3sgte, JDM swap Options

[Bladey]

Hello all, i have been reading your forum quite a while now and love it, and what a car the celica is

i have a 1996 st202 3sge 5 speed manual currently and would been keen to do a 3sgte swap, i have a few questions of corse and ive researched a lot but most of the swaps are american and hence are quite different ( engine, LHD, clutch, wiring) etc

So i have access to a 3sgte from a st185 or sw20 mr2 for quite cheap (being in NZ has its advantages)

if i get one of these engines how hard is it to put in? will i need to do the hybrid clutch set up as i have read about? will the ecu and wiring be quite difficult and how hard is it to make it a front mount intercooler? as getting a gt4 hood is almost impossible and if so 700 bucks is far to much imo

Any other things i may have to worry about?

cheers guys

[Rusty]

Firstly welcome, its great to see more NZ'ers joning

Heres your GT4 hood, $500 NZ (look you already saved $200.) But should look at getting the rest of the front (hood latch, bumber and support parts or do a SS-Four front)

The Gen 2 3S-GTE your speaking about has just over 30kw over your 3S-GE (133kw), where as the Gen 3 3S-GTE has over 50kw, and Gen 4 3S-GTE about 60kw, these (gen 3 & 4 3S-GTE) would best suited to swap over imo (*kw taken from flywheel)

The Gen 3 3S-GTE would be the easier of the 3 to swap over, as your carrying it over from a ST205 to a ST202. Less stressful on wiring, no worries about RHD to LHD, the clutch you may still need to do as the USA uses the same* 5 speed trans (S54-##X)

How hard is it to do a swap? Well thats up to you and your know how, $$$, skill level and if you have the tools, space etc or have connects at a garage to get it done there.

And the other thing you have to remember is that this will need to have a lvvta cert (~$500) for the engine swap to be able to keep it legal on the road... plus it may require you to upgrade other parts like your brakes to met the safety standards. And thats $500 each time for a cert, so if you want to install adj. coilovers, wheel spacers, fixed bucket seats etc. Then its smart to get them all installed all at once, then go get a cert, so you only have to pay one fee for getting a cert.


Better yet have some NA fun with your ST202 with suspension mods and for the 3S-GE: camshafts, H/C, ECU, high revs.........


...or you could buy a real ST205 GT-Four?