As a proud owner of the “smokestack” version of the 8th gen Corolla I thought I’d share my adventures in swapping my motor with the fine folks here on the forum of Toyota Nation.
So, I commute 110 miles/day and needed something of a beater/daily driver that got a bit better mileage than my ’03 WRX (which was a phenomenal car for me, btw). I found a ’98 Chevy Prizm for sale locally in mid-2008. It had 134k on it and looked to be in very good condition, so I bought it. About three weeks later I realized that I’d been sold a car that was burning oil. Thus began my education on the 1zzfe.
Fast forward 18 months and 45k miles or so to last Friday (March 19th, 2010) and I found myself with a pretty severe miss while accelerating onto the interstate.
Fresh plugs – no change…..Pull the coil off #2, no change….. doh. Check the plug and the coil/wires on #2…it’s getting great spark….. Doh!
Probably a collapsed spring or frozen exhaust valve. So it’s going to need some work. I hate to do a lot of work and go to a lot of expense on rebuilding it if there’s an easier way…so a friend of mine agreed to work with me to swap in a new motor if we can source one. We found a very low mileage ’06 1zzfe that has a damaged intake and exhaust manifold. The plan is to get that motor, use the intake and exhaust manifold off my old motor and see if we can button it back up.
As far as the VVT, we’ll either set it up for economy mode or run a simple switch to turn it off/on as desired….or so that’s the plan.
I’ll post more pics as we progress.
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vvti does not have an on or off, or economy mode. it is constantly changing the intake cam advance or retard to provide optimum fuel economy. you will need to convert to vvti along with ecu and wire harness.
Aye lads, the smokestack edition of the car is the one that burns oil at an unacceptable rate. I really thought I needed a "TDI" badge above the exhaust.
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I broke my VVTi valve when rebuilding my motor, so that's my way of turning it off
But yeah, I had the same issue as you, ended up being a burnt exhaust valve, was getting no compression in cylinder 4.
I hope you the best. I myself am putting in a new clutch this week!
So if you broke the VVTi valve.....were you able to drive it? I mean....I admit, I'm not a real mechanic....but isn't the worst thing that could happen for the motor to not adjust the valve timing into the newer, more efficient, or conversely, more powerful, timing settings? It's not like the engine won't burn gas any more, right?
I may be giving up the added 7-12hp of the "power" timing constraints..... or potentially giving up the 3-5 mpg for the "high efficiency" settings....but it's still going to run, no?
Right no....running isn't much of an option. .............but I am hopeful that this will change in the next few days.
Ok, so.....today we cleaned up the new motor a bit and started swaping some parts from the old (180k '98) 1zzfe onto the new motor (?miles '06) 1zzfe motor.
Here's what we started with on the new motor:
Points of interest:
- Took a while to clean up the pulleys. They were a fair bit rusty. Used a wire cup and a drill.
- Apparently the collision had exploded the battery and acid had coated a lot of stuff so we took to the valve cover and some of the block with the same wire cup grinder and then went after the tighter places with a Dremel and wire wheels. ....four of them.
Better looking pulleys and cleaner motor:
I'll give much better detail on the challenges we were presented with and the resolutions we offered tomorrow. I'm really tired now.
Last edited by boxer4luvr; 03-28-2010 at 09:08 PM.
Reason: edited for clarity
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I've been driving it with the broke valve for 10k. I really don't know if it's stuck in eco mode or power, or possibly in between. However, I don't notice anything different than from before, granted my clutch as bad so I can't really hammer it good. From looking at the design, it just allows or disallows oil pressure into the cam gear for more advanced timing.
When I get time, I'm going to pull it back out and make sure it's in "home" position, then unplug the solenoid.
I've been driving it with the broke valve for 10k. I really don't know if it's stuck in eco mode or power, or possibly in between. However, I don't notice anything different than from before, granted my clutch as bad so I can't really hammer it good. From looking at the design, it just allows or disallows oil pressure into the cam gear for more advanced timing.
When I get time, I'm going to pull it back out and make sure it's in "home" position, then unplug the solenoid.
-Randy
That matches our understanding of things pretty well. ...If it doesn't function properly then it won't be able to modulate between the potential options for best power or best economy. It's not as if the cam lobes get removed or something.
We were thinking of wiring a switch into the cabin to mount somewhere. Toggle up for power, down for econ, or something like that. ....assuming we actually get it to work.
btw - how about that clutch replacement?
Last edited by boxer4luvr; 03-29-2010 at 07:45 AM.
If you disconnect the VVTi system - the car will still run fine, just in a "safe" mode. Trying to add a switch to try and toggle the VVTi is not recommended, as there is a chance you could jam the valves into the piston. The 1ZZ-FE is an interference type - a simple on/off will not work with this series of engines. If you had an older 4AGE - that could possibly work. Best to grab the ECM off the same model year as the engine and wiring it in to get VVTi functional, if you want VVTi functionality.
If you disconnect the VVTi system - the car will still run fine, just in a "safe" mode. Trying to add a switch to try and toggle the VVTi is not recommended, as there is a chance you could jam the valves into the piston. The 1ZZ-FE is an interference type - a simple on/off will not work with this series of engines. If you had an older 4AGE - that could possibly work. Best to grab the ECM off the same model year as the engine and wiring it in to get VVTi functional, if you want VVTi functionality.
hey man, thanks for the info.
Could you elaborate on what exactly "safe" mode is? in the cars I've had before and done some tuning on "safe mode" was usually one where the motor wouldn't build any boost and/or would run very rich.
also, could you elaborate on what would be gained by acquiring the VVTi ability in this case? I ask becaue I don't really care about any added power or torque. ...the better efficiency would probably be nice though.
Comments/opinions/advice?
Regarding adding the potential of installing a switch to activate the VVTi....you say it's not recommended. ok...by who? and why? I'm not trying to be argumentative, just wanting more info if you can provide it.
VVTi retards or advances timing according to engine load. This is mainly for fuel efficiency and decrease emissions reason - basically altering the timing profile to smooth out any dips in the powerband. In fact, in most instances of VVT has malfunctioned, the owner doesn't notice - aside from CEL being set. With that increased efficiency, you gain a little more power - but not too much.
As for the simple switch idea - for the VVTi system, this is not advised as you could possible ram the valves into the head if you got the timing off - as purported by tuners that have played around with valve timing on the VVti systems (read CAMCOM and other EMS systems that allow user interaction with engine timing). Not just limited to the Corolla, but other engines that also use VVTi - some good discussions on Club Lexus, Lotustalk, and Newcelica.
The "i" in the VVTi system means that the variable valve timing is actively varying in real-time (continously variable) - takes inputs from the cam sngle sensor and passes it to a feedback algorithm in the ECM, which in turn commands the OCV to increase or decrease oil pressure to the VVTi actuator. A simple switch could not accomplish this without the feedback. The advantage of VVTi is the continously variable nature.
That doesn't mean that you couldn't run a fixed valve timing offset - which is what the 4AGE engines did when they first ran variable valve timing (VVT) on the 20V Blacktops. But you have a lot more "slop" there as the A-series are non-interference engine. The resulting dips in the powerband were addressed with a tightly controlled induction system (5 valves per cylinder and higher flowing G-series head). Basically after a certain engine speed, you take advantage of how the cylinder is filled at high speeds and how this will impact performance for a fixed timing. To my knowledge - the 1ZZ-FE doesn't have this capability out of the box. If you mod it (new camshaft grind, custom headwork, revised induction system, etc.) - now it is a different situations. But for a stock engine - I'd run it as is or wire the correct ECM to it.
- Swapping the ignition system:
The 98 used the older style remotely mounted coils while the ’06 motor used a coil-over-plug design, so we couldn’t simply swap the old wires over to the new motor. However, the ’06 block did still have the bolt holes on the side of the block that were tapped for the same size bolts that were used on the ’98….so…..off came the coil packs from the ’98, and we bolted them right up to the ’06 block.
As we attached the plug wires we found that the ’06 valve cover is about a ¼ inch shallower/shorter than the ’98 version. This meant that the new plug wires (we went a bought a new set for a ’98 model) stood too tall once they were seated down over the plugs, leaving that same ~ ¼ inch gap underneath the rubber dust covers.
One razor blade and a steady hand later and the dust covers were upfitted to adjustable dust covers. J
Coil packs bolt right up to ’06 1zzfe:
Dust cover gap using ’98-style plug wires:
Close-up of the plug wire dust cover gap:
Result of upfitting the dust cover to adjustable style:
More info and pics on the way soon.
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Swapped temp sensor:
The connectors on the temp sensors were different so we swapped the old one into the new block. Everything fit just fine, etc.
Temp sensor:
Heater water supply tube swap:
We also found that the heater water supply tube had been damaged on the new motor so we swapped it with the one off the old motor. No problems.
Heater water supply tube:
Knock sensor swap:
We also found that the connectors for the knock sensor were different between the two motors. This wasn’t quite as simple. The knock sensor on the ’98 motor was a one wire sensor where the ’06 motor uses a two wire sensor. Me geek friend got out a soldering iron and some wire and did his thing, heat shrank it, then wrapped it in tape. He is hoping that the output from the sensors is basically the same thing. He’s a geek….if you want more of an explanation you’ll have to ask him. J
Knock sensor:
Old:
New:
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