Tis that time of the year boys and girls. Summer is here and you know what that means! Lots of new people wanting to mod their new Camry a relative just gave them.... Or it's just time to answer a lot of questions people have in general.
The biggest thing I see are people completely new to the modding scene asking what to do. Instead of telling them to search just direct them to the 5sfe performance thread (of doom)
Intakes = No horsepower gain. <-- that is a period, no ifs and or buts...
The stock Toyota intake is an excellent design for the 5s, the only thing you have to gain replacing an intake is noise, and the 5s will make it if you put an after market on. You are dealing with a 2.2 engine designed with economy in mind, Toyota didn't design this engine and end up with a monster, then decide to put it in a Camry and restrict the power with a crappy intake a la General Motors :lol:
There are a lot of people who want to debate about intakes making a difference, but honestly the engine is not being held back by anything. Toyota designed the 5s-fe as an economy engine and placing large restrictions on something like the intake makes little sense. The Engine is just not set up to move a lot of air it is a natural aspirated 2.2 liter, the factory intake is only a small part of the big picture here. It;s not like a 6 liter v8 with a 2 inch mile long intake that will wake up when you replace it with an aftermarket.
No CAI or SRI is going to add power worth the money, so if you want an intake just get the cheapest thing you can find. Hell do what I did and build off of it when you are brave enough to start doing more under the hood. I went from SRI to CAI on my v6 and the only difference was noise, but I like it
Header (NO F-ing s, you have ONE HEADER) - small horsepower gain
Toyota exhaust manifolds are very free flowing, don't believe me well take it off and see. Cars that benefit from replacing their stock manifolds have manifolds that look like this:
![Image]()
Factory Grand Prix exhaust manifold... Yuck
Catback - no real gains, just lots of noise. Please use a good resonator or it will sound like a sweet Honda Civic...
Even put together these mods are usually offset by the fact that you probably have an automatic transmission
Now for the good news, if you are serious about modding your 5s-fe, there are cams available. Cams are a proven 10-15 wheel horsepower (on a manual transmission) for a decent street grind (meaning you will probably not have to replace your valve springs as long as you don't have a lot of miles on the car.)
www.webcamshafts.com
www.coltcams.com
Thats about it for simple mods, you can always look into turbocharging your Camry, but if you have that kind of money to spend save it and buy something that won't nickel and dime you to death. If you have never built a car in your life or at least done a head gasket on a Toyota take some time and look at other cars. There are much better projects out there to start off on than trying to turbo your first car.
If you are thinking about building an all motor Camry just don't... Get a Civic and swap in a B series engine.
The Camry is a large family car and not suited for all motor builds. Not to mention the 5s-fe is an absolute junk platform to build off of for a high revving engine.
Tuning
Factory the engine will run a bit richer than ideal for performance. Nonetheless spending money on some setup for tuning will not net you much power. It doesn't matter what you use (e-manage, SAFC, SMT series tuner, etc..)
The result will be close to the same for all of them because there just isn't really anything you can change to get great bang for the buck performance. Whatever you do, do it cheap.. No sense in spending $400+ on tuning if the result will only be 5 horsepower or less.
Dyno comparison between 2 5s-fe 5 speed Celicas
Credit for the dyno chart goes to presure2 on Celicatech
Link to the thread on Celicatech: LINK
![Image]()
Red line is stock with an intake
Blue line is aftermarket cams, exhaust, and intake
Suggested first mods:
I decided to add this section in since I really don;t want to leave someone in the dark about how to mod their Camry. After all if you are reading this thread and are new to the car scene it will leave you without a clue where to start improving your car.
Like I have gone over above performance isn't really a good option to start off with. Performance mods may not cost too much but the results are often disappointing, so what are some good things to look to improve?
Click here for a link to the Camry FAQ There are a lot of items in the FAQ you can look in to, my recommendation is a wheel/suspension combo.
Get a good looking set of 16 or 17 inch rims to start off with, and a decent suspension setup like this one. Here is a link to a simple eBay search for Camry springs.
Doing a suspension/wheel upgrade will improve the look and ride of your Camry and will provide a great opportunity to get down and dirty while you learn how to work on your Toyota (it's fun!)
If you want serious horsepower from your Camry:
You are looking at spending several thousand dollars.
A simple swap for the 4 cylinder guys is the 3s-gte. It's a turbo 2 liter 4 cylinder thats closely related to the 5s-fe. Three of the four mounts line up making it a close to drop in swap. The wiring is very different though and you will spend some time looking at diagrams and soldering/crimping/paying Dr. Tweak to do it before the car will start and run reliably. There are MANY tuning option for a 3s-gte, all of which are expensive :lol:
If you swap to the 3s-gte you will have to buy the engine and have it shipped unless you are lucky and come across a complete one locally, you will need the complete (or as complete as you can get) wiring harness and all sensors. If you are automatic just stop where you are and buy a 5 speed Camry or better yet, a better car: you will need to swap the automatic for a 5 speed and that adds even more fun to the mix.
There is a lot more than what I have listed here in a 3s swap, there are a few people who have done them and may be willing to share some info. Just search and you will find!
Dr. Tweak specializes in Toyota engine swaps so get in touch with him if you are serious about doing one and don't even know a torque converter from an intake manifold.
While manual swaps are not terrible, there is quite a challenge in keeping the time frame under a week, truthfully you can have am auto to 5 speed swap done in a weekend if you have everything. But you will probably run into some problem or another that will require a new part here, or a new part there or just something altogether unexpected that will take you days to fix.
Enjoy the read, feel free to post questions
The biggest thing I see are people completely new to the modding scene asking what to do. Instead of telling them to search just direct them to the 5sfe performance thread (of doom)
Intakes = No horsepower gain. <-- that is a period, no ifs and or buts...
The stock Toyota intake is an excellent design for the 5s, the only thing you have to gain replacing an intake is noise, and the 5s will make it if you put an after market on. You are dealing with a 2.2 engine designed with economy in mind, Toyota didn't design this engine and end up with a monster, then decide to put it in a Camry and restrict the power with a crappy intake a la General Motors :lol:
There are a lot of people who want to debate about intakes making a difference, but honestly the engine is not being held back by anything. Toyota designed the 5s-fe as an economy engine and placing large restrictions on something like the intake makes little sense. The Engine is just not set up to move a lot of air it is a natural aspirated 2.2 liter, the factory intake is only a small part of the big picture here. It;s not like a 6 liter v8 with a 2 inch mile long intake that will wake up when you replace it with an aftermarket.
No CAI or SRI is going to add power worth the money, so if you want an intake just get the cheapest thing you can find. Hell do what I did and build off of it when you are brave enough to start doing more under the hood. I went from SRI to CAI on my v6 and the only difference was noise, but I like it
Header (NO F-ing s, you have ONE HEADER) - small horsepower gain
Toyota exhaust manifolds are very free flowing, don't believe me well take it off and see. Cars that benefit from replacing their stock manifolds have manifolds that look like this:
Factory Grand Prix exhaust manifold... Yuck
Catback - no real gains, just lots of noise. Please use a good resonator or it will sound like a sweet Honda Civic...
Even put together these mods are usually offset by the fact that you probably have an automatic transmission
Now for the good news, if you are serious about modding your 5s-fe, there are cams available. Cams are a proven 10-15 wheel horsepower (on a manual transmission) for a decent street grind (meaning you will probably not have to replace your valve springs as long as you don't have a lot of miles on the car.)
www.webcamshafts.com
www.coltcams.com
Thats about it for simple mods, you can always look into turbocharging your Camry, but if you have that kind of money to spend save it and buy something that won't nickel and dime you to death. If you have never built a car in your life or at least done a head gasket on a Toyota take some time and look at other cars. There are much better projects out there to start off on than trying to turbo your first car.
If you are thinking about building an all motor Camry just don't... Get a Civic and swap in a B series engine.
The Camry is a large family car and not suited for all motor builds. Not to mention the 5s-fe is an absolute junk platform to build off of for a high revving engine.
Tuning
Factory the engine will run a bit richer than ideal for performance. Nonetheless spending money on some setup for tuning will not net you much power. It doesn't matter what you use (e-manage, SAFC, SMT series tuner, etc..)
The result will be close to the same for all of them because there just isn't really anything you can change to get great bang for the buck performance. Whatever you do, do it cheap.. No sense in spending $400+ on tuning if the result will only be 5 horsepower or less.
Dyno comparison between 2 5s-fe 5 speed Celicas
Credit for the dyno chart goes to presure2 on Celicatech
Link to the thread on Celicatech: LINK
Red line is stock with an intake
Blue line is aftermarket cams, exhaust, and intake
Suggested first mods:
I decided to add this section in since I really don;t want to leave someone in the dark about how to mod their Camry. After all if you are reading this thread and are new to the car scene it will leave you without a clue where to start improving your car.
Like I have gone over above performance isn't really a good option to start off with. Performance mods may not cost too much but the results are often disappointing, so what are some good things to look to improve?
Click here for a link to the Camry FAQ There are a lot of items in the FAQ you can look in to, my recommendation is a wheel/suspension combo.
Get a good looking set of 16 or 17 inch rims to start off with, and a decent suspension setup like this one. Here is a link to a simple eBay search for Camry springs.
Doing a suspension/wheel upgrade will improve the look and ride of your Camry and will provide a great opportunity to get down and dirty while you learn how to work on your Toyota (it's fun!)
If you want serious horsepower from your Camry:
You are looking at spending several thousand dollars.
A simple swap for the 4 cylinder guys is the 3s-gte. It's a turbo 2 liter 4 cylinder thats closely related to the 5s-fe. Three of the four mounts line up making it a close to drop in swap. The wiring is very different though and you will spend some time looking at diagrams and soldering/crimping/paying Dr. Tweak to do it before the car will start and run reliably. There are MANY tuning option for a 3s-gte, all of which are expensive :lol:
If you swap to the 3s-gte you will have to buy the engine and have it shipped unless you are lucky and come across a complete one locally, you will need the complete (or as complete as you can get) wiring harness and all sensors. If you are automatic just stop where you are and buy a 5 speed Camry or better yet, a better car
: you will need to swap the automatic for a 5 speed and that adds even more fun to the mix.There is a lot more than what I have listed here in a 3s swap, there are a few people who have done them and may be willing to share some info. Just search and you will find!
Dr. Tweak specializes in Toyota engine swaps so get in touch with him if you are serious about doing one and don't even know a torque converter from an intake manifold.
While manual swaps are not terrible, there is quite a challenge in keeping the time frame under a week, truthfully you can have am auto to 5 speed swap done in a weekend if you have everything. But you will probably run into some problem or another that will require a new part here, or a new part there or just something altogether unexpected that will take you days to fix.
Enjoy the read, feel free to post questions
