105 Series LandCruiser gets BMW M57 engine transplant

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking this is just another tidy 105 LandCruiser, one you might see at any number of campsites across the country on any given weekend.

However, dive a little deeper and you’ll notice things like the throaty straight-six exhaust note, the non-Toyota shifter in the console, and the BMW badge on the engine cover. What the… ?!

Yep, this particular bus belongs to Max Ratzlaff, and not only does it have an engine conversion that’s bordering on sacrilegious to Yota purists, but it’s also the first of its type in the country. Not bad considering Max bought this as his first ever 4x.

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He was originally chasing a dependable, comfortable wagon with a live-axle front-end to do some touring with when he came across this mint petrol-powered 105.

Easy to work on and modify, the big hundreds are well-known as being basically bulletproof, and a fantastic baseline on which to build the ideal rig. The 4.5-litre unleaded engines are also way more affordable to buy than the same model diesels, which suited 19 year old Max to a tee.

That was back in 2020. Fast forward a few years and we had Covid, which punted the price of stock turbo-diesel Cruiser motors to the moon (think $20k for the engine alone), and the price of fuel hasn’t exactly gone in the right direction either – so a diesel swap that was torquey, reliable and relatively cheap was put on the front burner.

Which led Max directly to BMW’s finest: the mighty M57. But we’ll get to that in a sec…

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The bolt-ons

Even if you disregard the engine conversion, this thing is still as neat as a pin. Moving from back to front, the rear bar is from The Cruiser Company and features dual jerry can holders and a swing-away mount for the spare 33.

Southern Cross Fabrication provided the heavy-duty steel sliders that have been Raptor coated for maximum cool points, while up top an aluminium Cane Toad Equipment flat rack provides somewhere for the space case, 23Zero shower tent and Bushwakka Extreme Darkness 270 awning to live.

Out front, an Ironman 4X4 commercial deluxe steel bar has been bolted to the rails along with a set of Roadsafe recovery points and an arsenal of Stedi LED lighting. The bar also houses a cheapy 12,000lb winch, which Max is in the process of replacing with a Runva 11XP with air free-spool.

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The suspension has been sent 50mm northward via a set of longer coils and Dobinsons MRA remote-resevoir 60mm bore shocks.

Most people would call that good and send it, but Max apparently likes to do things properly as he also added some Blackhawk radius arms, Roadsafe heavy duty uppers and 11mm-longer lowers out back, and a Tough Dog adjustable Panhard to ensure his geometry is set to “better than good”.

He also extended the brake lines, swaybar links and bump stops, and went ahead and braced both diff housings. All work was done by himself with the help of a few mates.

Speaking of the diffs, there’s an ARB Air Locker (along with the all-important solid pinion spacer that makes Toyota diffs a bunch stronger) out back and a set of 285/75R16 Maxxis RAZRs on 16x8 steelies.

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Max has the standard 95L fuel tank in place, and has also fitted up a whopping 150L sub-tank from Long Ranger Australia. That’s 245L of juice that’s good for more than 2000km. Sheesh.

The inside has the standard LandCruiser 50th Anniversary seats with MSA 4X4 seat covers, while engine internals are monitored with VDO boost and EGT gauges. A Kenwood stereo keeps Slim Dusty sounding crisp while the GME UHF lets the weird trucker conspiracy theories flow thick and fast.

The cargo area has been upgraded with a custom The Drawer Company setup, with added pantry wing storage drawer and a stainless steel table that clips onto the swing-away jerry can holder.

The rear section of the system houses the Redarc BC-DC charger and Amptron 100Ah Lithium battery that’s overseen by a simple shunt screen mounted within easy sight. The middle row seats were also yeeted in favour of a storage platform that was custom made by Max.

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The M57 swap

Max always planned on making his beast a diesel. After pricing the Toyota six-cylinder offerings and recovering from the minor heart attack that gave him, he came across Fusion Fabrication who are the go-to guys for transplanting BMW 3.0L straight-six turbo-diesel engines into Patrols.

These engines are just about perfect for use in a 4X4; they’re reliable, cheap to source, put out around 200hp from stock and with a few mods can easily be bumped up to around the 350hp mark (or beyond).

M57s also come mated to the beautiful ZF 6-speed auto, which Max reckons is simply a joy to drive off-road. With a nice low first gear ratio which allows for decent engine braking, and the torque converter locking almost immediately (unlike the Aisin autos found in Toyotas), it’s almost like it was made for wheeling.

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The engine bolted thanks to engine mounts and a transmission crossmember from McKinnon’s Cruisers, and there’s plenty of room to work in the big engine bay of the too.

Max says he can have the turbo off in about 10 minutes and that the engine weighs around 50kg less than the 1FZ it replaces. Almost like it’s meant to be.

The transfer case was mated to the transmission thanks to a Fusion Fab adapter, which clocked the transfer and necessitated a double cardan front driveshaft be installed to suit, but nothing too arduous. It really was as close to bolt-in as it gets. Max even reckons the stock Cruiser radiator (fitted with BA Falcon thermos fans) very nearly lines up with factory hoses.

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Ash from Fusion Fab also designed the plug and play harness, which allows for the Toyota dash to retain full functionality and has the engine and transmission cooperating nicely.

A custom pedal bracket was fabricated to adapt a GU Series 4 pedal into the 105 to handle the change from throttle cable to drive-by-wire, while PDI supplied the airbox, intercooler and transmission cooler, designed for a 1HD-FTE 100 Series, which bolted right in.

A 3-inch exhaust with cat and a single resonator provides a healthy bark when under throttle while maintaining comfortable highway cruising, and custom stainless intercooler pipes were made up along with the AC lines and heater hoses to top things off.

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The cherry on the cake is the Stage 2 ECU retune from GKR in the UK, which sees the M57 pumping out a healthy 270hp at the wheels and an easy 600Nm.

Similar output figures from the 1HD-FTE Max initially wanted to put in requires a turbo and injector upgrade along with a few other mods to get close.

The result? Max tells us his 3.5-tonne Cruiser drives steep highway hills and sand without a single worry, while consistently seeing 11-12L/100km on the bitumen. A fair bit of an improvement over the 25L/100km-plus the old petrol engine consumed on the same trips.

He also says it’s revvy and incredibly responsive, with 25psi showing on the boost gauge almost instantly once the foot goes down. It also makes for a much less tiring drive on longer trips, which you can’t be mad at.

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What's next?

Max is actually pretty happy with the state of his fully engineered Cruiser as it sits, and he reckons there are no major mods left to do, other than maybe a bit of sound deadening.

And he wants to upgrade the stereo, but mainly he’s just keen to get out and use it.

With a Simpson Desert trip this year, and with nearly 10,000km on the dial and a bunch of High Country trips since the M57 went in, it’s safe to say he’s stoked with how it all turned out. We can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be.