Engine Swap00 Corolla

You can just swap in the bottom end of the engine (block, pistons, crank, etc.) - that can mate up with your existing ECM, head, TB, intake and exhaust manifolds. That way, little to no modifications to the rest of your car and avoids the electrical nightmare (you'll be going from OBD-II 16bit ISO protocol to OBD-II 32bit CAN protocol ). You can swap in the whole engine - but that can get complicated fast. Not all the body functions will respond to the ECM - transaxle may not talk to it correctly (assuming automatic), body monitors for ABS, SRS, logic in HVAC and power door logic/windows may not be recognized by the new ECM.

The bottom end is what is causing you grief - sounds like it is stuck piston rings. Depending on costs and time and your consumption rate - you might be able to get away with a rebuild on the existing engine - toss the OEM piston and put in the revised pistons and rings that help reduce the likelyhood of stuck rings.

There are some posters on TN that were able to just replace the pistons and get oil reduction down to nil for less than $450.

Hard to say - I haven't heard of anyone successfully using a newer ECM to control the body stuff on an older car. Best case, they have to wiring in both ECMs - letting them control the aspects of the car that they were designed to run. Most just take the short block from the newer motor (bottom part of the engine) and move their existing ECM, wiring, TB, intake, exhaust, and cylinder heads over.

On the older 7th gen - swapping engines, even within the same OBD-I spec, they had issues with A/C not working because the logic needed to control it was not there.

You could rewire it up completely yourself or think about a standalone ECM. That is almost guaranteed to cause problems, but atleast you have the flexibility to tune the engine for mods.

People have successfully used a 3-speed auto ECM with a 5-speed manual transaxle. There was only slight electrical modifications needed to route the missing park/neutral switch. The 3-speed auto's solenoids were hydraulically controlled, not electrically controlled like the 4-speeds - hence why they require less modding to get them to work.

Still sounds like the older engine is plenty strong - just need to fix the oil consumption. If the oil consumption is around a quart per 1000 miles - might be more cost effective to do a rebuild. If you go to the expense of swapping in a motor, personally, I'd drop in a more powerful one - like the 2ZZ-GE from the 7th gen Celica GT-S, 9th gen Corolla XRS, or 1st gen Matrix XRS/Vibe GT. Amount of fabrication and electrical work is similar to swapping in a newer 9th gen motor. But now you get lift + more favorable results to most bolt on mods.

Yup, even be a pain even in a 9th gen as well - couple people have tried but were unsuccessful. If you can get your hands on a 3-speed auto ECM + do the resister trick, you'll take care of that CEL you are seeing.

Motor is nicer - but those power gains are from the ECM tune and their unique intake/induction system and exhaust design. Using the ECM, intake, and exhaust from your existing car - will loose all those power advantages. It will rev higher, but will be air starved. Even in the Celica Gt - power drops of very quickly after the power peak. The extra revs just allows you to stay in the power band when you shift. The 5-speeds gearing is a better match to the 1ZZ-FED engine, the 6-speed you have now, doesn't make use of that engine powerband.

Did you mean their higher performance of 140HP or are you talking about top indicated speed? Their speedo runs up to an indicated 150MPH, but the only way to get a stock Celica GT up to that speed is to drop it from a plane. Actual top speed that were recorded with a stock Celica GT - about 125-127MPH. Celica GT-S with the 2ZZ-GE is not that much faster - 130-133MPH range. Stock Corollas are about 10MPH less than the Celica GT - about 115-117MPH before the steering gets stupid light on the front end.

Can't go by the tach or speedo - have to look at the power curve and how it is shaped. I could install a tach that ran up to 15K RPM and speedo run to 200 MPH, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can. In the case of the Celica - it is more marketing than anything else - they have to keep the "sportier" aspect of the brand going.

The Celica GT engine is setup to make more power in the middle to upper range. The powerband peak itself is only 400 RPM higher than the Corolla peak, shape is very similar. Also has a lightened internals to handle higher rev limit, but the valves will still float at high revs, so you really won't gain much with a Celica GT-motor swap.

In fact, you could tune your existing motor with a Camcon or go standalone like a Hydra and see 10-15WHP (ie, real power) advantage instead of the 15HP crank difference between them coupled with a much better torque curve.

As for your mods - the intake on the metal tubular intake manifold, even with the AEM intake, will starve the Celica GT motor at higher RPMs. Note that you have to account for induction "pulses" - how the engine breathes. That's why people are surprised that two very similar looking CAI can have vastly different performance on the same car. Engine doesn't really care about the filter - it is a function of tube length, tube diameter, and position of ancillary vacuum ports/openings. The idea is to time the induction pulses to help you fill the cylinders at high engine revs - otherwise, you could starve the engine of air. Look closely at the Celica GT induction system and you'll notice that it has a surge tank on it. That way it can keep up with the engine at higher revs.

OBX headers - if you want to mod the firewall on the Corolla - the Celica GT factory exhaust actually flows better than the aftermarket OBX. Magnaflow cat should be fine - but the difference between having the OEM cat and a straight pipe might only add up to 1 HP difference in the end - not much gain there. Straight pipe is OK - just to play around with total exhaust length. Just like induction pulses, you have exhaust scavenging effects that you can take advantage of. Bigger is not better here - just look at Lingenfelter exhaust on Camaros and Corvettes. They used two 1.75" mandrel pipes, but the outperform aftermarket Magnflow or Borla mendrel bent pipes that are 50% larger. The key is timing the exhaust pulses to the powerband - you can actually have an exhaust pulse "pull" the trailing pulses out of the exhaust, if you take advantage of scavenging.

Got it - just remember, Depending on where you live in - JDM motors will automatically fail smog (ECM portion of the I/M 240 test). If are fortunate to live in an area that either does the tail pipe sniffer or just a visually inspection - then you are good to go.

As far as what is best - depends on what you are after. If you are looking at a swap to fix the oil consumption issue and have maximum reliability - then it would be the 2006 engine short block with your existing head, ECM, intake, exhaust. That would be almost a drop in swap + you get the revised pistons and revised camshaft (more midrange power). ECM side - options are using you existing one and stare at the constant CEL - get a manual ECM from an 8th gen - get a 3-speed auto from an 8th gen and do the resistor trick - or use the one that came with the motor, taking into account that somethings may not work like they originally did (some functions disabled, some getting signals from the wrong source, etc).

For the MR2 EC - you can get that to work, but you have to repin some of the connnections. I think there was a decent discussion on newcelica forums on that.

The composite intake I.D. will still be much larger behind the cabled throttlebody - so any benefits from the shorter runner lengths and flow characteristics will be lost. Performance gain there is a wash - more of an aesthetics thing.

Shaving down the head on a 1ZZ-FE engine is not recommended. There isn't a whole lot of meat on the head to begin with - if just a small fraction is needed, probably safe. The factory service manual actually wants you to scrap the head if it is warped at all - replace instead of shaving it down.

Correct, the newer ECM is looking for additional sensors - so throwing that on the new build, especially with a cabled throttlebody, will trigger a CEL.

As far as emissions in NYC - I'm pretty sure they do safety and emissions - but it is the ECM scan type. They look at the I/M readiness monitors and see if they are ready or not. Also any CEL on the will be an automatic failure.

Repining the ECM is not for the faint of heart - lots of labor, lots of wiring tending. On the harness side - you are basically pushing the wires and sockets out of the harness and repositioning them in the appropriate order on the mating side. You'll need the wiring schematics and pinouts of the ECM - used to be online on the newcelica and MR2 forums, but it has been some time since I saw them last.

From a emissions and inspection standpoint - a Celica JDM engine and ECM is too risky (just to be clear, when you say JDM, you mean a motor shipped in from overseas from donor car over there - NOT a USDM Celica GT with a J-VIN - as that is a different engine (emissions and ECM wise)). To do all that work only to have it fail inspection would be catastrophic - burn up your time and money.