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..

[SwissFerdi]

Nice parts list, best of luck with the build. Is that a white GramLight?

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Oct 21, 2011 - 1:36 PM

[P5ycho]

so now the bits had arrived it was time to begin..
transported both cars to a indoor unit that I had hired to work in, and I started ripping the camry apart..
here are some pics ...




then I attached the engine hoist to the car and lifted the front end into the aor so I could drain the engine and gearbox..


enlisted my kid bro to give me a hand with manhandling the engine out of the car after I had dissconnected all the electrics..
and after a few hours of spannering we managed to pull the engine out..


and were left with this..

and this


now I put the bonnet back on the camry, and stripped of the automatic gearbox from the 3vzfe, and promptly dumped the auto box into the boot of the camry..

following day I did some more engine stripping, the air con pump, and the power steering pump were removed and binned also as my car mr2 does not have aircon, and the power steering on the 2 is electric..
so once I had everything I needed the camry was sent to scrap..


after this I left the 3vz and the car under wraps for a day or 2 while I regained some energy,..lol

shifting through some of my car bits in my garage I came across my Fidanza Flywheel and Iron man clutch and pressure plate which I had bought for my Gt4 but never used.. I hadf a sudden thought, why not get the fidanza flywheel modded and use that instead of the stock mr2 flywheel..

so I dropped of the flywheel at a local machine shop to have it modified, then went and bought and engine stand to aid working on the engine,.
then i returned to the unit and proceded to wrestle the engine onto the new engine stand..



flywheel was done and ready to pic up the next day..


also managed to win some ported and polished heads of ebay..
I was planning on getting the heads on my engine ported and polished at some stage, so these came up at the right time and I got them..


dropped the heads of for a skim and picked them up a few days later looking like so..


spent an eveing grinding in the valves by hand... what fun that was (NOT) 24 of the buggers, but got it done eventually,.
and here is how they looked after ..




put the valve shims in and dropped cams back in, bolted them down and checked tolerances using a feeler gauge, and I guess i got lucky, they all seemed well within tolerance..



more to come...

[95CelicaST]

Welcome to the V6 club... sorta. Got to finish the swap first!

[P5ycho]

Welcome to the V6 club... sorta. Got to finish the swap first!

haha, mate my swap was completed almost 2 months ago..lol
just putting the project post together..lol

right so now I had everything ready, it was time to begin stripping down the 3vzfe..
took me couple of hours maticulasly labeling and removing the loom.. here it is in a box,,


then removed the inlet manifold..


and here is the engine


now it was time to get the heads off,
took cam covers and inlet manfold off and gave them a lick of paint..



heads were removed with no problems..



then I broke out the power dril and attached a wire brush attachment to clean the block..
1st I scraped off all the remnants of the old gasket using a blade, then cleaned the head with the wirebrush,and the block ended looking like this..,


after that the block was cleaned with a lint free cloth and some acetone to remove and loose debree and grease left behind by my gubby paws,.lol
then the 2 new head gaskets were fitted



then the heads were bolted back on and torqued to specs. .



put the cams back in and timed them up..


and here we have both heads back on and torqued up, cam covers back on and bolted down, and inlet manifold place in position to see how it all looks..


now round the other side, put both cam pulleys back on, new water pump and thermostat, and then put on timing belit idler and tensioner, then placed the covers back on..




and now the engine was built and ready to go into the 2

[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

[P5ycho]

so now the v6 is in and has been running really well for a while, I decided it was time to fit my coilovers , which I had bought a long time ago,..


car now sits as lowe as the coilovers will allow..lol


and finally I now decided I wanted some new seats,,
so the black and yellow seats were removed and sold to make way for these beuties..


had to fabricate the subframes but sliders came with the seats..
and this is how they look now in the car,,.





and finally I can say with pride my car is complete.. and how I want it..
last thing to fit is my new wheels. I have bought some lovely Volk racing Av revolution wheels in 16", but am currently debating wether to leave thema s they are or get them powder coated in yellow or perhaps black..
heres a pic of the wheels..
what you guys think, should I do them , black, yellow or leave them silver..



Thats the end of the story folks.. thanks for staying with me through this..
any comments are more than welcome...

Nice parts list, best of luck with the build. Is that a white GramLight?

the white wheel in the pic was a set of 5 Volk Racing Te37 I had from my Honday Integra Type R, sold those to fund the swap..lol

[stephen_lee]

Good choice! Turbo plans?

[P5ycho]

Good choice! Turbo plans?

Have had 6 turbo cars so gonna go Supercharged with this one..

[epocsirhc]

Great build. I say polish the Volks.

[RabidTRD]

Awesome build. Btw, who's R34 is in the background of almost all of the "engine out of the car" pics? Lol. My ADD was driving me crazy.

[P5ycho]

Awesome build. Btw, who's R34 is in the background of almost all of the "engine out of the car" pics? Lol. My ADD was driving me crazy.

the R34 in the background belongs to a friend,
someone hit him coming out of a junction, and pushed the n/s suspension into the back of the wheel arch,
car has now been fixed and is awaiting the panels to be painted..

[RabidTRD]

I wish I could see a R34 just sitting there... But nook... Stupid America lol.

[P5ycho]

well, in that case , just for now, you can have a look at our new toy,,,lol

[kurt95gt]

that's one beautiful car

[kurt95gt]

How does the 3vzcar feel power wise

[P5ycho]

How does the 3vzcar feel power wise

only driven round the industrial estate at the moment, not had a proper chance to drive it yet.. will update once I have driven her properly..
what I can say tho after my brief drive.. is car feels very nimble of the mark and once you hit 4.5k rpm it sounds like a rocket.. and pulls real hard.., and thats when I ran out of road..lol

[stephen_lee]

How does the 3vzcar feel power wise

only driven round the industrial estate at the moment, not had a proper chance to drive it yet.. will update once I have driven her properly..
what I can say tho after my brief drive.. is car feels very nimble of the mark and once you hit 4.5k rpm it sounds like a rocket.. and pulls real hard.., and thats when I ran out of road..lol

When ACIS opens up

The 3vz sounds like pure sex. One reason I love it.

[RabidTRD]

*cries* I need to move out of this country. Maybe not to the UK, but I want to make Japan a travel destination for sure. If I go to UK, it'll be to be a part of the audience of Top Gear. I want to see them live so bad haha.