6G Celicas Forums

So I bought a new 5S-FE engine for a total of $963. It's the newer 5S-FE which comes with various upgrades, some of which include a crank angle sensor, cam angle sensor and 2 coils for a distributorless ignition.

I'll put some pics with descriptions where necessary, and I've found this is the engine to buy and build if you're going the 5S-FE route, be it N/A or F/I, or 5S-GTE. It's more EMS-friendly than the older engines, I'll explain why with the pics.


Even though the newer engine is better in some things, the older ones are better in others. Here are the fuel rails side-by-side.



As you can see, the injectors are the same. However if you look closely, the new 98+ rail is returnless (as it came in the engine I bought, they had 2 and both were the same). It is also smaller, much smaller.


Returnless systems are worse than ones with return because the AFRs are less stable. The return system basically uses the fuel pressure regulator to keep the system feeding fuel to the engine more constantly. Ideally you'd install an adjustable FPR, but in my case that won't be necessary for the time being. The stock FPR I believe runs at 43.5PSI of pressure which is good enough.



Here's one of the more important pics:



That is the crank angle sensor wheel. I consulted with a friend of mine who has experience with these, and he told me it's a 36-2 wheel. It's missing 2 consecutive teeth. The beginning and end of that longer tooth slightly protrude, so you can count 32 separate teeth plus 2 on that longer one, and it's missing another two.

The engine I bought also has this:



That's a cam angle sensor with a single tooth. I'm not sure what the tooth indicates the sensor (camshaft position) but I believe it is either TDC or several degrees BTDC.


Here are the coils:



They're 2, 1 for each 2 spark plugs. They have 4 wires and I believe they are power, ground, signal and spark confirmation. I have to consult a wiring diagram to confirm that.

That's it for now, I'll add more pics as I go through the engine. You can request any pics you'd like.

weird i have a 99 celica gt california and it doesnt have coil pack? what does this mean.

It means this engine is from a Camry 4th gen, not a Celica.

What are your plans with this engine? I have the 5sfe in both my 95 Celicas. I know there isn't much aftermarket support in these engines and they don't make much power. I'm interested to see what your plans are. Nice 5th gen btw

That was my previous Celica, it made me fall in love with them. Thanks.

I'm still unsure as to what exactly I'm going to do. It sounds like my old engine spun a bearing, so I have a spare crank to play with, as well as a cylinder head and parts.

I plan on turbocharging after using it N/A for a while for break-in purposes.

Gude performance makes a head/cam/intake manifold/throttle body package for that engine. Also Venom make a ECM for it as well. I have it on one of mine and it makes a decent difference and its only like 300 bucks sometimes cheaper. There is a couple of little performance here and there. Good luck and I look forward to your build.

http://www.gude.com/

they look like return rails to me and your information is wrong about returnless having less stable AFRs. since every toyota is returnless now why would they do that?

The newer one (smaller one) comes with a block-off plate on the fuel return port. I had removed it in this pic to see what it was. The other engine at the importer was the same. They have the port to make it return-type, but they came returnless.

It's easier to run a returnless system (and safer too) since there's one less line to worry about.

Return vs Returnless

The general consensus on it is that a return system can cope with a sudden high demand on fuel, whereas a returnless cannot.

well thats true, but in a stock NA application its not an issue.

let me tell a little story. in my 7th gen with the turbo kit on it and 750cc injectors, i maxed them out at about 350 HP and 15psi. as soon as i converted the car to a return system the injector duty dropped down to 60% and i was able to boost 30psi and made the 545 HP. i ran out of fuel pump but the injectors were getting pretty close to maxing out.

Personally i like return systems. thats why on my 1MZ swap i converted the rails to return style.

I plan on boosting which is why I'm keeping the older, return-style system.

smart man

The main difference.... left is 5S, right is 3S.

I haven't updated this in a while, but I just haven't gotten around to do anything else. I plan on taking the block to the machine shop to have it refreshed, see what bearings I need, etc. and to have the crankshaft ground down to accept 3S-GTE stock rods.

I initially was worried that the 3SGTE rods would weight much more than the 5SFE rods, but weighing them with my hands there's barely any difference. The 3S rods have more meat everywhere, so they must be heavier, but not significantly heavier. That means that it shouldn't adversely affect my engine in any way.

Speaking of which, here's a pic of a 3SGTE rod and a 5SFE rod. This 5SFE rod is one from my older 5S. The 5S rods are the same from either revision.

Notice how the 3S small end is thicker above the pin hole. I think this is due to offset pin on the rod? The 5S pin is centered right in the middle, while the 3S holds the piston pin lower, making the piston sit lower in the combustion chamber, perhaps to lower compression?
Top: 5S-FE
Bottom: 3S-GTE (2nd gen MR2 engine)



Another speck of information I can give you: 5S-FE piston rings changed sizes in the final revision of the 5S-FE.

Pre-98 piston rings: 1.5mm x 1.5mm x 4.0mm, that stands for a 1.5mm compression ring, 1.5mm scraper ring, and a 4.0mm oil control ring.

Post-98 piston rings: 1.2mm x 1.2mm x 3.0mm, same as above but with these sizes.

Here's two e-bay listings showing this: (for people seeing this in the future, you'll possibly not be able to see the listing, so search for seller mizumoauto and search for 90-99 celica piston rings and 98-01 camry solara piston rings)

Pre-98 piston rings: Link
Post-98 pistons + rings: Link

The question remaining is why did they reduce the ring size by .3mm for the first 2 rings and by 1mm for the oil ring. Shouldn't larger rings be better in terms of durability?

This post has been edited by Syaoran: Mar 15, 2013 - 1:24 AM

sounds like an awesome bottom end your building there, its basically the makings for a 3sgte stroker motor, show us a pic of the block deck, there must be enough meat in there to bore out for some oversize forged 3sgte pistons like 87.5 or 88mm

darn....you are just made it easier for me to go EMS. I was hoping I would have to do this all myself so I would get distraught and end up not spending all that time and money haha

That picture is coming soon once I get the rest of the old engine out, so I can compare them side by side since I know there's a couple of differences.

There's a lot of meat, but I'm only going for .020" over pistons to have the block ready to accept 5sfe block/3sgte head hybrid pistons later down the road, since sadly they only come in +0.020 or 0.040 over.




It's really not that much difficult than an oil pump change to do a reliable trigger wheel setup for almost any EMS. However unless you're shooting for more than 350whp, it's not worth it. I did it because my ECU was bad, and the Megasquirt cost me about twice as much as a used OEM ECU.

Stock ECU + GReddy/Autronic ECU + J&S Safeguard is a pretty good piggy-back setup.

Stock ECU will control the stock distributor better. But if you want to go wasted spark like I am (distributorless) you're gonna need to go EMS.

This post has been edited by Syaoran: Mar 15, 2013 - 11:09 AM

Time to update this thread after a long time of learning.

What I've gathered so far:

5S-FE engines are EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY unbalanced from the factory to be used safely in a turbocharged application that will last a long time. Sure, they'll last you a while boosted at low PSI (because that's how stout these bottom ends are), but it's OBVIOUSLY not intended for high RPM nor high boost applications.

So on the topic of engine balance the final resolution is: If you plan on getting ANY good power out of this engine and plan on using it like that for a long time, you better balance the whole rotating assembly.

Initial Spin: http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj61/ar...zps21870d82.jpg
Final Spin: http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj61/ar...zpsd6bb870d.jpg

The images speak for themselves. Moving on.

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Next up is the internals on your bottom end. The route that I took was forged H-beam rods with hypereutectic pistons (according to the manufacturer they are hypereutectic. They do look a little different from regular stock cast pistons)

The reason for this is because I initially planned to do a 3S-GTE swap to make the fan-dubbed 5S-GTE. All piston manufacturers only make oversized pistons for use with a 5S block and crank and GE head. For that reason I went with 0.020" over pistons so that all I'd have to do when I have the headswap ready is to hone the cylinders and install the new pistons.

Clearances are very important. They dictate how much lubrication your engine parts will get for the most part. Too much oil is bad, but too little oil is worse. I'd make a sexually referenced analogy but you probably know what I'm gonna say about too much lubrication...

Anywho, the rods I purchased came with next to no clearances either on the sides nor the small and big ends. The rods had to get the pin bushing honed for it to be fully floating (our engines are full floating from the factory and it would've been kinda a step back going semi-floating).

The big end was clearanced as well to have a thicker film of oil on the bearings for longevity. The side clearances were done as well as to have enough oil come out of the sides of the rods to be slung up to the cylinder since the new rods have no oil holes in them to cool the pistons.

My numbers are the following:

Rod Bearing Clearance: Two thousandths below the maximum factory clearance. (0.002" below the max)
Rod Side Clearance: Same as above (0.010" of 0.0123" maximum in-spec IIRC)
Rod Bolt Torque: 45ftlbs (ARP2000 3/8")
Main Caps: OEM, 43ftlbs
Piston Ring Clearance: 0.016" 1st ring, 0.018" 2nd ring (Gap should be a little larger than that for FI, more like 0.018 and 0.020 respectively, but I'm not going to worry about that with these pistons which are designed to expand less than stock and less than forged pistons as well)

Installation continues and up next follows doing the ARP 3SGTE headstud mod to clear the 5S-FE camshaft scissor gears/drive gears. It consists of cutting your studs a certain amount which I haven't measured as of today. Once I have the exact number of threads/length I'll post it up for reference.

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The brains of the operation: Megasquirt-III v3.0 with MS3X expansion. Going to be using OEM wasted spark coils, OEM 36-2 trigger wheel with crank position sensor, and OEM camshaft position sensor with 98+ Camry camshaft timing gear with single tooth. I'll have fully sequential injection which means more accurate control of fuel injection, which equals both more power and better fuel economy than our stock fueling method (batch/bank fire).

As for the coils, I want to go coil-on-plug sequential ignition but I really don't think it's necessary at this point in my build so I'll just run what I have and not let it go to waste; that is, the coil packs that came with the 98+ Camry engine. There's two coils, one for each pair of sister cylinders which translates into Wasted Spark Ignition.

For now, I know I really should be doing cams but I wanna see what this engine can do with a more modern brain. I MAY upgrade the cams soon but that's still not decided. I really don't want to go through the process of re-shimming all of the valves.

I can't stress how important is to build this engine properly. It's a really good engine to build upon, but most people embrace the excuse that it's an economy engine and that they shouldn't invest anything to make it faster... the only economy aspect of the long-block is the head, and that can be worked on to flow better; not better than a 3SGTE head, but still better than stock.

You don't need to spend heaps of money to upgrade this engine. You just need the proper guidance in order to make things work. Don't cheap out on things but don't spend so much in one part that you'll be forced to spend less on something of equal or more importance. Why spend $1000 on a turbo (Garrett or similar) when you won't spend $500 to get a set of rods and a couple more $20s to get them working like they should?

Anywho I'll leave you guys with that one for now. More stuff coming soon hopefully.

thank you for researching all of this so I dont have to!

You're welcome. There's not enough info on this engine in this forum, so I thought I might as well.

with all the work put into the bottom end of this motor, your really gonna wish you had put cams in it.
just look at my dynos before i added the cams, and how power falls off above 5k. modern ignition, and all that aint gonna make a lick of diffrence there, its all about flow, and for that your gonna wanna do cams.
trust me, cams make a HUGE diffrence above 5k, where the 5s needs it most.