3vz-fe V6, 5th gen....., my conversion Options

[fibrewizard]

hi guys ..... been wanting to join here for a while now....

and finally got around to doing it.....

i didnt want to step on any toes seeing as though i own a 5th gen, .....

however i thought you might be interested to hear about my conversion......

i am aware that a member on here has done a V6 conversion and alot of his details i have used for mine....
so i would just like to say thanks.......

so here we are.......

hi.....

well now that i have introduced myself.... i thought id share my build with you all.......

1991 st184sx Celica.......

bought it stock as a rock... no mods at all....

1st thing i did was rims and exhaust...


then i got thinking about a 3sgte conversion.... but that was too obvious.... i am always in my head thinking about different ways to do things and going with a generic engine swap was to plain for me......

after about 1 yr of researching and saving.... i decided to swap in a 3vzfe quad cam V6 out of a 96 vdv10 camry...

so next step was to gather all the bits id need and plan out conversion.. more research..lol......

so i got my hands on a nice front cut from a local wrecking yard.....

pulled out the motor, gearbox, wiring loom, ecu, hubs, drive shafts, instrument cluster, suspension, everything my research lead me to beleive id need......



so next step was to turn my attention to the celica..... bring it into the garage and pull out the worthless 5sfe... whaich had given me all sorts of dramas in the year i had it in there.......


so out with the old........dog of a 5sfe



so with engine and gearbox out it was time to see for myself exactly what needed to be done to get the v6 into its new home..

my research has lead me to beleive that all celica mounts would cross over to the camry engine and gearbox......

but this turned out to not be the case......
only one mount crossed over....

so thinking of research again.... i had read that the celica gearbox shares the same bolt pattern as the camry...... so off with the camry box to compare........

(seems as though i have lost these pics.... will find em)

anyhow..... bolt pattern is identicle on both camry and celica gearboxes.... so this meant that the stock celica geabox will bolt upto the v6 engine.....

and that it did... perfectly..... no hassles



now the only issue i had with swapping the gearbox's was, the clutch and the driveshaft bearing carrier.....

clutch was sorted using the camry flywheel, the celica friction plate, and the camry pressure plate..... problem solved, and works perfect.... i had a exedy h/d clutch in the celica so this would only benifit the cross over with the v6....and hold upto the new power of the v6 with no slipping.....

secondly was the driveshaft bearing carrier which had to be modified to bolt to the v6 block..... heres what we came up with.....






so this can now bolt up to the v6 block... and i can still keep celica driveshafts.... which also in turn allows me to keep all celica suspension.... as using camry gearbox would mean changing all suspension and driveshaft to either camry or custom made.....

so with all that sorted it was now time to drop the v6 and celica gearbox into the newhome of a celica engine bay



fits like a charm......

so once all was in and semi bolted down..... it was time to check out all clearences and see what had to be done to completely bolt in......

ONE engine mount.......i repeat..... ONE ENGINE MOUNT was all that was needed to bolt the V6 in to the celica.....


this is what i came up with and is just temparary as another one is being made to replace it......



so now the v6 is completely bolted into its new home it was time to add all the other new goodies......

GT4 56mm twin core alluminium radiator.....
Slotted brake rotors,





then it was reinstall gear selector cables, radiator hoses, and send it off to auto electricians to wire in the camry ecu.....



once auto electrician had wired in the ecu, instument cluster, ran new earthing points and moved battery into the hatch.... it was time to take it to the exhaust shop for custom made exhaust y-pipe merge....




then it was back home to finish off any unfinished items and prepare for start up........

with everything check and rechecked.... it was time for the initial statup......

disconnected coil so engine wouldnt start, and cranked for a little while to get the oil pressure up.......


youtube vid

after teething probs had been sorted it was time to triple check things and fir up again...... and just to hear it.... sounds awesome...


another vid

then once all was good it was time to take it for a spin..... this had been 8 months worth of work as i only got time on weekends to work on the celica...... so i had been waiting for this moment for so long it seems as though it wasnt gonna happen but here we are......BTW ... this was on saturday just gone...... so like 2 days ago......

enjoy the sound and the sights......

removed video from youtube... so put a link in for it from my image shack.... any help to embed this would be much appreciated...thanks
http://img41.imageshack.us/i/video011.mp4



[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-TJTG8eQs&feature=related[/yt]


so this is where i am currently at with this build.....
once i have completely sorted this conversion out and it is finally driveable as a daily driver.... the next step is to finish the bodykit... of which is going to be all custom made by myself and my mate.....

enjoy all future updates and i hope that this has opened your eyes to other engine swaps possible in 5th and 6th gen celicas......any question hit me up...... only too glad to answer em for ya....



Currently this is where im up to...... and now just sorting out teething problems......

total rough cost of conversion so far is around $3500...... cost of a 3sgte front cut.....$3500..... so i set out to provide another option for celica owner/modifiers in the sense that a 3sgte is NOT the ONLY option when thinking engine swaps......

grant......... thanks for reading....

This post has been edited by fibrewizard: Sep 13, 2009 - 1:42 AM

[fibrewizard]

been so long since i have updated this thread, and let me remember everything and get up to date.............


ok so for engineer all i needed to do was to lower the engine approx 8mm, due to the timing cover contacting the brake line off the brake slave cylinder, so had some 8mm thick washers machined to be placed between the body and xmembers to lower enough to clear........

thats all that needed to be done to get engineered and registered,

custom powersteering lines for blueslip,

i had an issue with drivers side (rhs) gt4 drive shaft popping out at the hub join, so had to use a camry axle with gt4 joints to give me a little extra length.....

so has been registered since june last year and had other issues, unrelated to the conversion but problems none the less.......

spun a big end bearing and needed a new crank, so had bottom end rebuilt with honed bores and new rings, new water pump, oil pump, complete gasket kit.... and re-install........

straight after rebuild i had a code thrown in ecu and it would stall and not start, and after a few weeks of searching and more trips back to mech who did re-build, it turned out to be a bad connection at plug of distributor.. so easy fix but took a while to find it.....as it was a very intermitant prob.......

after this a few weeks of driving it around and had planned to take it away with me on holidays, but on x-mas day i lost all electric power, and literally wouldnt start.......so parked it up and went on holidays on wife's 6th gen.......

once back i started trouble shooting the issue, after swapping ignition switch, starter relay, starter motor, and fuses, i found i had +(positive) power coming out of the engine at the point where the earth lead melted on me when it shut down..... so further investigation found that the wiring harness was rubbing on the starter motor and had rubbed through insulation to the alternator wiring and shorted out on the starter motor sending + power through engine, hense the shut down and loss of all starting circuit.....
after replacing the melted earth lead, and starter motor, as well as fuses and relay's it still wasnt starting, so off to auto electricians to fix..........

few bad earths and a poor connection in harness, problem solved and i can now drive it again,

so has been a very eventfull 6 months, and most of it has been in the mech, getting service or fix......

hopefully its the end of it, ( never say never)

next project has started...........

GT4 st185 3vz-fe turbo AWD conversion................

Grant

[GMan]

been so long since i have updated this thread, and let me remember everything and get up to date.............

next project has started...........

GT4 st185 3vz-fe turbo AWD conversion................

Great Thread Grant ! Thanks for the update !

Good Luck on your next Project. You will be the 3rd AWD V6 ?

Regards !
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