Sounds like you want an easy and cheap swap. That's not possible if you don't have the ability to do ALL the work yourself. My 1uz/5 speed swap cost me around $1200 with $800 of it being the 5 speed kit (not including the trans). Ofcourse I did all the work and fabrication. I would not call it easy but it was not hard at all.

 

Things are in the works now, not a 20r or 22r like was suggested. It makes me sad that the thread went from helpful information to "you have to pay to play" and "there's no such thing as easy" I knew it wasn't going to be necessarily cheap or super easy, I was just looking for options at the lower end of those two things. It will go in my build thread when it's done.

By the way, anyone seen or heard from Standardbyker88?

 

Confucius say: "The easiest engine swap, is the one your buddy does for a case of beer and a pizza." I'm paraphrasing, of course. All historians agree that Confucious had his truck worked on exclusively at dealerships.

One way you may want to go is to keep an eye on the sales at the local u-pull-it yards. Get all the parts you can and make up the rest on other trucks as they come into the yard. It won't be a rebuilt engine or trans, but you can get the swap done and then work on rebuilding an engine that will then fit right in. Linkages and such are a lot of times scarier in ones head than they actually are once you get down to actually laying them out and the best part is, in your case, a Toyota engeneer has already done the work for you on a later model truck. All you have to do is figure out how to adapt the stock linkages from the newer model truck to fit your truck. ("This was on the firewall about here on the newer truck, so I'll put it about in the same place on mine." ect.) No, I haven't done this exact swap before, but I have done engine swaps before and swapped from auto to manual trans, ect.
If you have the desire to do it and are somewhat mechanically inclined... Try it! You may not know everything when you start out, but you will once you are done. I'll help with what knowledge I have if you get stuck on something. I'll bet there are others on here that will do the same.

 

Unfortunately I don't have anyone to feed beer and pizza in exchange for mechanical ability, lol. I have a few options that are being looked into, I'm sure they will ruffle the purists feathers but will be fun when finished(I was kind of one, I'm trying to get over it)

And Confucious also say, man who stand on toilet high on pot!

 

My vote would be a 3t if you could swing it. Puerto Rican guy I used to work with had a 80 or 81 corolla with a turbo'd 3t pushing damn near 500hp. They're little monsters. Second to that, I'd say 20/22r hybrid. You could pretty easily and inexpensively make 150 hp with it

 

Did someone say 18RG? It's basically the same block with a twin cam head.

 

Those are like finding a unicorn though.

 

I had a fully built 18rg in my hilux, even had the hks turbo kit for it. got bored and threw in a b21ft out of a Volvo 240. easy swap and the truck makes around 220rwhp in its current state and around 260-270ftlbs at the wheels. could not ask for more power and reliability.