Hello! New here

Hello and greetings from Salt Lake City. Anyone else here living in Utah?

I'm pumped to have found this group of SC fanatics. The short amount of time I've spent digging through posts has really got me excited to start contributing and picking y'all's brains on things.

I've had my SC for about a year and a half and I love this beast. Apparently new members can't post external links for 7 days... but if you're curious to see some info about it, google "1993 Toyota HiAce Wagon Super Custom 4WD auction" to see the carsandbids auction that I won. My mechanic and I have done quite a bit of work to it since then. Here are a few notable things we've done:

• EGR cooler delete
• Rebuilt high pressure fuel pump
• Ignition glow plug bypass, added button to dash
• NEW head cylinder, gasket, bolts, etc.
• Bolt-on turbo kit
• 2" lift kit
• Powder coated wheels with BF KO2s
• Rhino Rack Pioneer Platform
• Solar setup
• Snorkel
• Android auto stereo for nav and backup camera

This van has been such a fun and challenging project. I love taking it on the road.

Anyway, I'm really excited to be part of this community and get to know some of you crazy people. Feel free to reach out with any questions or just to chat.

- jbeez

Hello jbeez and very welcome to the Forum.

That looks a great van, very tidy and I’ve had a look through the pics on ‘carsandbids’. Very comprehensive! I think the carsandbids site was started by Doug Demuro who has a big YT following. I’ve not been on the auction site but it’s great to see it’s hosting vans like you’ve got as well as exotic cars that he tends to review, but I do realise his tastes are quite eclectic.

I think your ability to post links and uploads pictures should appear shortly. I don’t know whether this is time or contribution-based so bear that in mind.

You might want to create a ‘show us yours’ page which is a pretty good way to document projects and tasks etc and it’s a handy way to keep the cars and bids pictures public if you wish. There’s a sticky post on the ‘show us yours’ section that describes how to upload pictures to the Forum and do some other things as it’s sadly not as straightforward as drag and drop. The Forum software has some quirky ‘features’ that might have been great once but are probably a little dated now.

My van (a LH119) is here:

https://hiace-super-custom.forumotion.com/t4317-my-lh119

There’s a long post there on some of the cooling work I’ve done / am doing on my van, which might be worth a read.

It seems like you’ve done a lot of work on your van so you’ve probably found the sources / resources I’ll mention but if not then the following are very handy (sorry to others who might read this if I sound like a broken record).

1 - The Toyota Electronics Parts Catalogue. For my van it’s this:

https://toyota.epc-data.com/regius_ace/lh119v/114830/

Modify it based on the exact model and it’ll hopefully make finding parts etc easier, but you’re probably all over this.

2 - The EPC links through to Amayama - a Japanese / UAE etc parts site where you can also search and narrow down parts options. There are also Megazip, toyodiy, JP-carparts.com, eBay etc and I also find my local Toyota dealership quite helpful and sometimes not too expensive. For ‘catalogue’ parts like are made by OEM people like DENSO, AISIN or where other companies are making compatible parts I find Autodoc (search it) great for cross-referencing Toyota parts numbers. Again you probably do this or have access to your local or national parts list companies.

3 – Head over to the Hiacesoutheast site and get the manuals etc there. The electronics manual there is the best I’ve seen and you can decode your VIN plate there, too. A good site for paint codes is:

https://hdpaintcode.com/snippet-c-ki0pgmbhaKvi.html  

I’ve not been able to decode the trim code nor the ‘Plant/Built’.

4 – I’ve been able to use Google to translate documents in Japanese. Sometimes the hardest part is to do the OCR of images or non-text pdfs, but once you have the text it’s easy to copy this into Word and then chunk it into the Google site. Often the result is very mundane but it’s useful.

It’s great to read the list of mods you’ve made and it’s interesting to see that your van is very similar to mine though yours is auto and has rear coil springs.

A couple of these spring to mind particularly:
Turbo. I accidentally hijacked this thread (https://hiace-super-custom.forumotion.com/t4379-96-super-custom-blowing-smoke#24475) with some thoughts on turbo-additions to the 3L. Be interested to know whether you added the kit (from Don at NorthWest Toys LLC?) or did it part by part? Did you fit a boost compensator and did you change anything else (cooling, intercooler or exhaust)?

Solar. On my to-do list and likely to be a flex panel or two on my pop-top. Do you have a leisure battery set up and split charge plus external hook up or what have you done?

Sounds. My van needs work in this area. It had a JVC 1 DIN unit but it was fiddly to use and I’d like to add the rear camera option. Am thinking of going ATOTO. What did you fit?

Be great to learn more!

Cheers!

LH119V nice to meet ya! And thanks for the links, these are super handy. I'll definitely have to create a 'show us yours' page.

Your van is very cool. I've never seen a Cruising Cabin in person. It is interesting how similar our rigs are. I do love the look of the truck mirrors. I bet the visibility is much better than the dinky powered mirrors on mine. And that head room from the pop top, sheesh - must be nice, I'm jealous.

The interior of mine looks about like yours (at least from the post you made in April). I'm working towards being mechanically sound before I work on a comfortable interior for camping. That said, it hasn't stopped me from throwing a pad down and camping in there with my dog and/or my girlfriend. I am feeling pretty good about the progress so far.

I haven't yet done any work to the cooling system but I'm going to have to get to it eventually. Deleting the rear heater has been on my list for a while because I'm never going to use it and the tubes underneath have been weeping ever-so-slightly. When I get to it, I'm sure I'll want to give the whole system a once-over and will probably end up taking out the radiator too. The post you made about the work you've done in that realm is very comprehensive and I'm sure it's going to help when I decide to tackle that project, so thank you for sharing!

• Turbo - I have yet to dive into that thread but I will when I get the chance. I did, in fact, buy the kit from Don over at Northwest Toys. Super nice guy, very knowledgeable. Kept it tuned the way they sent it. I've done some minor exhaust repair but haven't added anything or changed anything out. No intercooler work either. I'd happily hear any recommendations.

• Solar - I bought a heavy duty 175W Zamp solar panel and used gutter mounts to get it up there. I'm trying to completely avoid drilling any holes in the van, if I can help it. So I just ran the wire through the corner where the window cracks open. Seems to seal up nice when closed as I haven't seen any water come through when washing it or driving in rain. I had a Jackery Explorer 500 battery before the van and hoped that I could get it working with the panel I bought. Sure enough, I just had to reverse the polarity and it worked like a charm. Getting 75-90W input on a sunny day. I've been able to power an Iceco freezer/cooler, the pump for my Joolca Nomad (water heater, sink and shower) keep my phone and laptop charged for several days on the road. I even have a portable fold out panel if I happen to be parked in the shade and it's nice to be able to move the battery if needed. So far so good with this setup, not sure I need anything more.

Flex panels are definitely the way to go with your CC. Depending on what all you're trying to power and especially if you want to keep things simple, I highly recommend looking into portable power stations as opposed to complex wiring with inverters, split charge and mounted deep cycle batteries.

• Sounds - The original owner in Japan had already done a little work in this area, I assume in the early 2000s as it came with a double-DIN Sony minidisc player and dash-mounted tweeters. It also had a controller mounted under the windshield wiper control on the steering column which I was somehow able to get to work with the new deck. The new deck is a Pioneer DMH-1500NEX and I love it. Microphone was mounted right above the rear view mirror - Google assistant and people can hear me crystal clear. The best place for the backup camera was right in the center of the back door where the handle is so I had to mount it slightly to the side and adjust the angle but I can still see the entire bumper at the bottom of the screen.

This setup has been a game changer, giving me all the modern comforts in my old vehicle. I also have a 2017 Forester but I prefer the aftermarket setup of my 1993 Hiace. If you're an android user, you'll love the way this deck syncs with Google Maps, Spotify, Audible, etc. Hands free texting and calling is so very nice.

Hope this helps! I will post pics and whatnot when I build my 'show us yours' page.

Cheers

Hello! Fellow Utahan SC owner here just north of you in Cache Valley. We are definitely rarer. I have been looking for a good mechanic in Utah who is capable of working on these vans, who do you go to? It would be cool to get a bunch of Utah owners together to share repair and maintenance knowledge and resources in the area.

Anyway, awesome van and welcome!

Nice to meet ya togiharu. I'd love to have a Utah JDM van meetup. I met the owner of a Hiace ambulance the other day, that thing was pretty sweet.

If you need a mechanic in Utah, I recommend Tony at Rush Diesel Automotive in Sandy. Only downside is that he is consistently busy over there so it usually takes leaving your van for a couple weeks before he even has a chance to look at it. But the staff is overall pretty knowledgable and helpful.