1991 MR2 / Gen 4 3sgte swap / 94+ body conversion

In reply to akylekoz :

I'll have some more clean up photos coming this weekend as well haha

It can be a little tedious but its always worth it in the end for me at least!

Well where to start...

I had gotten everything wired up to properly get a first start but ran into a few issues that really took the wind out of my sail. First though is the Swap ECU, Tach Adapter and Greddy Boost controller all wired and in place.

However - Once doing a coolant system pressure test I came across mutliple leaks. The first being below the exhaust manifold and the entire turbo setup needed to come out to confirm the leak.

Once it was torn down this far I finally found the leak at the water pump to water pipe/housing connection. Even being brand new and OEM the o-ring that seats the waterpipe had torn causing a leak..

Thinking this was fixed I reassembled everything and began to fill with coolant as this was the only area that presented an issue. While filling however I began to see a small drip under my gas tank.. These cars have hardline heater core pipes above the gas tank that run the length of the car. With this out came then entire gas tank again to find and correct this new leak. researching this it appears its incredibly common with age the pipe will crack at the mounting points. All I did was cut out the leaking section, create a bead on the pipes and use heater core hose. Next time this is torn apart I may replace the hardlines entirely.

After all of this I did manage to get my first start and first drive in but that was short lived as well.. being the transmission was a converted e351 not from this car I began to run through all the gears. This is where I found 5th gear was completely gone. As soon as 5th gear sees any load it immediately kicks out and then grinds and wont re engage. Speaking with a few friends we tore of the end case to see substantial wear on the entire 5th gear assembly. I priced all of this out with OEM Toyota parts and just rebulding 5th myself was over 700 dollars..

So what did I do instead of spending 700 to correct this? I found a Solara geared e153 (Much stronger transmission) and the axles needed as well which came out to over double what the fix was. I just told myself this is the endgame transmission and I should have gone this route to begin with.

Being used and filthy it needed some cleaning...

It cleaned up really well and the plan this weekend is to get the e351 out and the e153 in. So here she is in preparation of the transmission swap..