Hello, my name is Matt Kinsman.

Two people standing on rocky terrain with a mountainous landscape, snow-capped peaks, and a lake in the background under a partly cloudy sky.

I am a mechanical engineer completing a master’s degree in automotive engineering at Clemson University. I am also an enthusiast with a long-standing interest in the Toyota 1KZ-TE, particularly how it behaves in real operating conditions when longevity, heat management, and mechanical sympathy matter more than trends or dyno numbers.

LandSurfer will serve as a technical hub for the 1KZ platform. It will be a place where teardown notes, factory documentation, measurements, testing, and lessons learned are collected and organized. The focus will be on fundamentals such as thermodynamics, lubrication, materials, controls, and failure modes, applied to a legacy diesel designed to work consistently over time.

This site will document the learning process openly. It will include design decisions, experiments that succeed, experiments that fail, and the reasoning behind both. Nothing will be presented as authority or final truth. The intent will be transparency so others can evaluate tradeoffs, replicate approaches, or improve on the work.

The information will be structured to be practical and repeatable. Assumptions will be stated and limitations will be acknowledged. Nothing will be written to chase clicks or sponsorships. If something is documented, it will be because it reduces guesswork or preserves useful knowledge.

And yes, we will also sell hats.

At its core, LandSurfer will exist because legacy platforms benefit from disciplined engineering thinking, and because technical projects do not need to pretend to be white papers to be taken seriously.