To start I’m not familiar with the immobilizer in the pre 01 trucks.

I swapped my 02 for a manual trans and do not have a check engine light. I simply used a 4x4 tacoma ecu to remove the check engine. Then rather than going through the hassle of swapping the wiring harness all I did was jumper the auto trans cable at the connector. I do not have the clutch cancel switch wired. I do have the cruise wired though. That took some wires under the dash from the clutch and brake pedals directly to the ecu. In my case far far easier than swapping harnesses.

4x4 works perfect. No modifications at all. Multi mode transfer case works perfectly.

I’m in CA and have no problem with smog.

I've dug through this thread and all mentioned threads included here. I'm about to pursue a salvage 5sp Manual donor and want to confirm that ecu's will not be a total pain, or at least understand my worst case scenarios. Special thanks to: @audiness , @Bad_Luck, @phattyduck , @Team_Jake and @Brain . For all their contributions on this topic.
Thanks, Steve.

Recipient Vehicle: 1998 Limited Auto
Donor Vehicle: 2000 SR5 Manual

You'll be able to get it to start and run with the trans and your stock ECU (jumpered neutral safety switch) - getting a compatible ECU and other wiring... well, the '00 and '98 are fairly different in terms of wiring. The ECUs won't cross over, etc.

-Charlie

@phattyduck , thanks for insights/confirmation. I was concerned about ECU's across those years...my goal is to find a same year donor (98') but not tons of these out there. If I end getting the 00' I could probably sell-buy/swap the 00' ecu for a 98' ecu...Just another wrinkle. The mechanical bits are pretty straight forward and shouldn't be so year specific.

Measure the trans crossmember location and make sure you plan for the possibility that it needs to get moved. Otherwise, it will be very straightforward mechanically.

-Charlie

Hey everyone, i am very sorry for never finishing this thread. I've been battling a lot of things in my peroneal life, but I am glad to say that things are really up for me now.

I am glad to report that I did get the truck finished, the only thing i never hooked up was cruise control or the "clutch start cancel" feature. I would like to hook both of these up someday, but the only think i really miss is cruise control.

To finish the story: I ran into a big issue with the ECU, and that is what sidelined me for months with this. I wanted to make the swap 100%, and that meant using the manual ECU. I was able to get the truck started and running with my Auto ECU, but the fuel mapping and throttle response wasn't very good. It didn't run all that great and would stall out sometimes, an I wasn't satisfied. I actually gave up for a few months, and then came back to it.

I ended up finding a specialized locksmith who was able to reprogram the Manual ECU with my Auto ECU immobilizer codes. I have no idea how exactly he did this, I sent him both ECUs, he copied the codes from the Auto ECU to the Manual ECU, and once that was done, the Manual ECU worked great. (PM me for the locksmith contact info if anyone needs this in the future)

The truck has been completed since about November 2022, so it's been a little over a year and I've put maybe 10k miles on the truck since the swap. I had tons of fun in the truck this past summer, I took it on numerous adventures and off-roading excursions. I actually got the truck stuck for the 1st time ever this summer, got to use my winch for the first time ever.

Would I do it again? Maybe. Honesty , its actually harder to drive off-road in technical areas with a manual. The Auto is truly better transmission for off-roading. But it is a lot more fun to drive, and much peppier / quicker. it gets on average 1-2 MPG more. So I am getting about 13-15 MPG now.

I also kept the manual TCase, instead of figuring out how to make the pushbutton 4wd to work. But with the manual TCase, the truck cannot be driven on-road in "4Hi" mode anymore. When you engage 4WD with the manual Tcase, it locks the center diff in both 4Hi and/or 4Lo, and I really don't love that. I wish i could find a way to only lock the center diff in 4Lo, but I do not think it's possible. I always kept my auto trans in 4Hi for extra traction, and it only locked up the center diff when in 4Lo. that's just the way it is.

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You literally do not have a center differential anymore, so there is nothing to unlock... The front and rear driveshafts are directly linked at all times when in 4WD, like any traditional 4WD vehicle. Since the 4WD ECU is separate, you can get AWD mode back if you want, you just need the right driveshafts and make sure the wiring is right.

Glad to hear you got it (almost) all working! There's something great about driving a manual transmission in a vehicle that was otherwise never available that way (my Alltrac Camry is this way - LE trim, AWD, turbo, MT!)

Funny thing, I still have a 4WD Limited (with immobilizer) ECU that I need to do the reverse operation on to put in my SR5 (non-immobilizer) to replace my 2WD ECU... supposedly the 4WD ECU shifts a bit different in LO.

-Charlie

awesome thread. Thanks for all the details. I am about to start a similar swap. But I am going to use the 8hp70 transmission. I have a factory reman 4x4 manual ECU. It will need to be programmed to the vehicle as I believe it comes blank. Can you share the contact info for the lock smith you used?

Thanks Larry

You're going to adapt an 8HP70 to the 5VZ engine?

It'll work just fine "blank" - the immobilizer function is in the ECU and if it is blank, the vehicle will start. There is no VIN programming in the ECU.

-Charlie

What welding are you referring to?

It wasn't noted here, but the trans crossmember may need to move, not sure. There's also the tunnel mods for the different shifter type.

-Charlie

Hey Guys story goes like this:
I picked up a 1997 limited manual 4Runner with a knocking engine and a ton of little problems (lockers not working, lights don’t work, etc) so I bought a parts 2x4 2000 4Runner SR5 to engine swap since it only had 140,xxx miles. So I got new OEM clutch and did all the maintenance (timing, water pump, belts) and slapped the engine in. And it started runs and drives. So now I’m want to take it and pass DEQ but I have a check engine light for my A/T codes (P0753, P0758, P0710) for the solenoids so I was wondering could I just use the Toyota Techstream to fully clear the codes or take and reflash the ecu or something across those lines? Because it looks like the previous owner tried doing the whole resistor thing for the solenoid

There's no flashing/coding of any Toyota ECUs of this era, other than for immobilizer keys (on certain models/years/packages). You'll need to find a compatible manual ECU - at least there is no immobilizer on your '97...

-Charlie