My mr2 v6 swap, long post, with heavy pics (56k beware) Options

[P5ycho]

Hello friends.. its been a long time since I posted on here..
Unfortunatly my Celica got totalled last year about 2 weeks before christmas..

I had told the wife to take it to work as we had quite bad snow, and the celica being 4wd, and built like a tank would be perfect for her..
on her way home that night some idiot travelling at high speed on the snow , could not stop and T-boned my celica..

long story short , insurance said the chassis was twisted and the car was a wreck..
I bought the car back from insurance company and dismantled it for parts and sold off the bits over last few months..

In the meentime I needed transport and started shopping, went and found another Gen 6 celica.. this time a 1998 model, gt4 with all the toys you could ask for..
bought it and spent some time and money tidying it up.. then handed it over to the wife...lol

you might say why , But I love the woman, and she loves gt4's lol.. so had to get her another one..lol

anyway at this stage I had been through 4 celica's and wanted something different but still a toyota.. so for myself I got a mk2 Mr2..with a rev2 3sge N/a ...
won it of ebay...lol
here is a pic of my new car...
The wheels were silver when I got the car,. but were looking quite bad with the paint flaking, so I painted them black with yellow lip as you can see in pic..


now the mr2 came witha full and comprehensive service history, and had done 93k miles.. the engine was like brand new... the car had been garaged when not in use and was in really good condition inside and out...
only thing that was showing signs of age was the seats. the drivers seat was badly worn on the bolster..
so back on ebay and I found me some nice retrimmed seats in black and yellow to complement the car..


now I/we drove the car round for 6 months like this, and whilst browsing the mr2 forums one day I came across a post about a v6 swap into the mr2...

I did some more digging, and after reading various posts on various forums, I was convinced that this was a great idea..

Now don't have me wrong, There was absolutely nothing wrong woth the 3sge, it was probably still producing somewhere close to the 168bhp that it set out the factory with,
but the 3sge lacks torque..plus I have had a load of 4 cylinder cars up till now and I think it was time I got me a v6..

so I told my mrs, I am going to v6 the mr2.. I think she was a bit skeptical, to be honest , but this did not deter me,.
spent the next 6 months, reading as much info as i could find about the v6 swaps,, found myself a website called twobrutal.co.uk..
thats when things got a bit more serious..

this place was heaven for an information junkie like me.. I spent hours upon hours reading, taking notes,, reading, scratching head, and more reading ...

at the same time I started hunting for a Donor Camry for the engine..
I had decided the 3vzfe was the engine I will use as later on I will be supercharging the engine, and from what i read the 3vzfe is best for this purpose..

many weeks shopping, and a few missed auctions on ebay I finally won me a 1997 Camry off ebay..
camry was a great runner, had been serviced well and looked after over the years.. and had 110k on the clock..
heres a pic of the camry


there was no turning back now.
the next thing I needed to get was a custom made engine mount for the driver side. the other 3 mounts fit on the mr2 gearbox which was keeping so there was no worries about that..

again managed to get the engine mount from Paul Woods of Woodsports, through Twobrutal forum..
next was case of working out what clutch I was going to use.. and also mr2 flywheel would need to be modded to fit the 3vzfe..
again one day i came across someone selling a modded flywheel and clutch combo on the twobrutal forum..
and I couldnt resist.. I just bought it..

now the next thing I wanted to do was freshen up the engine.. the 3vzfe is a very good engine and will go on for ages.. all my research told me that the only weak point on these engines is the headgasket that seams to go at around 100k, once you replace it . its vertually reset for another 100k miles..

but I though if I am doing the headgaskets, then may as well replace water pum, timing belt, idlers , tensioners and anything else that can be done while the engine is out..

so I went to visit my local Toyota spares shop with a list in my hand..
and almost had a heart attack when the bloke gave me a quote of £1000 for 2 headgaskets, timing belt,. water pump, and all the other bits I needed..

now my plan was to do the swap on a budget, and 1k was far more than I was prepared to spend on service parts..
so went on ebay, and found someone across the big pond . (over there in the states..lol) who had all the parts I needed, and after bought and paid for all the stuff it only cost me £240 delivered to my door in the UK..

parts landed on my doorstep almost 10 days later..

[P5ycho]

so now the engine was complete, the next task was to drop the 3sge from the mr2..
but before I could do that I decided to drop the fuel tank and fit my walbro fuel pump..
this task took me a whole day to acheive, the cvar was on axle stands on the ground with me under it while my uncle helped using trolley jacks to manipulate the tank in and out. but got it done in the end.. did not take any pics of this as i just wanted to get the task done..

then I enlisted help from a couple of mates, who incidently decided to buy my 3sge for his car.. double result that one..lol
anyway got the 3sge dropped one evening in about 4 hours with our limted tools and light,.,lol



now the 3s was out, we split the gearbox of and I gave that a clean..


painted the subframe and arb


and reinforced my engine mount to cope with the extra torque from the v6..


rerouted the coolant/radiator hoses to accomodate the v6, mounted the acis expansion tank and the charcoal cannister in the engine bay.

then the engine was removed from the stand and the flywheel was mated to the engine and torqued up, brand new friction plate fitted and ironman pressure plate fitted, then the mr2 gearbox was mated to the 3vzfe..
after this i fit the driver side engine mount and then we attached a rope to the engine and lifted it onto a dolly to push it under the car.,

using the engine crane, we lifted the back end of the car up into the air, high enough to get the engine to clear the back bumper and then pushed the engine/gearbox combo under the car into the engine bay..

the car was then lowered back down on to the axle stands with the engine laying in the engine bay area..
we then attached the crane to the engine and lifted it up and into position,.
the driver side mount was done up.
then passenger side and then the front mount,
the rear mount is attched to the subframe so that can be done later..



and that concluded play for that evening..

following day I returned early to get some more work done..
connected up the coolant hoses,
then made up some fuel lines.
then connected the heater hoses.. mounted the airflow meter and then I set about feeding the wiring loom back into the boot..
now came the fun part..

stripped out the 3vzfe loom and identified all the necessary wires I need to connect, then one by one each of them was wired up..
3 hours later I had finished the wiring..
so I put in some fresh engine oil., put some fresh Toyota Forlife coolant into the engine, and then it was time to turn the key for the 1st time..

before I turn the key for the 1st time, i removed the fuel pump relay and the king spark lead..
just wanted to get the oil round the engine before firing it up..
cranked for few seconds, and then replaced the relay, and spark lead..
then turned the key.. and here is the result..
click the pic for vid


I was in tears,.. it worked 1st time..
must point out at this point that I have never builty an engine before, and this was my 1st attempt..
kid brother almost fell over as he wasnt expecting it to be so loud..

and here are some pics of the engine in place and coversion complete..



now I refit the subframe and rear arms.
then i attached teh camry downpipe to the manifolds..


after this I booked the car in with local custom exhaust shop to have my custom downpipe made to mate with the stainless exhaust i already had bought for the car..

camry downpipe was modified to mate with my exhaust

and exhaust was fitted,,


and finally the v6 swap was complete.. and here is a vid of how she sounds now with the exhaust fitted,..
click the pic..


This post has been edited by P5ycho: Oct 21, 2011 - 3:33 PM