6G Celicas Forums

Hey guys, I have a 5sfe in my celica. it's a 94 gt and I was looking for a little more, how should I say oomph out of the engine.It's decent but not good enough yet. My other car is a 350 horsepower camaro so understand my need for speed.
I've been told I can either do a head swap although with a pre 97 model that wont work? thats what I heard.
I'm not interested in a v6 swap. The only other thing I can think of is a 3sge or 3sgte swap?
I have a 5 speed tranny and I can get the stuff for less than a grand (have a buddy who runs a shop).
So its a matter of choosing and deciding the easiest option. But that 3sgte with the twin entry turbo sure sounds nice....


Also in the 5sfe can I port and polish the heads for less restriction? I've been told thats where the main problem is with the engine.

If you want power, get a 3S-GTE and a lot of extra cash to get more power out of it.

Get a 3S-GTE/3S-GE head and swap it on so you have a 5S-GTE/5S-GE. Its been done and the specifics are documented somewhere on this site. I also believe the turbo/exhaust/intake on the 3S-GTE can be mated to a 5S-FE to produce a 5S-FTE
They are both S series engines so depending on the years the heads are interchangable with various levels of modification(maybe just the headgasket on certain swaps)
The F in 5sfe stands for fuel economy, the G in 3sgte stands for performance.
It isnt about the size or shape of the cylinderhead ports as much as it is about the angle of the valves. I believe the 5sfe has a narrower head and the valves are closer to vertical, whereas the 3sge/gte has the valves set at a wider angle that flows better.
Also it should be noted that the 5s block is basically a 3s that has been stroked from 2L to 2.2L. Being oversquared should make the 5s more prone to produce torque than the 3s at the expense of some rpms, though overall a 5sgte would be more powerful than a 3sgte because 'there is no replacement for displacement'

This post has been edited by Special_Edy: Jan 24, 2013 - 2:07 PM

I thought this was interesting.

http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showto...erformance+head

Thanks Syaoran

Here is a 5S-FE head, note the shape of the combustion chanber and the angle of the valves, they are almost vertical.



Here is a 3sgte cylinder head, notice how the valves are almost sideways. Rather than go around two 90° bends, the air can almost flow straight through.


side by side-


The FE head on the right is narrower than the GE/GTE head on the left. The reason is notice how much farther apart the camshafts are spaced on the GTE. The camshafts are located almost directly over the valves on the 5SFE, hence the camshafts are close together. The camshafts are farther apart on the GE/GTE because the valves are pitched at a more sideways angle.
So the point is that with a 5sfe head, the airflow will have to make 4 sharp bends- 1) from horizontal flow through the intake port to nearly vertical downwards through the valve; 2) once it passes through the valve into the combustion chamber it must turn nearly 90° to flow towards the exhaust valve; 3) another sharp nearly 90° bend into the exhaust valve; finally another nearly 90° out the exhaust port.
The 3SGTE/3SGE has these same bends, but the angle are all significantly less. I would go so far as to conjecture that the airflow through the head has to make HALF the degrees of turns.

Yes there are many things you can do to improve the airflow of the 5sfe head, but the single most cost effective performance mod you can perform is to simply swap from a FE to a GE/GTE head.



Edit** ok so I finally found the specs buried in the forums, the 5SFE has a 22.3° valve angle, whereas the 3SGTE and 3SGE have 44.5° valve angles.

This post has been edited by Special_Edy: Jan 25, 2013 - 12:39 PM

^^^ you are correct in alot of the information that you posted above. however a 5S-FE turbo will never compare to a 3S. just like you said it all has to do with the angle of the valves. but it also has to do with the camshafts too. the 5S cams are just flat out not designed to make power. a 3S with stock cams will always outflow and with aftermarket cams the sky is the limit. so just having that extra .2L displacement is not always going to give you more power.


now back to the OP, im gonna get on my V6 bandwagon just because i can. while i wont knock the 3S-GTE, its an awesome engine, its really freaking expensive. it will cost you about 3000 bucks just to get the engine. then you have to do the work to install it and if you have a shop do it then thats more. I priced it out and to do a 1MZ swap can cost about 1500 bucks. here is your sign!

learning a lot here guys wow. taking it all in,a 5sgte swap sounds like it has a lot of potential and would be easier

A headswap with no modifications can be done to a Camry 5SFE engine block from 97-2001 Camrys. ATS racing makes a headgasket specifically for that purpose.

but it can't be used on a 94 5sfe?

I believe that what changes is the water passages. ATS racing makes the headgasket designed for use with only the 1997-2001 blocks. You can modify a headgasket or drill the block as others have done before.

Here's a link: http://atsracing.com/Parts/Details/E-5S-HEADGASKET

Working the head of your stock 5S-FE is not a bad idea. There's dyno sheets around of 5S-FE engines with performance cams installed shooting around 150whp.

There's also a build of a 5S-GE (5s block with a turbo 3sgte headswap) running e85 and an EMS and he's doing 180whp. If you think the cost of a head, custom wiring, perhaps even a completely standalone ECU, is worth 30whp then be my guest.


You're looking for power, a full 3SGTE with a couple thousand dollars will give you that with the least headaches. V6 without forced induction will never compare to an upgraded 3S. I'd rather a turbo 5S than a V6, too. It's a lot cheaper to do unless you have the means of fabricating the custom mount, the accessibility to a cheap V6, and the tools required to swap the engine.

This post has been edited by Syaoran: Jan 26, 2013 - 12:34 PM

a 5sfte is not bad if you are not going to go super high hp, at 300hp thats already more than enough to sport. a 3sgte is more for those going to go all the way with much more potential. the V6 sounds good too but more custom work. i think a 5sfe with metal headgasket, cams, turbo, bolts on, may be good enough for some, maybe most who just want the extra ooomph.

@Special_Edy: You think the valves are almost vertical on the FE head? Compared to the wide GE head, sure, but look at this VW ABF head



And they make ****loads of power with that. It's also a driven exhaust cam, not dual sprocket just like the FE head. That ABF engine makes 148 HP with 1 point higher compression than the 5S-FE (a total of 10.5:1 static CR)

To me, the main issue of the FE head is the cams. A good set of cams will make it come alive, enough to start asking for a bigger TB, better IM and a header.

Me personally I'm going to turbo mine. I'm at most going to put cams in it, I won't do bigger valves or anything of the sort for now.

I'm pretty confident that the 5S is capable enough of efficienty flowing upwards of 300HP at the wheels with the right mods (and obviously a turbo). Proper ring gap, good quality rings or even better a set of forged pistons, a set of rods with bigger bolts e.g. OE 3SGTE rods fit onto the 5S crank, 2jz springs and retainers with a set of cams and you have a good base to start with, that can spin above 7000 RPM safely. Slap on a turbo and madness will ensue.

Most 5S-FTE guys who've blown their engines is because of a ****ty tune, and/or a ****ty tuning solution. A piggy-back isn't always enough, even if it's a GReddy Ultimate... I don't like piggybacks, stock ECUs don't like being tricked or being told what to do. A proper EMS that lets you take full control of the engine is the #1 insurance that it won't blow if tuned right.

piggybacks do work well, however with ECU's getting smarter, they are not working as well as they used to. Ill agree that a standalone is the best way to go, the AEM EMS 4 looks like an awesome solution.

yeah but how hard is it to turbo these engines? thought of buying a cheap kit from a reliable source and doing it but I didnt know if I could just do it like I would my camaro (which im thinking of doing to push 450 hp without slapping on a new head)

I personally would buy a Megasquirt-III with MS3X pre-assembled over the EMS-4. I have a Megasquirt-II right now in mine and it works fine so long as you don't use the stock distributor's cam trigger as the main sensor, because no EMS to date is compatible with it. (Toyota used a very complex and weird cam wheel for the 5S distributor post 1993 models, or Rev 2 5SFE)



http://warp.scl.utah.edu/mr2/Turbo5sfe.html

Follow that to the tee and you will have minimal issues. A lot of info is crude but it will work for the most part.

My only reservation about a 5SGTE/5SGE is the shape of the pistons, Im not sure what CR you would get, or if the heads have the same volume.

The point I am trying to make is that you can swap a 3sge/gte head onto a 5s block and essentially have a stroker motor thats probably more powerful than a stock 3sge/3sgte. Sure the 5S block and internals werent intended for it like the 3S block was but they will handle an oem 3sgte setup.

If you want to spend money building a performance 5SFE or 5SFTE than by all means go ahead. But it would be a lot cheaper to get a stock GE/GTE head and swap it on than to make a FE head flow the same kind of numbers. I mean, I could get 1000 horsepower out of a 7AFE if I wanted to, but I may as well buy a jet engine and strap it into the trunk because it'd probably be cheaper. And not to say that modifying the 5sfe isnt possible or worthwhile, but I think that we are fourtunate to have the 3S as a viable option and that we should use what is available to us.

This post has been edited by Special_Edy: Jan 31, 2013 - 7:18 PM

That's why CP and other brands made a set of pistons for the swap. The heads are different and the engine becomes an interference engine if the pistons are not swapped to ones with the proper valve reliefs. CP makes up to 9.0:1 static CR pistons for a 5s bock with 3s head.

EDIT: Swapping the head is not a matter of "slap on a 3s head" and go. It's more of a snowball. If you get the head, you need to get all associated things to fit it. Assuming you get a complete head, you need the intake manifold, throttle body with the inlet, modify the throttle cable to make it fit into the centerfeed TB vs our sidefeed. If you aren't going the EMS route, you'll need to modify your wiring harness, you'll need to make sure you get the fuel rail and injectors, modify the fuel lines to have them fit, fit the upper radiator hose properly.


Once you're finished figuring that out, you'll need to buy pistons, a longer cambelt, and either modify your block if it's a pre-98 5SFE (Camry 98, not Celica 98, Camry 98 is the final revision, Celica 98 is still revision 2 5SFE)

The pistons only come in .020 over so you'll need to bore the cylinders too, and you'd do all that to keep the stock red line of 6500 RPM due to the skinny rod bolts on the 5S rods? Hell no, you'll want some rods too, which would mean either stock rods + crank grind, eagle rods + crank grind or pauter rods (900$).

Then you'll want to go ahead and repace everything else and next thing you know you'll be paying for a whole engine rebuild because of the "might as well" factor.

This post has been edited by Syaoran: Feb 1, 2013 - 11:37 PM

have you guys even looked in the FI stickys?
I made 300+whp on stock internals years ago, and ran it @ between 240-270whp for 5 years before i popped ringlands twice because of my lack of tuning skills, and fighting the stock ecu.
get the stock ecu out of the equation like you guys are talking about, even a mild set of cams, and a decent turbo and 280-325whp is no problem, provided you can tune it properly.
why link someone off site, to info that "kinda" translates to the 6gc (99% of that stuff on the 5sfte site is all ment for mr2 guys, running older engines than we do..and while it applies somewhat, there is better info right here in the stickys)
my turbo thread is very detailed, with lots of pics, and great info that shows all the ups and downs of doing a 5sfte setup. over the course of over 5 years, i made over 50 dyno pulls with several variations of my setup, and also built and tuned a couple more as well.
hell, even with the crappy ebay turbos i made 285whp @ like 16psi or somthing tuning shannons old 5sfte (again, the info is in the stickys, both the dyno sticky and the FI stickys) and that was tuning with just an SAFC neo..lol

Here is a company that provides a head/cam/throttle body/intake manifold/ecu package for the 5sfe. its about 2000 dollars. I work with some guys who have used Gude performance for their Hondas.

http://www.gude.com/Products/hplist.php#toyota

Great write up and info btw guys.