Toyota Hilux Mk4 Chassis Upgrade for 1UZ-FE Engine

andykirk5
Nov 29, 2025
1 min read

Kyle called me one day asking if I could 3D scan a chassis and design an uprated version that he could have laser cut. So he and a friend could weld it up, in preparation for the monster 1UZ-FE V8 engine he was going to be putting in it.

I headed over to meet Kyle and scan the chassis. Due to the chassis being quite dark in colour I took the decision to wrap in masking tape to get a better scan. Due to the symmetry of the chassis I only needed to scan one side.

Once the scan was sorted in the scanning software I took it into Solidworks and started modelling. After measuring the original chassis plate thicknesses and discussion with Kyle we decided to go with 3mm vertical plate thickness and 5mm top/bottom plate thickness. I added some indexing to the plates, so there was only one way to fit the plates together.

Next step was to take the curved plate and flatten it so it could be laser cut. Solidworks has a great function for this, in the images below you can see the yellow is the curved plate and the green in the flattened plate.

I created 2D drawings and .dxf files that Kyle could send to the laser cutters

Below are photo's sent by Kyle of the progress. He reported back that the indexing I used in the design really helped make sure all components went together as they should.