1997 Tercel Ignition Upgrade

[fender_dreamer]

Hi guys,

I'm new here so I might introduce myself just a little. I'm a 19 years old administration student from Joliette, Québec, Canada. About a month ago, I bought a 1997 Toyota Tercel 4-door sedan after my 1992 Camry LE broke down while my brother was driving it. The car caught fire about 10 seconds after he and his wife got out of it and was a total waste. It had 437 000 kms on it and I really enjoyed how smooth this ride was. Anyway, I'll get in the real issue now.

So as I said, I'm now the owner of a nice 1997 Toyota Tercel and I want to give it a little more power. I have the 5EFE with 93 HP and 100 ft lb and want to keep this engine. The first modification I'm considering is the ignition system. I'd like to switch to an MSD Ignition Box with high-output ignition coils and of course change my current spark plugs to better ones and my plug wires to low resistance ones. I wonder if any of you guys have ever done this on your car, i'd like to get your advice on that. Thanks.

[Daox]

Unless you really start modifying your engine theres no need to upgrade the distributorless ignition system on your car. If you are going to upgrade you'll have to start out with an MSD DIS-2. You'll have to find some aftermarket ignition coils (or use stock coils) and have it setup similar to the stock setup with the waste spark. I'm sure theres other ways of doing it so you can use the camshaft position sensor to split the signal up and run 4 coil packs, one for each cylinder... I know this is possible with the E-manage Ultimate. But, as previously stated, theres really no need unless you have heavily modified your engine. You won't see great benefits, especially when it comes to bang for your buck (pun intended). If you are looking for power I'd look at a few other things first. If your looking for a lot of power turbo is the way to go. If your looking just for a bit more pep you can do the regular bolt ons and that'll get you moving a bit more quickly. A few ideas come to mind:

cold air intake
header / performance exhaust
under drive pulley
intake manifold insulator

Aside from the header and exhaust those modifications are fairly cheap, and pretty easy to do yourself. The modifications should net you a small handful of power. Is it enough? Depends on what your looking for.

[fender_dreamer]

Thanks, that helped clear things up. I'm not going to make huge modifications to the engine, mostly trying to eliminate some pumping loss, improve fuel efficiency and have more fun driving the car. And indeed, I'm looking to get the best modifications for the price but I wanna keep my car n/a. I have another question about ignition. Here is what I read on http://www.isuzuperformance.com/isupage/tech/maint.html

Ignition Timing- Timing should be set at 12 degrees BTDC. Many repair shops will inadvertently set your timing to 8 degrees BTDC because they don't know any better. Isuzu specifies 12 degrees BTDC. Incorrect timing adjustment can result in poor throttle response and uneven idling characteristics.

I also read, but I can't remember where, that 12 degrees BTDC was a rather conservative setting and that you can push your car to 16 degrees BTDC without having any electrical adjustments to make. Is anyone familiar with this practice?

[Daox]

Your engine has a knock sensor in it. It automatically advances your ignition as far as it can. You can not manually advance it. You would have to get a computer of some sort to control the timing. Again, not worth it as the car is setup to advance itself safely as far as it can. I have noticed this to a good effect on my modified 97 Paseo. I have shaved the head and thus raised the compression. I can run regular unleaded or premium. I don't notice a big power difference, but mileage wise I get a few miles per gallon more out of higher octane gas. Note this won't be as big of a difference on a stock engine.

[Tercel GTS]

How would the turbo cams do in an n/a engine?

[fender_dreamer]

Thanks for the tips and advices Daox.