THE MK1 MR2 2L TURBO PROJECT - 3S-GTE

Foreword:-

Having owned my MK1 for 5 years and already having modified it in quite a few ways, I was getting a bit bored with the performance. Now MK1 MR2's are anything but boring and even in this day and age manage to beat off a lot of the modern stuff designed to replace it. However I've always been one for owning one-off cars, something a little special that stands out and not only do I want to create a MK1 that really looks the part, but one that will have the Subaru boys demanding refunds because a 17 year old “hair dressers car” has disappeared into the horizon leaving it choking on tyre smoke. Not that I'm a speed freak, far from it, I just love my MR2 and want to make it unique. In the forum where this engine swap is discussed the car is referred to as a MK1.5, halfway between a MK1 and 2.

To the best of my knowledge there are 6 of these conversions in the world, 4 in the States,1 in Germany, and 1 in Australia, so mine will be the first in the UK. I have 3 people here in the UK who have everything they need to do the swap themselves but are waiting for me to complete mine so they can learn from my mistakes and also have someone to ask for advice when there's a problem. This hasn’t been a “lets just do it” job, I've been collecting data from around the world for the last six months, including pictures of everything , numerous articles, wiring diagrams and even video footage of the install.

So why this engine?…well, basically the 3s-gte kicks out 200-240 bhp - depending on what generation you get - in standard form, making it better than the most tuned 4a-ge. Other issues like uprating the brakes and suspension will be tackled once the engine is completed.

Preparation:-

Originally I prepared myself for not being able to get a 3s-gte engine as crash damaged MK2 turbos are a rare thing, so I was going for the little brother non-turbo 3s-ge instead with plans to stick a turbo on it when the time was right. I found a 1987 Toyota Celica for sale at the top of my street and bought it for £80. It was an MOT failure but had a sound engine and gearbox. After a weekend of breaking the car and having got the engine out I suddenly realized I had made a huge mistake….this car is front wheel drive!! The gear box was no good as the linkages are on the wrong side! How could I be so stupid? I just presumed that it would be the same…wrong. Not to be undone I simply wanted a  MK2 MR2 gearbox that would mate straight onto the 3s-ge. I found a guy in Newcastle who was breaking one and he said “do you want a turbo or non turbo box?”…I said “oh, you have a turbo for breaking??”… after 5 minutes I had bought the complete 3s-gte engine, gearbox, wiring, ecu…basically the whole rear end from a MK2 turbo that had a crash damaged front for a silly price of £250 delivered. Anyone wanting to do this swap can expect to pay nearly £1000 for this engine/box alone so I was very lucky. Update 29 09 02 - At the time I didn't know the exact generation of my engine as there were 3, ranging from 200 bhp 1st generation to 245 bhp 3rd generation. I've just been informed that it's a 2nd generation ceramic turbo producing 225bhp and 200lbs/ft of torque. To mate the gearbox to the hubs of a MK1 requires MK1 Supercharger driveshafts, now if you plan to do this on a supercharger then you are one step ahead…I was not and it took me 3 months to find some and even when I did they cost me £150 second hand, these were harder to find than the entire engine. The SC short shaft bolts straight onto the turbo box and fits the hub, as SC and NA hubs are the same. On the drivers side the turbo output shaft is kept and the SC outer CV joint is removed and fitted onto the short turbo driveshaft, this in effect gives you two passenger side SC driveshafts.There are other things to buy or make, Like exhaust system and engine mounts but I have 95% of what's needed.

MAJOR NEWS - 15/12/02 - I've just been informed that the front driveshafts from a Celica 4WD are identical to the short SC driveshaft having the same outer and inner joints and are a straight no modification option for the swap. This information is also priceless for you SC owners looking for a replacement shaft.

Here's the 3s-gte just after delivery. Now that’s a big lump of power! Believe it or not that engine fits in a MK1 bay with about an inch at the back and 2 inches at the front for turbo clearance, needless to say extra heat shields will be fabricated, and an extraction fan fitted to the underside of the engine lid to suck the heat out. Note where the alternator is on the MK2. This will be moved to the top right as later described. The engine will be dummy fitted as you see it here to make everything fit and to fabricate engine mounts. It will then be removed for engine bay painting and a stripdown of the engine for overhaul and painting.

Here's the turbo shafts minus outer CV joints, you need SC shafts for their outer CVs, the short SC shaft is identical to these so just use it as it is, take the outer CV off the long SC shaft and fit it to one of these turbo shafts.

Friday 13th!!! September 2002:

In typical MR2 style it knew what was going to happen to it, and on my last journey to work in B709 XHW for its big conversion, it decided to blow its head gasket. Now after 5 years relatively fault free driving and on Friday 13th this is a bit spooky.

The car had an (LPG) gas conversion fitted to it - see http://www.mr2mk1club.com/LPG.html and the first job was to remove this completely as the 3s-gte will not run on gas, and even if it did the kit is too heavy for the planned project. Over the next week the work will consist of removing the old engine and gearbox, driveshafts, removing the all engine wiring, removing the coilpack, plumbing and fuel lines, and grinding the original engine mounts off the chassis legs. The battery tray will also be removed for relocation to the front compartment, as you can guess as much space as possible is needed in the engine bay and the battery takes up a lot of it.

The MK2 alternator position causes a few problems, it fouls on the o/s suspension mount, others have cut a notch into this for it to recess into as above, but I had a better idea. Remember I bought an '87 Celica? Well the Celica's alternator position is on top of the engine instead on a different bracket so I've used this with the Celica alternator, no need to cut anything.

Here's the new alternator position, intercooler piping from the turbo will clear above it, but intercooler piping from the throttle body does foul on the new engine lifting hook position that will be removed after the engine is fitted. A big bonus of doing it this way is the original alternator bracket is a huge piece of cast iron that weighs a ton, so there's been a weight saving too. Also I've now fitted the Celica power steering bracket where the alternator used to be in case I fancy fitting a little bit of power assistance to my steering, which is quite heavy due to the 17” alloys.

I will have to decide this later on as I don’t want to mess the cars handling up, but for now having the bracket there gives me the choice. Here's the PS bracket just above the output shaft bolts. If I do go ahead I will be using the Celica power steering pump and rack modified to fit, and I will experiment with different sized pulleys to just give it an assisted feel, nothing more though as the MK1 feels sharp and precise and fitting PS might make it vague on the road. It can always be removed if it's one of my worse ideas. You can just see the crank pulley in this pic, this will be swapped for the Celica pulley that has a smaller inner pulley to make the PS less effective than with the MK2 pulley. I just want to take the heavy edge off the steering at low speeds. Either this or go back to 15” wheels.

Monday 16th September:-

Today the project started in earnest, the rest of the gas kit was removed and the old 4age engine and gearbox was dropped out in a personal best time of 2 hrs. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have the car properly supported when doing this as you need to get the car right up in the air to get the engine out from behind.

Here it is removed, note I had a bit of an oil spill! Er.. someone forgot the oil cooler pipes…didn’t they Paul….lets say no more about that!

So with the engine out its time to get rid of all the unnecessary bits in the bay, starting with the map sensor as this won't be needed and takes up inlet manifold clearance space.

Next to go was the oil cooler, it was removed at its base on the rubber radiator hosing right to and including the filler point. After that the coilpack and that heat extraction fan are removed…the fan may or not be replaced later on depending on what intercooler placement I go for…note that the MK2 intercooler goes in this spot but that’s on a MK2 and it doesn’t fit in the MK1, so a smaller intercooler may be fitted in this place, if the intercooler is to go where an SC intercooler goes (above the gearbox) then the airflow meter and induction kit will fit where this fan used to go and get all its air from the vent.

See the hole left by the fan is the perfect size for the induction filter to poke into. The next job was to remove the battery tray, two spot welds on the top and chiselled off the engine mount. Mine came off very easily as it was quite rotten, the new battery tray will be in the front compartment. It will be earthed in there as well with the positive lead going up the tunnel to the rear. Now it's time for some serious drilling, air chiselling and grinding… the point of no return!.. off with the engine mounts!

.... this took about an hour and a half and was a total nightmare, but it looked good when all was ground off both sides.

Here's both sides stripped down and cleaned ready for new engine mounts to be fabricated and welded in, this can't be done accurately until the engine is in place. The new mounts will be made from 5mm steel plates but initially made from cardboard templates to get the basic shape then transferred to plywood and then cut from steel. This will ensure no mistakes are made and I’ll keep these templates and email them to others wanting to do the swap.. that is if there's anyone else mental enough to do all this!

After the engine is initially fitted and everything lines up it will be removed, the engine bay will be steam cleaned and painted. At the same time aluminium heat shields will be placed along the bulkhead especially around the turbo as there's not a lot of clearance. In fact the biggest problem with this swap long term is heat build up in the bay and I've talked to the guys who have done this job already and they suggest extraction fans and an air scoop under the car to blow air onto the exhaust/turbo area to help vent it, also more vents in the engine cover will be made to help with this.

Here's the engine lined up with the back of the car ready to be pushed under, as you can see it's on a trolley that was made specially for this, there is no way you could move this big engine on the floor and still be safe. I've had to chop my existing rear bodykit spoiler away for clearance and as I'm changing this anyway it didn’t matter. The car had a 3 ton trolley jack under the bulkhead chassis member with large chocks of wood going from sill to sill to spread the load, also two heavy duty axle stands are placed under to make everything as safe as possible. In the second pic you can see I've had to remove the inlet manifold to get the engine under, this will be immediately refitted when the engine is in the bay as it's crucial to have everything in situ to decide clearance and engine mount positions. In the picture below you can see the big problem…the bottom of the engine bay is very narrow compared to the top, but even taking this into consideration it’s a tight fit, there's just no way that engine would go in like this with the inlet manifold on as it adds about another 7 inches to the width.

Tuesday 17th September:-

Today was going to be a big day, it was time for the dummy fit of the engine in the MK1 bay, now I've only ever seen pics of this done from America and as I started to lower the car onto the engine I began to wonder if I had been the butt of some huge transatlantic joke…” yeah let's tell this guy it fits and we will paste some 3s-gte pics into our bays for a laugh!” …well that’s what was going through my mind…the engine fit is that tight I was wondering if my body shell was different from a USA model etc…..anyway I can assure you it does fit although things are a lot tighter than I expected.

You can see here as the car is being lowered onto the engine just how close it is… and this is with the inlet manifold removed!…as things got tighter I also removed the n/s and o/s engine mounts for better clearance. As it approached the top I added the inlet manifold to get an idea on clearance and as you can see part of the bonnet catch is stopping the engine from sitting back against the bulkhead, it needs to be as close to the rear as possible for exhaust/turbo clearance at the front.

The shaded area here was marked out for removal and then neatly ground off, this won't affect the bonnet catch at all and will give some vital clearance. Now with the engine right up in place I remembered reading that someone had taken a large adjusting tool (that’s a big hammer to us) and caved the front and rear bulkheads in on their cars, to allow more room. I'm not a big fan of this method and I'd rather cut away the offending steel and rebuild it around the obstruction. So that’s what I decided, now you can go for the big hammer technique if you like but my reasons for cutting out a section of boot bulkhead means that I can build a removable panel that will give me access to the rear of the engine should I need it. Some people have just fitted the engine in the bay without doing this and opted for large heatshields on the front bulkhead but as you can see it looks too close for comfort. Note that the engine will actually fit without either method but its tight.

So this area was marked out and removed, it gives the inlet manifold a good area to recess into, not a lot, but enough to make the exhaust clearance at the front happier. I'm also very pleased with the new access I have. The bulkhead around this hole will be reinforced with bracing so I haven’t lost any of the strength and a panel will be fabricated from either steel or thick aluminum that can be unbolted for access if need be. The new panel should intrude into the boot by about 1.5 inches more than standard.

This is the engine in the perfect position, as you can see the inlet manifold is parallel with the rear panel and because of the bulkhead modification it allows a 2 inch gap at the front. There's a large bulge in the front bulkhead opposite the exhaust manifold and when I take the engine out for painting this will get slightly inverted for even more room (hammer technique again).Together with adequate heat shields at this point it should be fine. Something that didn’t go to plan today was my idea for routing the airflow meter and induction filter into the fan hole on the drivers side, I cannot now do this on my engine as the turbo pipes would need major altering to allow space so I will have to decide where that’s going at a later date, for now I think the fan will be going back into its place for good heat extraction.

With the engine in the perfect place I tried fitting the driveshafts and they slotted right into place with no problems. To help with this bear in mind that the shafts get longer as the suspension rises so as long as the shafts fit initially with no weight on the rear wheels then they will work as they only extend in their inner joints as the weight does go on the rear wheels. I'm more than happy to provide accurate measurements from one point to another should anyone need them so that their swap will be more straightforward.

Here you can see both shafts in place, the n/s shaft went right in… I had to remove the top strut bolt and pivot the strut out a little to give space for the o/s shaft. Overall the shafts do ultimately decide engine position from side to side, there isn’t much free play at all.

The day ended with the first engine mount bracket offered into place, this is basically a 6 inch piece of 5mm thick angle iron that fits nicely on one side of the engine mount and contacts the chassis leg and suspension tower in all the right places. A captive nut will be welded to the back of this bracket when the hole is marked through the mount. I've been advised to drill the hole 1cm higher than it should be here to allow for the mounting rubbers taking up the weight of the engine, so if you mark and drill 10 mm up it should fall back into the original place…. Clever eh!…another bracket will be made for the other side of the mount as well and this will just be welded to the chassis leg. These mounts are over engineered and are thicker and stronger than the original MK2 mounts.

Wednesday 18th September:-

Having looked at that offside engine mounting this morning I decided it wasn’t what I was looking for, what if I had a problem with the captive nut coming free? There would be no access to it boxed in like that so I decided on a different design of mount, it's actually the one that everyone else seems to go for anyway, basically it's two straight bits of 5mm steel ether side of the mount that’s profiled to fit the chassis leg and inner wing. So I set about making templates for these out of card.

Heres both profiles of mounting in card, these are fairly accurate and the right hand edge of these fits the inner wing/chassis leg very well, the hole for the mount was also marked on these 10mm higher than the actual position to allow rubber movement. They were then scribed onto the 5mm steel plate that I have and then cut out using an angle grinder.

The position of the bolt hole was marked and drilled and both sections tack welded into place ether side of the mount, all these welds have to do for now is hold the engine, nothing more, the brackets will be very solidly welded right round their circumference and boxed in with a square plate on top joining them together when the engine is removed. A big tip to get the engine in the right place prior to making this mount is to screw the driveshaft outer nuts onto the shafts so they are flush with the end of the shaft. Then push the shaft in as far as you can and note how far the nut travels. Do this for both sides and get the distance travelled the same for each nut by levering the engine left or right. I found it to be perfect when the hub covered half the nut on each side as seen below. Now to get the height of the engine right is a matter of getting it as high as possible with the lid shut and still clearing the manifold. Also from underneath the car the gearbox output shaft should run parallel with the rear chassis member and its top edge level with it.

Get this amount of travel both sides and the engine should be in the right place left to right.

Here you can see the output shaft parallel to the chassis, note the sump is about 1.5 inches lower than the suspension mount, so it's important to get the engine as high up as possible. In the second pic note the badge on the inlet manifold is parallel with the boot edge. With the offside mount tack welded I jacked that side up 1cm and the bolt pushed through easily, then the jack was let down on that side and the engine settled back to its original position proving that the 1cm higher than should be hole worked a treat. I then made templates for the nearside mount, scribed them onto the steel, cut them out and placed them into position for welding tomorrow. There is some adjustment on the nearside mount as the holes it is attached to on the gearbox are oval and allow some movement. I've kept the templates I made for the mounts and these will be scanned and emailed to anyone who wants them. Again this mount will be boxed together with a square plate on top. Strength is the key and these mounts are very very strong.

Thursday 19th September:-

The first job of the day was to tack weld that nearside engine mount in place and after using the 10mm higher than is technique on the other side I was confident it would be easy. It was and 30 minutes later the whole engine was supported by its new mountings.

The next job was to fabricate the rear torque mount that goes on the gearbox… it needed making from scratch using bits from the old 4a-ge mount and most of the turbo mount plus some extra steel. Firstly an angle iron section was drilled and fitted to the original gearbox holes, this was a bit tricky but all the holes lined up eventually, then a little side bracket was added and welded onto the angle iron section. Here you can see it fitted, there are two bolt holes on the front face as well but only one bolt is fitted here, I’ll fit the other when the engines out. Note the added bracket to get as much support as possible from the existing mounting holes. The second pic shows the old turbo mount, as you can see there's no room for this but the main body of it will be used. I removed both side brackets from it leaving the centre piece only. This is the perfect shaped bracket to be fitted upside down to clear the chassis.

Next I removed the top section from the old 4a-ge mount that would be used to attach the turbo mount to the chassis. It was placed on top of the turbo mount and welded on.

This enables the strong turbo mount to be attached to the chassis, using the old 4a-ge mount just isn’t an option when there's this much power, even the 3s-ge non-turbo mount doesn’t last long. The top bracket was welded on the opposite way to original to form a little channel for the chassis to rest into. With all the pieces fabricated they were fitted together and it looked really good, a small side bracket was welded onto the other side to catch an unused hole on the gearbox, as I've said before, you can't have enough strength.

The whole mount fitted looks very strong, this doesn’t support any weight it just controls engine flex under acceleration, again it has been over-engineered to be on the safe side. I may add an angled piece on top of the rubber mount and bolt it through the back of the chassis where horizontally arrowed in the pic.The day ended with me playing with airflow meter and filter positions to make sure it was all going to fit in nicely.

Friday 20th September:-

This project is moving along much quicker than I anticipated, it should have taken me about a month to get this far but it just goes to show that all that research and forward planning has paid off, I would highly recommend anyone who is attempting this conversion to do as much homework as possible before even thinking about cutting out engine mountings! All I can say is I take my hat off to the first guy who ever did this in America….he's a brave man. Anyway, today was about concentrating on finishing the rear torque mount and fabricating the front torque mount so that by the end of the day the engine would be fully supported by all four mounts. I started by removing the rear mount and seam welding the whole thing up.

Here it is all done, this like all the other bits, will be shot blasted and painted before the final refitting. Next was the front torque mount, it is made with a combination of the old 4a-ge mount, the turbo mount and fresh steel plates added by me. Here you can see the old mounting and the first job was to remove the rubber mount block as we only need the bit that bolts to the car(arrowed). The mount was cut along the yellow line to remove the block. Next the turbo mount had all of it's brackets ground off to just leave the rubber block as pictured. Again the arrowed piece is the only bit to be kept.

These two sections are now attached to their respective homes, the 4a-ge bracket to the car as it would be, and the turbo rubber block to the gearbox. Now all that remains is to join the two sections together with 5mm steel plates either side.

Here you can see I've made templates out of card that will be the steel sides of the mount, these too have been kept and are available for those who want copies. The templates were scribed onto steel and cut out. These were then tack welded into place joining both bits of mount together. Once again no sacrifice with strength, these torque mounts do exactly that…. Stop the engine flexing under high torque.

The whole mount was then removed and seam welded around every join and on both sides. It was then refitted and small areas marked out on the sides (in yellow here) for future trimming to make them clear the chassis better and to look more rounded.

It was a fairly easy mount to make compared to the rear mount, and again don’t even think about using the old 4a-ge or even supercharger mounting blocks, I've been told they won't last 5 minutes. The trick is to use as much of the MK2 equipment as possible on the whole project.

Monday 23rd September:-

With the engine in place and fully supported by it's new mounts, it's time to start fabricating that new back panel. After a lot of thought I have decided to put my intercooler in the boot on the far right hand side. I've seen three different intercooler placements on previous projects and I think mine might be a good alternative. I'm using the boot because its totally separated from the engine bay and therefore won't have any of the heat from the engine affecting the intercooler, also I can make neat piping to this area from the engine that won't look out of place. Thirdly the boot will have an airscoop built in above the intercooler that will catch air coming off the roof and this will keep things cool. Theres plenty of room for the fan in here too and I won't lose a lot of boot space.

The pipe from turbo to intercooler was fabricated first using 2.5 inch bore steel pipe and similar rubber piping. This is fed into the top corner of the boot and meets the intercooler.

The neck of the IC was cut and altered to meet this pipe and will either need welding back on or sleeved with a rubber joint (arrowed).The second pipe from IC to throttle body was a little more complex, there is no real method to fitting these pipes, it's more trial and error, or you may go for an entirely different IC placement. The three I've seen so far are (1) in the SC position above the gearbox (2) in the MK2 position using a smaller IC (deno from the USA claims hes used the standard IC here but mine wouldn’t fit) or (3) vertically in front of the gearbox at an angle with a scoop made to catch air rushing under the car.

Here you can see the second pipe, the only drawback with this method is it slightly covers the oil filler cap but I can live with that for now. It helps to have a large selection of rubber hoses and angled bits of steel tubing to make these pipes no matter where you place the intercooler.

My biggest problem on a project is staying focused on what I'm doing and I easily get distracted by moving to another job that needs doing rather than sticking to the task at hand and getting it finished, this is what happened today and I left the boot panel for another day. Instead I worked on the fuel pump…I did a bit of research into wether or not the 4a-ge in tank fuel pump would deliver enough fuel pressure to the 3s-gte, most people have carried out this swap on superchargers which have a higher fuel pressure pump than the NA and I've been told they haven’t had any problems. However there was no definite yes or no as to the NA pump being up to the job, for those who haven’t changed a MK1 fuel pump let me just say it’s a pig of a job, basically the whole tank has to come off to get at it and the tank has more pipes going to it than Middlesborough! So with already having a turbo fuel pump spare I decided to fit it anyway to be on the safe side.

Here's the two fuel pump carriers, the 4a-ge carrier is on the left, the turbo on the right, the inlet and outlet pipes are a different length and also the turbo carrier is about an inch taller than the 4a-ge, however both pumps are identical to look at sharing the same wiring and plumbing connections. You could get away with just fitting the turbo carrier without swapping pumps as it bolts on in the same place but the pipes do need altering. Here you can see the turbo pump fitted to the 4a-ge carrier on the left. I happened to have a spare 4a-ge carrier so I fitted it to this ready for the tank coming off. The tank will be removed as soon as the engine comes back out as there is lots of pipes to disconnect in the bay.

Thursday 26th September :-

Having looked at that intercooler to throttle body pipe, that I made previously, made me think I'm letting standards slip in a bid to get this project done quicker. To be honest it's crap and I never liked the way it covered the oil filler cap so the first job today was to rethink this pipe and get it looking how Toyota might have done it instead of me. After playing about with various bits of tubing I found a much neater way of doing it and I think you will agree it's much better than the previous attempt. Note that the turbo to IC pipe changes to rubber just before the suspension strut to stop vibration.

First I removed the old pipe and scored 2 points with a well aimed shot at the scrap bin, then fabricated a sweeping curve that bypasses the oil filler point and exits exactly where the intercooler is. I then made a bracket from 3mm steel to join both intercooler pipes together to make them very strong. This will also reduce vibration and hold the pipes exactly where I want them. These new pipes will now be shot blasted and a good friend of mine who works in a plastic coating firm, will be plastic coating all my pipework in his lunchbreak when the boss isn’t looking!

Next job was to return to making the rear panel in the boot. I've decided to give the manifold a good area to recess into, so this panel will now intrude into the boot by 2.5 inches. Before a removable panel can be made I had to strengthen the hole that I made with 40mm angle iron, these will form the outer shape of the new rear bulkhead and probably add more strength than was there before I chopped it.

Above is the first piece welded in, this just comes up to the intercooler. The area in front of the intercooler will be boxed in right up to the place where the pipes come through. Here I plan to leave an oblong hole for the pipes and line the edge of the hole with a rubber door seal so the pipes don’t chafe on the body. In the second pic the next support is welded in and this square hole will have a bolt on panel attached to it for engine access. Using stronger steelwork than was removed means the whole area should be rigid.

Friday 27th September:-

With the strengtheners put into the boot wall I'm leaving the plating of this area until the engine is out and I have access to both sides of it. All that remained in the boot area was to mount the intercooler in the right place to finalize the position of the pipework going to it. First job was to make a support bracket to hold the IC in place and this was made from 20mm aluminium angle that was cut and bent to the right shape, a few holes drilled in it to fit both the IC and the rear panel and it was mounted using rubber washers between it and the body to minimize movement.

With the IC finally in place the pipes needed positioning and marking ready for welding. This is the only point in the entire project when I can't do the work myself, I have a lot of welding equipment but nothing that will weld aluminium successfully so I took the IC to a local engineering firm and 20 minutes later they used a TIG to join my IC pipes back on in their new position. Here you can see the IC all welded and it was a perfect fit onto the engine pipes. All that remains to do to this is spray paint and fit.

Heres the boot vent cut out above the IC, sides were then made for the vent going down to the IC, they stopped about 10mm short of touching it so a good rubber seal could be added to the bottom lip, much like the SC seal on the engine lid.

You can see the sides had a 90 degree lip on the top to weld it onto the boot lid, these welds will be ground down and the lip blended into the boot, then the whole vent will be covered by a forward facing air scoop. I'm going for the Imprezas scoop if I can get one but failing that I may just make one from scratch. It will be subtle and only rise about 20mm at its highest, I only want a little air caught here, not make a parachute out of my boot!!. The next job was to fit a rubber door seal strip to the bottom of the vent to make it seat onto the IC. This will help keep it firm and also keep all the air going through the IC rather than around it. The seal fitted perfectly, there is some tidying up to be done on the underside of the boot with seam sealer but it I'm happy with the end result.

With this work now done there is no reason for the engine to stay in now, all the necessary brackets have been made and everything lines up in the correct place, so next week will see the engine out for the final time to fit a new clutch and timing belt to it and repaint or polish the engine where necessary. Along with this the engine bay will be detailed ready for the final install.

Tuesday 1st October:-

First job today was to remove the engine, it all came out very easily but only with the inlet manifold removed and I really saw the benefit of the boot panel fabrication. Next both engine mounts on the chassis had to be totally seam welded and reinforced with more 5mm steel plates. The first of these was made from card and transferred to steel and was welded into the top of the o/s mount to tie the two sides of it together and welded to both the suspension strut and inner wing. It is important to fit the rubber engine mounting block with the bolt fully tightened while welding as the plates may “pull” when welded, this will keep them in the right place. Also a bracing piece was added coming up from the chassis leg and joining the bottom of the mount together. Here you can see it all welded up and the bolt has been fitted to weld the nut captive onto the mount. There's no way a MK2 turbo has mounts as strong as these but it's better to be too strong rather than weak. Ok I know all this steel is extra weight but at least you are sure the engine is stable. All that remains for this mount is a bit of grinding to tidy it up and seam sealer along the joins like Toyota do it.

The same strengthening work was carried out on the n/s mount and again the mounting block was fitted and fully tightened to make sure the sides didn’t pull apart or close up.

Here you can see it seam welded with a support on top and in the second pic a small brace is added to the underside and onto the chassis leg, again the bolt was tightened to weld the nut captive. Both of these mounts are now finished and ready for painting. With the engine out its time to start stripping it for inspection, new timing belt and a fresh clutch kit and paint it up. Various bits will be polished or chromed before refitting.

A point to remember is to keep the turbo pipes covered at all times to stop dirt or anything else falling in. Both gearbox oil and engine oil/filter will be changed here too.

Wednesday 2nd October:-

With the engine out it was easy to indent the front bulkhead around the turbo and exhaust area, this need'nt necessarily be done as others have left it alone and taken the risk but I know this area will get hot and for peace of mind I'd rather have as much space as possible between the exhaust and bulkhead. A large hammer was used to recess this area which will have a good heat shield over it.

On inspecting the timing belt and pulleys I found the bottom idler pulley (arrowed) to have a slight noise on it and it’s a nasty job to do when the engine is in so I'm replacing it now. The engine block and cam cover were treated to a fresh coat of paint in the same shade as the plastic coating I'm having done on the pipework. Also I inspected the clutch and its worn right down to its rivets so it’s a good job I checked it. When swapping any engine it's always a good idea to presume the timing belt, it's pulleys, and the clutch are faulty as these often get neglected…what can I say…these MK2 owners just don’t know how to look after their cars!!!

The 2nd pic shows a shiny rivet on the friction plate, this clutch would definitely slipped had I used it. The clutch kit is going to cost you around £125 plus vat, timing belt around £25 and that idler pulley for me is an extra cost of £45

Monday 7th October:-

I've had a lot of trouble trying to find a clutch kit for a MK2 turbo, not as easy as you would think…. Plenty available for the non turbo at about £80, but the cheapest I could find for a turbo version was over £230 with the vat. So after many phone calls to people in the know it was suggested I try to find a clutch for the Celica turbo as it should be the same. The next day I found one at parts suppliers Langley Tyre and Auto who supplied one at £135 all in. After a quick check it's identical to the MK2 turbo clutch and the only difference I could find was the spring clip on the release bearing was a different shape so I just used the old clip on the new bearing, doing this will save you over a hundred quid on the clutch cost. With the clutch rebuilt and nearly a week of engine detailing done its starting to look the part although there's lots more to be done.

I got all of the pipework back from the plastic coaters and they look fantastic (cheers Anth), well worth doing and of course will never corrode. Note that the prettier the engine gets the worse my garage floor gets! The turbo outlet was polished up and although it took all day it was worth it, so the engine is now finally ready to go back in safe in the knowledge I won't have timing belt or clutch worries. I've also sourced a set of blue Samco coolant hoses for a MK2 turbo that will need very little modifying to fit the MK1. Next job was to finish off the engine bay rear wall section. I started out by making a panel for the offside and welding it in, I used 2mm steel here - instead of the 1mm stuff used on body panels - for strength. I've left a hole at the top for the intercooler pipes to run through and the whole edge of this has been doubled back to form a lip that the pipes can't chafe on.

Here's both side sections welded and with only the bottom chassis to repair it all looks nice and strong. With the whole thing fabricated and seam sealed the engine bay is nearly ready for cleaning and painting. I will be using stone chip first on the engine bay to give it a tougher texture, and it forgives grinding marks and scratches well.

Just a removable hatch to make for the square hole and this area is finished, I'm going to make this out of thick aluminium checker plate with a rubber seal around its edge and bolts screwed into speed clips for the fastenings.

Tuesday 8th October:-

The main job today was to get the fuel tank off and replace the NA fuel pump with the 3s-gte turbo item, this will ensure you get the correct fuel pressure and will supply all the fuel the engine needs even if it is modified. I already have plans to turn the boost up from a standard 10psi to around 15psi and the turbo pump will be adequate for this. A few weeks back I already fitted the turbo pump to a MK1 carrier so it's just a matter of dropping the tank off and swapping the pump carrier. To get the tank off isn’t easy and the full handbrake linkages have to be removed with all it's brackets. Then all the filler pipes and breathers in the engine bay have to be removed as well.

In the first pic I've removed the linkages and placed them to one side, all that holds the tank now is two supporting straps, give the nuts on these a spray with penetrating oil beforehand cos if these snap it would be a very difficult job to replace them. All nuts and bolts underneath MK1s are prone to snapping off so luckily all mine came free. It goes without saying that there should be no petrol left in the tank here for safety reasons and an empty tank is easy to refit. In the second pic the breathers have been removed with just the filler pipe to go. The tank was supported by a trolley jack and gently lowered. For some unknown reason my tank didn’t have the proper electrical blocks on top of it going to the sender unit and fuel pump…and I had to cut the wiring to get the tank off, looks like a previous owner must have had the tank off before and did a bodge job. It took 2 minutes to change the pumps over and I soldered a 3 pin block connector into the sender unit wiring and a 2 pin block connector into the pump wiring so that future removal will be as it should be (arrowed).

The second pic shows the tank ready for refitting, it went back in a lot easier with the new wiring. The only other job to be done today was stonechip the engine bay over all the walls and fabricated sections, it's nearly ready for painting

Wednesday 9th October:-

I managed to source a large offcut of aluminium sheet from a local machine shop and made a large template out of card to make the front firewall heatshield. Care was taken to cut out all of the necessary access holes for water pipes and the brake servo pipe and the whole shield was pop riveted onto the bulkhead, it not only looks the part but will provide critical protection from the heat radiated from the exhaust manifold and turbo.

I may make extra thicker shields to go right were the turbo area is to be on the safe side, but I think this one should be adequate for now and certainly it's more than others have done in the same area. Note in this pic I've cut a large area out of a spare engine lid that I had, this is going to get a bulge fitted to it with a vent facing back to allow the extra heat generated by this engine out the rear. The extra space above the engine will also allow me to fit a much needed strut brace between the suspension tops, something that I've yet to see on a 3s-gte conversion due to the lack of space between engine and lid. For information you don’t have to cut the lid, the engine will fit under the standard lid without modification, it's just personal preference. I've also painted the servo pipe and refitted it.

I've tried for weeks now to find a decent air scoop to fit over my intercooler vent on the boot lid, but nothing looked good enough or was simply to big and clumsy looking so I decided to make mine from scratch. I started by using 10mm diameter round bar to make the vent hole at the front and flat bar welded to this to make a framework for the scoop.

A steel cover was then made with 1mm sheet steel cut and folded to the perfect profile. Next silicone was applied to the top of the framework to bond the top of the scoop onto the frame, this could be drilled and spot welded but I've found stuff like this tends to warp easily with the heat on a flat surface. The scoop was then tack welded around its base and when the silicone cures the scoop will be blended into the bodywork. All that’s left to do to it is fit a mesh front after the car is painted. Hopefully this will catch air coming off the roof and cool the IC.

Thursday 10th October:-

With the intercooler scoop fitted attention turned to the bonnet bulge that doubles as a heat vent and leaves space for the strut brace. In the same fashion as the IC vent a frame was made with 10mm bar at the front and flat bar on the rest. I only want these vents to be subtle and when blended into the body they should be just that. The second pic shows cross bracing that will have the silicone sealant on it to stop the panel flexing. Further strengthening supports were added to the sides and to the catch area.

Again a hood was made for this vent and this time I've chosen to place a few spot welds on the top to help keep its shape as this is much larger than the IC scoop. It's important to only spot weld metal this thin as a solid seam weld will distort the whole panel. I usually keep the spots about an inch apart and as you can see its all stayed in shape. One thing I've wondered is does the SC bonnet with its higher vents give enough clearance for a strut brace (with 3s-gte fitted) without modifying like I've done?

These pics show both scoops fabricated and their mesh fronts fitted (mesh stolen from a large piece left in the yard by a Mr Michael Sheavills that is being fitted to the Northeast Track Day Car, hey if it's left lying around I’ll use it!!!), Michael has also donated an excellent MK2 Jasma rear exhaust silencer to the project which will be covered later so many thanks to him. I believe no one else has fitted these vents with the 3s-gte swap but I think they are very much needed in such a small engine bay. If you are intending to do this project then its really up to you, with a different intercooler position then that scoop isn’t needed but I would at least recommend the engine lid vent if for nothing else other than being able to fit the strut brace. It's worth bearing in mind this engine is 80kg heavier than the 4a-ge and produces 225bhp with 200lbs/ft of torque so a strut brace is a must. All that remains for these vents is to be tidied up and blended into the body with a small amount of bodyfiller and a good high build primer. As far as the 3s-gte project goes this is as much as I will cover in this article about bodywork on the car, it's already cosmetically different on the front end - see Front End Mod - and there are more body mods to be made on the rest of the car that won't be covered here.

Wednesday 16th October:-

After a few days of preparation on the engine bay it was finally ready for painting and although not perfect I'm quite happy with it, let's just say it’s a lot better than it was!

As this car is unique (or one of very few) I decided it needed a non standard paint colour to make it different from the rest. I've always been keen on yellow but only a certain shade that’s also found on Porsche boxters and is also an old MG midget colour, it’s a pastel yellow called “pale primrose” that really stands out without being hard on the eye. It's very much a matter of personal taste and you either love a colour or hate it. I also wanted a colour that would be in sharp contrast to the blue engine detailing to make the engine stand out . With the engine bay masked up in all the right places I applied 3 coats of 2 pack paint to the bay.

I took this opportunity to stand in the engine bay and get some paint onto the inside of the roof posts which has always been a very hard area to paint on MK1s, you really need to be double jointed to paint this area! With the paint applied and allowed to dry I masked the lower half of the bay from the chassis legs down and applied 2 coats of black stonechip, this will help protect the underside and also blends the underseal into the bay.

With the whole bay painted and demasked it really looked good against the aluminium firewall, all that remains to do here is tidy up the gear change cables and refit a freshly painted extractor fan and refit the fusebox. The bay is now ready for the final engine fitting which I know will now fit perfectly because of the dummy fit a few weeks ago, it's all coming together now.

Thursday 17th October:-

Today saw the engine going back in for the final fitting, lots of care was taken not to scratch any of the new paintwork on the bay or engine, after an hour it was in and everything lined up exactly as it had done before. The inlet manifold was again left off for the refit to give more clearance. The driveshafts were then connected up and both torque mounts fitted, it's just like putting a 3s-gte into a MK2 now as all the hard work has been done. Indenting the front bulkhead and removing a section of the rear has really paid off, I now have a good 2 inches of clearance between the exhaust manifold and wall and at least 3 inches clearance between the turbo and wall, still not an awful lot but together with the aluminium heat shield I expect it to be fine. Note again that vitally the hoses to the turbo have been blanked off to stop anything falling in.

The second pic shows it in with various bits refitted, the inlet manifold wont be fitted until I'm ready to fit the wiring harness as it threads through between manifold and head as it connects up to different sensors/injectors/ignition components.

With the main mechanical stuff done its time to start plumbing it all in, most of this is fairly easy as it connects up roughly where it would on a MK2. I sourced a set of blue Samco performance hoses from a very helpful MK2 turbo owner on the drivers club website (cheers Mark). Next I made a small pipe with a bracket welded to it, this is to join the drivers side radiator hose to the o/s engine hose.

Here's the first piece from engine to pipe and in the second pic the pipe to car hose is fitted, you could just make a one piece pipe going straight to the car from the engine but I wanted a bracket that would keep the hosing secured to the bulkhead away from the heat source. The bracket will now be bolted on with a rubber washer between it and the aluminium. Even with this bracket the hose is about 2 inches away from the factory heat shield on the exhaust, this should be fine but to be on the safe side I'm going to pop rivet a small aluminium shield around the hose where arrowed.

Friday 18th October:-

The radiator hose on the left side was very easy to fit with no altering needed at all and there's plenty of clearance between it and exhaust manifold. The fuel return pipe was also connected and this too is a straight fit, I used the pipe from the MK2 that was already on the engine and it fits perfectly onto the fixed steel pipe on the bulkhead (arrowed).

As there's no standard airbox fitted to the engine, the air flow meter (AFM) is unsupported so a few brackets need to be made to hold it steady. Here you can see I've made a support that’s bolted to the engine mount holes that are normally used for a small damper that’s fitted to the MK2’s. I've yet to work out the function of this damper, it looks like an anti-roll bar drop link with a rubber bush at one end and it seems to control lateral left to right movement but my engine is absolutely solid on its mountings so I don’t see the need for it. Either way I've never seen anyone else fit this so I’ll leave it off and maybe fit it at a later date if found to be necessary. This AFM support is welded to an existing steel bracket on the back of the unit. It must be remembered , that when mounting anything onto the engine, not to attach any part of it to the body of the car unless rubber is used in between. The vibration of the engine will simply snap it off or cause other damage.

Above I've fitted the filler point, I've used the MK1 filler and modified it to fit, first I removed all of the plastic brackets from it and then I've blocked one end of it off, like MK2’s are, with a thermo switch. It just happened that the switch was the right diameter to fit the end and also I plan to run a heat extraction fan off this. There is no need to do this you can simply use the MK2 filler neck instead. You can also see I've fitted the MK2 expansion bottle next to the air filter, it recesses nicely into that curve in the bay but the neck is 6 inches too long so this was chopped down and plastic welded back on where arrowed. Again Samco hoses are used on the filler point and overflow tubing.

Monday 21st October:-

Some things on the engine connect very easily, others need a bit of modifying, and I'm pleased that Toyota made the gearbox speedo drives the same on the 3s-gte and the 4a-ge. The cable screwed on perfectly and the gear change cables also fitted as if they were being fitted to the original linkages. The heat extraction fan was also refitted after painting, this will be wired up through the original MK1 air temperature sensor that’s mounted above the exhaust manifold on the 4a-ge, I’ll have to play with its position on the 3s-gte to get it switching correctly. The clutch slave cylinder flexi pipe was also connected using the flexi from the MK2, the MK1 flexi is no use here as it has two female ends on it and the MK2 has a male and a female.

Here you can see it fitted, note I've bent the bracket slightly to allow a little more free play. The engine is now plumbed in, fuel lines connected, clutch and gear cables done and all the little ancillaries fitted around the engine, now it's time for the serious fun to begin….wiring. In my opinion this is probably the hardest part of the swap, it's very easy to wire it up so that the engine actually runs, just power up the ECU and Circuit open relay and it’ll run, but there's more to it than that, there's dash instruments to get working like RPM, oil pressure, water temp and also the engine warning light. The first thing to do was fit the engine side of the harness to the engine, this is relatively straight forward and everything connects where it should. I then routed the harness through the original hole in the rear wall together with the MK1 wiring that comes from the dash and fusebox. It's in the boot where all the vital connections are going to be made. It's vital that you have year relevant full wiring diagrams of both AW11 and SW20 (turbo), I can provide these via email if you need them. For now the engine work is finished with only the exhaust system to fabricate. All of the IC piping was refitted and IC refitted under its new vent.

Final job of the day was to fabricate a new battery tray in the front compartment. It was made from 40mm angle iron and situates the battery in the corner of the bay. You can put it wherever you want but I like this position as it also allows me to carry a space saver spare wheel beside it. The battery will be earthed here and a thick positive cable will run up the tunnel and onto the starter motor.

Tuesday 29th October:-

There's a lot of connections to be made to wire it all up and I strongly recommend every single connection is soldered and shrink wrapped, or at the very least insulating tape on the soldered joints. With all of the MK1 engine harness removed there should only be the large grey connector left in the boot, this is called the N1 connector and this is where I'm wiring my MK2 ECU and engine harness up to. Which ever Circuit Opening Relay (COR) you use it must be wired into the N1 connector. I've used the MK2 COR but either will do. I've also decided to retain the MK1 fuel pump relay and just wire it up to the MK2 COR. All of this won't be understood until you have read the wiring diagrams over and over and have become very familiar with both wiring harnesses from both cars, a good understanding of how it works is 90% of wiring it up correctly. I've also used the engine side of the N1 connector to wire it all up so that it can be removed in future if need be. I've mounted the MK2 ECU near to the harness entry point and although this all looks like a crows nest everything is labeled and ready to join. Once its all wired it can be tidied at a later date.

Here you can see each and every wire on the N1 connector (circled) has been labeled. These are joined to their respective wires on the MK2 harness.