98 Corolla Engine Swap

Hello and welcome to the forums.

You can fit nearly any motor in the car with enough time and money. Since you mentioned you are cash tight - letting you know right off the bat, the 4AGE, 4AGZE, and 3SGTE will NOT fit without extensive fabrication. 4AGE, even the 20v variants are not going to bump up your power that much (in stock form) - the 4AGZE and 3SGTE are legendary power makers, given the right mods - and so command a premium price tag. You also have to be mindful of local and state laws concerning these particular swaps - as some areas, the car will not be able to registered for highway use (race only) - since you have to defeat/remove/modify the pollution control equipment to make the swap work.

If money is tight - a swap is a tough call - even if you can get the engine pretty cheap, there is always potential for issues down the road. There was a poor guy here that got an engine swap to deal with an oil consumption issue - ended up spending nearly $2000. For that kind of money, he could have sold the car outright, and bought something else.

Don't discount the 1ZZ-FE engine - there is greater support for the 1ZZ-FE, more so now that ever before. Bolt on mods have gotten mixed reviews, but a few gear heads were able to get some significant gains on a built, N/A 1ZZ-FE. MWR was able to dyno over to 170WHP with a built 1ZZ-FE. If you want to keep things simple, i.e. cheaper, think of swapping the VVTi variant of the 1ZZ-FE engine for your car - numbers don't seem too impressive (125HP/125ft.lbs), but since it has an variable valve timing, you have a much broader power band than before. Throw on a 5-speed to get better drivetrain efficiancy + save some weight, and its every more significant. Piggyback and full standalone ECMs have gotten good feedback from some owners, and now optimized maps are available for popular mods.

Another option would be the 2ZZ-GE route. The engine from the 2005-2006 Corolla XRS, 2003-2005 Matrix XRS/Pontiac Vibe GT, 2000-2005 Celica GT-S. Has much more "power" potential than the 1ZZ-FE with bolt ons and fits the 1ZZ-FE mounts with a little extra work. This swap has been done - the hardest part was electrical follow up work. But there is good support there as well - there are a few shops that will sell you a complete wiring harness to make that swap work.

A third option is to rebuild you existing engine. For less than a typical engine swap, you could rebuild your engine and get something that could better than new. All depends on what the engine is doing right now. This doesn't even count stuff you can do (supercharger, turbocharger, nitrous) - all for about the same amount of money as a swap.

Rebuilding is cheaper? I was told it would cost more. However, my head gasket and rings are leaking, so that may be why.

How would that 2ZZ-GE swap? I mean, is it smaller, is it larger? Maybe I can ask the mechanic if he could do that instead of us finding another 1ZZ-FE, if the swap isn't too painful.

If you know exactly what is wrong - rebuilding is usually the cheaper route. But if multiple things are wrong with the engine in question - even though the parts might be less expensive than a swap, the total labor involved may make the swap a better deal. Oh course, this assumes that the replacement engine doesn't have any problems to begin with. With the rebuild - you engine up with basically a "new" engine. You know exactly what works and what didn't.

 

The 2ZZ-GE is the performance variant of the engine - same size, 1.8L displacement, but a lot more power 180HP/130TQ on the Celica GT-S and Matrix XRS donors, 170HP/126TQ from a Corolla XRS donor. Though not to be considered a "drop-in" swap - it will fit the existing mounts - so fabrications is not 100% required. Electrically, it is a lot more work to install it - need to have a complete donor car to make it happen, plus rewire a good portion of the harness.

So lets say i do go back with the 1zz-fe...With the VVti that u suggest, kuz mines without the vvti. so your saying i should do a swap with a 1zz-fe vvti, What are my possible change ups that i can add up to it in order to gain more HP and im not talking about intake and exhaust here, im talking about internals. I've looked around for 1zzfe mods and i REALLY REALLY cant find anything, my local autosports dealer cant even find anything for my car... Are you able to help me out here?

To breif you up, my engine just started recently to tick like a time bomb, like 2 days ago now. to others, it seems like a valve sticking, to me to the best of my knowledge, bent valve or cam or possibly carbon build up. A buddy of mine suggested to get an oil change which its due for right now n im bout to go do but also to use this product called (C foam or Sea foam or sumthin like that). to loosen up the valves n free it from carbon build up.

However if its really time to do a motor swap, i really want to make it worth it but affordble at the same time. The laws i believe dont have any problems with what registered motors n all.. i live in london ontario. lol oh and btw i have no choice in what car to drive,this is the ONLY CAR i literally can drive, due to insurance n all. if i was to get another vehicle in the family, my part of the insurance would be over a grand a month. my insurance for this corolla is just under 100. lol i hope u understand.

So do you kno what my possibilities are with a 1zzfe vvti internal mods? and where i can get a piggy back sys for 1zzfe?

Seafoam can help with carbon build up - but used incorrectly, it can cause more problems than fix them. You could use plain distilled water and get the basic results that Seafoam is trying to do - blow carbon out of the combustion chambers. Soaking the rings, but you have to watch out here - Seafoam doesn't have much lubrication here - there is a chance that you could heavily score the cylinder wall and lose compression. Not worth it IMO - especially if you are blindly trying products out. Find out what is causing the "ticking" and treat accordingly. The 1ZZ-FE is normally a very noisy engine - fairly loud valvetrain noises are normal, as long as they start to quiet down after the car warms up. Even then, they are still pretty noisy.

 

OK, I see what you are after with the swap. Given that this is the only car you can drive/own - your needs are: cheap on upkeep/maintenance, reliable, not cost an arm and a leg, and is actually doable (assuming you are going to swap in the appropriate transaxle). You have a couple of options.

Rebuild or swap in a 1ZZ-FE - you don't have to do any fabrication, everything will drop in, runs ona regular gas - you know what maintenace costs are, but you will have minimal gains (newer VVTi) in stock form.

Swap in a 2ZZ-GE - minimal fabrications, lots of rewiring, runs on premium gas, maintenance costs are about the same as the 1ZZ-FE, but you get an instant power boost (180HP vs 120HP).

4A-GE/4A-GZE/3S-GTE - legendary powerplants - problem is, there is a price premium associated with them - though you can find good deals if you look around. You need heavy fabrication work (or find a JDM 8th generation and pull the front clip) - have to do extensive rewiring / rerouting of piping (intake is in the rear, exhaust is in the front - backwards from the 1ZZ-FE and 2ZZ-GE). Also have to do some gasoline plumbing work - your car uses a returnless fuel system - where as these engines are all expecting a return type (there is an easy and hard way to deal with this - but I digress). Good things with these, stock form of the 4A-GZE/3S-GTE are big power makers - also note they are considerably heavier than the 1ZZ-FE (3S-GTE is about 149kg to as much as 156kg, 4A-GE is about 126kg, 1ZZ-FE is 102kg, 2ZZ-GE is 115kg). Plus as old as they are - you take a chance that they have been beat on pretty good. You can get lucky and find a low mileage example overseas - but that will cost you a higher premium.

Laborwise, unless you are planning to do this all yourself - will be quite high with the 2ZZ-GE and even higher with a 4AGE/4AGZE/3SGTE will be higher. Support for all of them is good. 4A-GE/4A-GZE/3S-GTE have great support - since they been around for ages. 1ZZ-FE/2ZZ-GE support is growing. Monkeywrenchracing is a good site to see what is available. Aside from forced induction projects (both 1ZZ-FE and 2ZZ-GE can take decent boost if tuned well) - going the N/A route - a bored 1ZZ-FE (from 79mm to 82.5mm ~2.0L displacement), stock crank, header, custom intake manifold with a larger throttle body and PFC dyno'd around 187WHP. A stock 1ZZ-FE with VVTi typically dynos around 100-107WHP. That is a HUGE bump. Of course it wasn't cheap - but shows you what you COULD do. Just like the other engines - eventually, these mods will become cheaper and easier to find. Depends on how quickly you want to achieve your power goals.