[ato yoto]

hey, joined the forum here to gain some knowledge about camrys. im currently a mechanic and ive not much knowledge on them besides normal matainence. a customer of ours recently blew an engine in a 97 automatic camry. she doesnt have the cash for repairs so i figured id pick this car up cheap and throw an engine in it. the cheapest route it seems is get a jap spec 2.0 and make it work.

my question is, which is why i come to this forum for the experts, what is required to install a 2.0?? my boss called around and located one for 800 shipped, sound right?? the guy he talked to said something about drilling a tranny mount??

does anyone here know if this engine has a knock sensor? my brother owns an is300 and the forums hes been on people say theres problems with this issue in jap engine swaps. a few months back i replaced a bad v6 in an older camry 91 maybe (pain in the ass) and we had very good luck fiding an engine for it. im not sure the engine came out of the same year, but it had no knock sensor.. no problem since the car is not obd2.

other than a japanese, or stock replacement, what turbo swaps can fit this car with what mods to do so? (im not very familiar with toyota engine codes!) would a stock auto tranny hold the power? thanks a lot for any info!

 

[renmike]

Welcome to TN. If I could offer any assistance up front it would be to search. Be a bit creative, you're bound to find what you're looking for. I know there are at least a couple of individuals who have done a JDM 2.0 swap into an US spec camry with the 2.2 engine, one fairly recently. I think though that this was done on the Gen 3/3.5, not a gen 4 (1997 and up).

Now personally, I could not justify spending what was wanted for a JDM engine with a smaller displacement that I would have to rework its wiring and emission setup when I could either spend a little more on a reman motor or find a used motor with low miles (in toyotas case, less than 150K miles); either with a warranty of some sort. And keep in mind, what seems cheaper up front does not always mean that. besides the engine, you should replace items such as timing belt, water pump, any gaskets/seals that could have wear from time and usage. Regardless, good luck with whatever you choose to do with the car.

 

[Luckynumber5]

Ok few cool options to go here:

Factory swap: the 5sfe is the engine the car came with and another engine will of course bolt right in, but whats to say the transmission wont go out (sounds like the engine went out from lack of maintenance.)

The 2.0 you mentioned is a 3sfe which the Japanese Camry's came with, its not a direct drop in and you would need to find an engine with an ECU for an automatic vehicle, not to mention it will not pass visual inspection if you have it, that and the engines are a little different, I don't think the 3sfe has the torque the 5sfe does.

A turbo swap would be a 3sgte, its a 2.0 turbo(185hp/180tq but it depends on the year may be + or -) or so from several different cars in Japan and a few in the US, its not a direct bolt in (requires you to cut and weld one of the mounts) and it will not work with the automatic transmission so you have to do a manual conversion. There is a ton of aftermarket for this engine (think LT1 style after market)

There is another option, if you want a sporty ride look into a v6 manual swap. the 1mzfe is a 3.0 v6 with more power (190-200 hp and 180tq i believe) than the 2.0 turbo stock, but it doesn't have the after market upgrades available like the 2.0 turbo does. This will also require modifying the mounts but any skilled engine swapper can do that, even Honda people :lol:

The cool thing with the V6 manual swap is you get way better gas mileage than the 2.0 turbo