3SGE swap compared to a built 5SFE, Thinking Options

[chucho]

I was concerning doing a major head upgrade to my 5SFE. But after reading and comparing prices I'm looking at swapping out the 5SFE to a 3SGE. Has anyone on the site done this? I've looked around and have just found 4age and 3sgte swaps. I know some of you guys across the ocean have 3sge's but y'all got that nice engine w/ the car. Is the swap like the 3SGTE swap? I will need a new ecu and re-wire. but will I need a different trans? Let me know. As of right now I have 1,200 in the bank but will have some more soon. So I'm looking at doing it within the next couple months.

[Kwanza26]

The 4th gen celica (1st gen) 3SGE is weak sauce... don't bother with it. It'll be a sort of downgrade. Rated 135-160 hp depending on ECU.

The 2nd gen 3SGE in the 5th gen Celicas and some early MR2s is better, sporting a different head, more compression and a different intake set-up. The drawback... it's still AFM... which makes wirign a bit more difficult since you're starting with a MAP set-up. Rated at 155-160 hp

The 3rd gen 3SGE came in the overseas 6th Gen Celicas and the late model MR2s. It again sports a new head, with shimless buckets, better valve train, more compression, and more power. This would be the one you'd want to do... hands down. It'll be the easiest one IMO... Rated at 175-180hp

The 4th Gen 3SGE is the fabled Beams Redtop. These came in the last top of the line models of the 6th gen Celica and some VERY VERY limited edition MR2s. Again, it wore a completely different head with a different intake set-up, and VVT-i on the intake cam. Although it's a great motor, not even mentioning how bloody cool it looks, it's a more difficult swap because of the lack of diagrams and the extreme rarity. Rated at 200hp... but IMO overrated a bit to compete with the B18C5 (ITR).

The final version of the 3SGE, it's what I call the 5th gen, but is sometimes clustered with the 4th, is the BEAMS 3SGE blacktop. These came is a few cars, the Toyota Altezza and maybe a couple others... It again, wears a different head with a different intake set-up and has lighter internals and more compression. This engine has VVT-i on both the intake and exhaust cams. It's best of the best, but is extremely rare. Rated at 210hp... probably pretty close.

To swap one in... it's basically the same difficulty as a 3SGTE swap. Maybe a little more so because of the lack of information and diagrams... but it's more or less the same process. The 3SGEs came with a slightly different version of the USDM Celica GT tranny, so either tranny will work fine. Wiring will still need to be done. The ease/difficulty of the wiring job depends on the engine, and your thoroughness.