Is It Possible?

[MCSO 7413]

I am a new member on this forum, although, I have been a member on other automotive forums for a number of years and am handy with a set of tools and am knowledgeable about cars in general. My question is this? My fiancee's car just blew the motor. The car is a 4 cyl., 97. It had 71k miles on it. Original miles. The coolant bottle had some oil in it and that is what I am suspecting led to the engine failure. Will a v6 from an Avalon fit in the Camry? If it will what is necessary to do the swap? Any help would be appreciated.

[95PimpingCamry]

The Avalon is a Camry, so it has the same v6 as the Camry (1MZ-FE). It is possible to fit the v6 in, but it will require a lot of work.

Off the top of my head you will need:
motor
tranny
motor mounts
wiring harness
ecu
axles

[MCSO 7413]

Thank you very much, that is what I was wanting to know. The amount and/or complexity of the work doesn't scare me. I just finished converting a Ford V-10 gas truck to a diesel. It was a complete stripdown and rebuild from the dash wiring to the tranny to the fuel tank. Once again, thanks very much.

[foxkw]

front suspension components - heavier motor..

[twinjetguy]

If you don't mind me asking, how do you blow a Toyota 4cyl motor with only 71K on it? Not trying to be a dick, just suprised that it blew with that few of miles on it.

As for the swap, there is a thread on here where a guy just swapped a 4cyl auto (I think) for a V6 with a 5 speed manual. Pretty labor intensive swap. You might be better off just looking for a salvage 4cyl. There is a guy on here named trd4life and I am betting he has a good shape 4cyl that he would sell for a very fair price.

[MCSO 7413]

I was just driving in town and had been stopped at a light, went to take off when a piston went through the side of the block with a bang. I was not racing or anything of that nature. The car belongs to my wife and she does not drive aggressively at all. I got to looking under the hood and found some oil in the coolant. My theory is that the head gasket in one cylinder lost a chunk at once and caused the cylinder to fill with coolant which resulted in a catastrophic hydrolock situation.

[whip_cracker]

EEngineer (Cody) just did the swap in Toronto with a few other TN dudes... that was the auto 5SFE to the manual 3VZFE. If it were me, I'd just be swapping out the engine with another 5SFE... too much time to spend just for V6 power. If you're up for the job, look at Cody's 3VZ 5 speed swap (still a current topic).

[ekopel]

wow, that sucks that you blew that motor with such low miles. I had a spun bearing on my 1mz at 130k miles, which was kind of surprising for me even.

If you have the money and desire, I say go for it.

I personally love the 1MZFE, and there are a lot of resources on TN for this specific swap.

My suggestion would be to find a donor car - probably one in a rear end collision or something like that.

Also, if you like performance, go with a 1MZFE 95-99 (non-vvti, drive by wire) mated to an e153 5spd tranny. That is such a great setup and upgrade from the 5s imo.

With a donor car, I would swap out the rear and front brakes, suspension components, axles, tranny, engine, wiring harness, and ecu. Its really not that bad considering the chassis accepts both motors and transmissions. You would probably not have to make custom mounts or anything like that.

If you can do a diesel transformation in a V-10 ford, you'll find this is pretty easy to do.

Only thing is that there are so many little things, like connectors, electrical, etc, etc that can go wrong during the swap. make sure to have an obdii reader on hand.

Good luck!

[ASG14]

Your goign to need a lot of stupid small stuff. If you can, get a perfectly running V6 Camry thats been in an accident, so it will be cheap.

[MCSO 7413]

I did get a donor car that had been hit in the front and rear, but did not touch the motor, just the radiator and the A\C condenser. My problem now is that the donor car, I believe, is a GEN III since it was built in 11/96. Am I right? The car with the bad motor was built in 6/97 so it should be a GEN IV. The only problem that I am having at the moment is that the plugs on the wiring harness do not match up with anything on the good car. From what I have been able to figure out so far, all I should have to do is find a harness off a GEN IV V6 and everything should plug up okay. Am I way out in left field with that assumption or is that the case? Thanks for all the replies. You guys have been helpful.

[ASG14]

11/96 is a '97 Gen 4

[MCSO 7413]

Sooo, any ideas as to why the wiring is so dramatically different? For what it's worth, the donor car is an Avalon.

[ASG14]

You just answered your own question, it;s a different car....