saves me feeding the side of the tray. They'd keep the car legal because they cover the tyre and one of the other things I really wanted to make sure was that we had proper legal mud guards on it. So these mud flaps are quick release, we've got a simple little joiner in the back there and we can just clip them off when we're going to go and wheel something hard and when we get back on the blacktop we put the mud flaps back on and you know the car's all legal again. Something I've always wanted to do to my vehicles, I've probably deleted more mud flaps than most people at hot dinners mate. When we designed the tray we wanted to maximise the tray space, have it wider than the cab, again so we can lean the car on the on the tray without doing any damage, but we kept it as short as possible in terms of keeping it really close to the chassis rails. But I've put a long simple awning on it, it means that I've got enough space next to the car to put my swag under and I've also got this back corner where I can cook dinner if it's pouring with rain and I've even got the fridge undercover if I need to get a beer out. Now we armed and armed whether we wanted the awning to run down the side of the tray but it would have been the first thing to cop damage if we lent the car into a bank. I can't take credit for that one, that was Jesse and I sitting around a campfire discussing this. One of my best ideas coming out like that mate. Yeah well he doesn't have many good ones but this one was all right. One of his best mate. All right let's go and have a look in the inside of the vehicle. As I walked past I noticed a new mod that even I hadn't seen yet. Yeah. Let's go have a look at that one. Let's do it. A couple more audience questions that were sent in. What suspension are you running in the big GQ? Again it's pretty simple. We're running four inch coils, four inch struts, we've got drop boxes, steel factory radius arms. We have upgraded the control arms in the rear, so upper adjustables, lower. We've got a heavy duty lower arm. They've got a weak point on these GQs, they do bend. I've seen that happening all day. They are, yep. So they're upgraded and then the only real, I guess, big modification was we did brace the rear coil tower because it's a factory weak point in these cars. There's no remote reservoirs, there's no four links, there's none of that crazy business. Still running a factory radius arm and again the way we've done that means that the on-road manners of the car are actually still pretty good. And another question mate, a bit of a generic one, and look I've got to agree with this bloke as well. Why did you choose a GQ? Was it too many rums around a campfire one day? Why did you get a GQ? Before I got into four-wheel drives, I had a lot of Nissans. I had VL turbos and I had Nissan Skylines and my first Forbi was actually a D22 Nissan Navara. So I had Nissans before Toyotas. The reason that I built a GQ though was because I've watched a lot of winch challenges and a lot of comp stuff and there's a reason that they all drive GQs. It's, you know, it's one of those things, they're a simple vehicle, they're tough as nails and they're just cool mate. Look, as an avid Toyota fan, I've got to say I semi-agree with what you're saying. Let's have a look inside. Well mate, if this isn't the definition of dressing up mutton as lamb, then I don't know what is. These are some of the fanciest seats I've ever seen in a GQ. Yeah, it's lipstick on a pig that one, but again they serve a purpose. I mean look, they're a bit loud, they're a bit over the top being bright red. I spend a lot of time in this car, we drive the car long distances to go wheeling, so I wanted something super comfortable. Do you mind? Please. I'm going to sit in these bad boys. Yeah look, I do get what you mean, that is a big upgrade on even a Toyota seat mate. One of the things that you can't see in these seats is they're actually heated, so I'd go so far as to guess that maybe this is the only GQ coil cab in the country with heated seats. It really might be mate. Now if I'm looking around here mate, you've got your locker switches, your compressor, now they're all easy to get to. And we've even got a little wireless push-to-torque button on the steering wheel as well. You do. So we can push that button, torque on the UHF, we've got a little pillar mount mic up there so we don't have to take our hands off the wheel. Everything's within arm's reach, there's nothing fancy, they're just old school rocker switches, but again it just works and you can concentrate on driving rather than looking for a fancy touch panel. Finally, the main star of the show. Now I mean this when I say this, this is one of my favourite vehicles I've ever had on our show. It's another 80 Series of course, but not just any old 80 Series, one of the most beautifully modified and tasteful 80 Series I've ever seen. Thank you mate. Now of course this is a factory 1HDT, let's take us through this vehicle. Yeah, so it's a late 1992 model, so it's got slightly wider flares, it's got the bigger brakes on it. It's a factory 1HDT, it was a manual from the factory. I wanted something that could go a bit harder and we could do some tougher tracks, so I wanted a solid axle vehicle. Factory turbo diesel, I reckon that's the one to have. The 1HDT probably doesn't get the accolades it deserves. I mean they're a fantastic engine, but of course this one doesn't have the 1HDT in it anymore. No, it doesn't. Open the bonnet, open the bonnet. All right, let's do it. Now look at this. There are websites on the internet, in fact, that will have a sort of restricted page before you get... No, I can't even say that. That's probably... One of the most beautiful swipes you'll ever see in any four-wheel drive. Obviously it's a 1HD FTE. Yep. Very familiar with these sort of motors. I've got one in the dirty 30. Probably one of the best engines ever built by Toyota. Yeah, look, they're a phenomenal engine. They've got a reputation for a reason. The main difference is it's EFI, so it's got an electronic pump on it. It just means that you can make bulk power with them reliably. Yep. And also they're such a smooth engine. It's worth pointing out these are a 24 valve motor as opposed to a 12 valve in the 1HDT, but it looks like it belongs in there. They bolt in pretty simply. They really do. I got really lucky with this one. We pulled this out of a Wreck 79 that only had 5,000 k's on it, but it's a factory motor running a pretty big turbo. It runs 27 psi of boost. We've done plus 30 injectors. We've got a front mount intercooler. Obviously we've got an airbox there with a panel style filter. Big snorkel, and we're running an aftermarket ECU just to control the tunability of the motor a little bit better. Better question thrown in from our audience, and I think it's on everyone's mind right now. How much horsepower, roughly, does this beast make? So on 35s it makes 300 horsepower at the rear wheels and 920 newton meters of torque, which is enough. So you're running two batteries in here. You've got a basic dual, what sort of 12 volt setup we're going? Yeah, so we've actually got a pretty complicated 12 volt setup in this car. We want to be completely self-sufficient and survive off-grid for basically as long as we've got water and fuel for. Yep. So I've got an in-cab switch where I can bridge the two batteries together. So if one of the batteries is down on power, I can bridge them together to crank the vehicle, which is really handy, and I can also bridge them if I'm winching. So we've got a completely separate 12 volt system for, I guess, our camping. 200 amp lithium in the back of the car. Let's look at the front of the vehicle. You've got a Ruzzler winch bar here. You've got a crazy high mount winch. I mean you said this is a tourer at the end of the day, but you still want to make it quite capable, obviously. It's a tourer, but it's a tough tourer. I don't want to get stopped by anything. If I want to get to a campsite that's a little bit further, I want to be able to get there. And also, I do a lot of traveling with just my wife and I solo. So when you don't have other vehicles in a convoy that you can winch off or help you out if you get stuck, you need to be self-sufficient. Running two aerials on this one again, you're also running two UHFs inside? Yeah, so this one's a slightly different setup. So at the moment I've got a UHF on this side and I've got a cellular antenna on that side. If you've got limited reception, if you're on that patchy edge of coverage, this will work with the booster to receive the signal through the big antenna and then re-broadcast the signal inside the vehicle for your phone. We've used this on a trip before when we needed to order some parts. Yeah, someone in our convoy broke down. We won't say who it was, obviously. Yeah, they shall remain nameless. So what sort of suspension are we running this 80? So I've only recently, a couple of weeks ago, dropped the height of the vehicle down to three inches, which I believe you've done in Sooty as well. I have. Changed the manners of the vehicle completely. It's so much more stable, it corners better, all out it's just a better vehicle now. I think we've all learned these days that lower and wider is just so much better and it's something that I see more and more people doing now and the vehicles are way more capable with a smaller lift. This is a daily driver for me. I drive this thing to work every day down the highway, so I want it to have good on-road manners. So we're running remote reservoir shocks on all four corners, as I said a three-inch coil. We've got aftermarket radius arms in the front with a bit more caster, again for those on-road manners. And then all of the arms are updated and replaced with aftermarket heavy duty. So we've got upgraded tyre rod, drag link, upper and lower arms in the rear. We've got those adjustable arms in the rear, so we can get the pinion angle right. But really again, you know, it's not crazy. There's no four link, there's no three link, there's none of that stuff. It's just a good handling car that now sits at the right height. And the other thing I'm going to point out as well, that you've got your sway bars front and rear on this vehicle. Yes, I do. Deleting sway bars, it's one of those things that people did when six-inch lifts and yeah. It was all part of the game back then. It was all part of it. But I guess as we evolve and as we learn more, then we start to realise why those things are in cars to begin with, right? Now let's have a look at the back of this vehicle. Like we said, this is a touring vehicle that's got a pretty wild setup. Like before we get right down to the rear, let's just go through this bar work here, because you've got some rock sliders, but some really fancy brush bars on this vehicle as well. Yeah, so we've got Razzler front and rear bars, but then everything that joins the two is all custom. So we've got brush bars on the front and rock sliders, but I've also gone for some rear brush bars. Yeah. The first thing that's going to hit on an 80 Series is the flare and then usually the rear quarters. 100%. I can tell you, and you've seen from first-hand experience, these have saved my car. It's a bit of extra weight, but the other thing is they're really handy for standing on to get on and off your roof rack. Now notice you've also got the Clearview mirrors on here. If you've ever driven an 80 Series with factory mirrors, you know that they are close to useless. You can't see anything. Yeah. I needed a bigger mirror, but I didn't like the way they sat on the vehicle. So I've done a little bit of modification, brought them in closer. They still extend, not as far as before, and it just means that, you know, much safer. You've got that blind spot mirror down the bottom there as well. Also some gull wings at the back here. Yeah, so I've got a gull wing on the passenger side here, which is brilliant. So it's quite simple. This is a GXL from factory, so it's got the sliding windows, which leak. It just makes the whole back end of the car so much more usable. I like this setup here. This is giving us a good taste of what we're going to expect. Let's open the back up and have a look. Yeah, let's do it. This is the Razzler rear bar. Yeah, so we've got the double swing-aways. Obviously we've got the spare 35 and then dual jerrys on the back, just for the water. Now let's go through here. You've got a pretty wild setup at the back here. What sort of draw system is this? So it's fully custom made. The Department of the Interior made it for me to my specs. I've got a 75 litre dual zone fridge in there, so I went really big with the fridge. Yeah. Quick fire table, two full length drawers on the left-hand side, and then the wings are jammed full of 12-volt gear. So we've utilised every square centimetre in the back of this car. Well, mate, speaking of the inside, I'm dying to show everyone that, because that's one of my favourite parts of this whole build. Yep, let's go. Wow, Tony. Man, I've always wanted to be inside this vehicle. It's a nice place to be, isn't it? It is. It's fantastic. This is obviously an 80 Series. I find it's quite a comfortable vehicle inside to begin with, but what you've done and how you've modified this one is just next level. Brand new Recaro's in the front. We've re-trimmed the factory seat to match, and we've also used the same fabric on the door trims. So they're reproduction door trims, they're not factory. I've changed the speakers. We've got some really nice splits in the front. There's a subwoofer under your seat. There is, yeah. Yeah, there is. We've got a 15 litre fridge in the centre console, which is gold for those long trips having cold water without having to get out. And then we've got a custom centre console that's got all our switches, in-cab winch controls and all that sort of stuff. We replaced the carpet. We've done pretty much everything. New steering wheel, and then of course the comm set up. So we've got two XRS radios in this car. We've got one for the passenger and one for the driver. The whole layout is designed so that it's comfortable. I can easily sit in this car and do 1200, 1300 k's in a day. Now, a couple of questions we've got in. Firstly, about the gearing on this vehicle. Obviously, it's not purely standard. I think it was for some time. So I'm still running the factory 4.1 ratios in this car and the diffs, but I have changed the transfer case. So we've got a fully rebuilt transfer case and we've got 25% reduction gears from Marks in there. And the way we've overcome the diff gearing in this particular car is I'm actually running a 79 series gearbox in this. They've got a taller second and a taller fifth. On the highway at 110, I've dropped my revs by 400 rpm. So it just cruises in fifth gear. So, you know, those little things, again, not sexy mods, but they really make the car much more drivable. So you've obviously done a lot of modifications in total. You've put a lot more weight on the vehicle. You've got bigger tyres. You've also given a stack more power. What have you done to make the vehicle stop? Well, as you know, factory 80 series brakes can be a little bit sketchy. So we've replaced pretty much the entire braking system. So I've got a hydraulic booster in it. So I've got a lot more pedal feel there, braided lines throughout, slotted rotors. I've got new calipers. I'm still running factory genuine Toyota pads. I find that they seem to last a little bit better than some of the aftermarket ones, and it stops amazingly for how big and heavy the car really is. It's a family car, as I said. If I'm going to have my wife and my child in the car, I want to make sure the car's as safe as it possibly can be. Yep, I get it, mate. Another question, mate. I know you and I know four-wheel drivers in general. Yep. A build's never quite done. Is there any future mods to do to this vehicle? There's a couple that are underway at the moment, actually. So I'm putting a new TVMS in the car. So I'm putting a RedVision Rogue in the car, so the new one. And I'm also going to put a roof console in. Okay. Putting a second RedVision screen in here, so I can control all of my 12-volt from the front and from the rear of the car. That's cool. And because I'm removing the factory gauge here for the sub-tank, I can actually run the sender into the RedVision, and the RedVision's going to tell me how much fuel I've got in my sub-tank. And then really, I mean, mate, it's just maintenance, keeping the old girl on the road, and just driving it as much as we possibly can. Now, here's another question we got. I'm actually keen to hear the answer on this one. Which one is your favourite vehicle to drive, out of the GQ or the 80? It's the hardest question. I get asked this all the time. It depends. They're completely different vehicles, right? Both capable. They're both from the 90s, which is the best era of motor vehicles, in my opinion. But they're so different. If it's touring with the family, if it's long distance, it's this car, every day of the week. This is comfortable. It's got the power. It's got all the mod cons. But if I'm going to go out wheeling with the boys, mate, this thing's staying at home. The GQ for hard tracks, you just cannot beat that car. I think I've got to pick that as an answer. For me, if no one was watching, of course I'd give that a drive. But typically, this is where you'd see me, mate, in this thing. Well, hopefully you guys have learnt a stack about both of these vehicles. Great to go in depth with you here, mate, and actually learn exactly what makes these vehicles tick. Now, in case we've missed something, Gowrie, you've got another question we haven't quite covered. Why don't you chuck it in the comments below. Now, Tony, I want to thank you, mate. Thank you. Absolute pleasure to look over these vehicles. It's given me even a bit of inspiration for my builds. Now, if you guys want to see exactly what radio Tony runs and the whole range of GME gear, simply jump on his website, gme.net.au. But for now, I think Tony and I are off to the pub. That's your shout. That sounds like a great idea.