5M-Ge Engine Swap? Jimmy P Is Crazy!

[Jimmy P]

Hello everyone, new to this site, old to Corolla's

 

Where should I begin....... I guess it all started about six years ago; I was thinking about which way I wanted to go with my TE72 project. I kept dreaming of a 4A-GE swap (just like everyone else). Suddenly, like lighting striking my brain, it came to me! I’ll swap in a 5M-GE from an early 80’s Supra. I started doing some research to make sure it was possible to stick the inline 6 under the hood. I managed to find two blurry photos of 7M-GTE’s in TE72’s. That was more than enough proof for me.

 

First I needed to find a running supra to swap the parts from. I searched and searched, but was always disappointed, because each car would be missing a critical element to my swap. Once, I even got a flat bed trailer and drove 45 miles away to pick up a supra. Only to find out that it was an automatic. Thumbs down! But finally, after months of searching, a customer at my store offered to sell me his old wrecked supra. He had a 1985 P type, powered by a 5M-GE and delivered through a 5speed gear box. The next day, I drove out to inspect the car. He had told me that everything had just been replaced, fresh low miles motor from Japan, four brand new tires, and all new fluids and services. But only one week after everything was finished, it got T-boned by some blonde on the phone. He said it was totaled and could not be driven. I braced myself for the worst….

 

When I saw the car for the first time, I said to myself; the damage must be on the other side of the car, because this side looks great. But then after seeing the other side I said; maybe the damage was on the first side. The car looked way better than he described! I knew right then that this was the perfect car for my project.

 

I’m going to take my time on this swap. There are lots of details to cover, and many steps that need to be remembered. I want this log to be a useful step by step tool for anyone else who is thinking about a swap similar to this. Please be patient with this work log, I have I feeling it will take me along time to finish this project.

 

Here is my TE72:

 

 

 

Here is the Supra parts car:

 

 

 

*******

 

 

 

 

I started this project by removing the hood from my TE72. I figured it would be in the way, and this helps lots of light reach those hard to see areas. Next, I removed the battery, the washer bottle, and radiator overflow tank.

 

 

coil and all the vacuum control stuff are the next to go.

 

 

Then I drained the radiator. And removed the hoses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I removed the radiator attachment bolts. There is one bolt on either side of the radiator.

 

 

After the bolts are out. The radiator pulls out with little/ no effort.

 

Edited May 9, 2013 by Jimmy P

[Jimmy P]

All fuel lines and heater hoses have been disconnected from the engine. The last couple items are: throttle cable, exhaust manifold, engine and transmission mounts, clutch slave, and starter motor.

 

 

Here I am loosening the bolts and nuts that hold the exhaust manifold to the head.

 

 

Then I simply pried the manifold off of the studs and pulled it out of the way (not very far out of the way, cause I had to move it three times while I was pulling the engine).

 

 

Next I disconnected the starter motor and moved it to the side.

 

 

Then I removed the bolts holding the clutch slave cylinder.

 

 

I removed the bolts holding the center bearing (also called the carrier bearing). This allowed me to slide the yoke out of the transmission.

 

 

The transmission mount bolts were tight, but nothing a little effort couldn't fix.

 

 

At this point I released the throttle cable from its bracket, and made sure every last fuel line was disconnected. I brought the engine crane over and positioned it in front of the engine bay. I secured the engine to the hook on the crane, via a large chain. Toyota made this process really easy by leaving the hooks on the engine. Once the engine was securely on the crane, I added a little tension by pumping the lift up until the motor hung lightly from the chain. Then I removed the upper and lower bolts on both motor mounts.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I pulled the old 3T-C out.

 

 

 

 

 

And now I need to clean up this mess.

 

[Jimmy P]

***Not to jump around too much, but I gotta keep everyone on their toes.***

 

Let's take a look at the dashboard in the TE72. First off, I planned to keep most of the TE72 wiring intact, and just run the necessary Supra wires around them. This means I don’t have to figure out how to hook up the heater fan, tail lights, radio, etc. This keeps it simple. Well, maybe not simple, but a lot less work.

The TE72 still needs the steering and brake systems removed. Eventually, the TE72 will have those components replaced with better ones from either an AE86 or an AE71. All in due time though, I'll try not to get ahead of myself too much.

 

I started by taking this nice looking dash and messing it all up!

Note: These cars are getting quite old, and the plastic used in their construction has most likely become very brittle. Use extra care when removing and installing plastic dash panels, and any other plastic interior parts.

 

 

I first needed to remove the frame that surrounds the gauges, radio, and vents, in the upper dash. There are a few screws here, and there, and everywhere. Just make sure to undo them all, or you'll most likely crack it when you try to pull it out.

 

 

 

 

It takes some patients to remove the plastic frame once it is unscrewed. Just take your time, or else you will brake the twenty-something year old plastic.

 

 

Next, I removed the gauge cluster screws and the radio screws. This was as far as I got today. I will work on it tomorrow and update this soon!

 

 

 

Once the gauge cluster is unscrewed, reach your hand under the dash and squeeze the clip that holds the speedometer cable in place. Carefully pull the cluster out and rotate it away from you. This will give you access to the plugs on the back. Disconnect each plug and set the gauge cluster aside.

 

 

 

That's it for the night, goodnight corolla, I'll see you in the morning...

 

 

More updates soon! :)

[B.L.Z.BUB]

Awesome, I like the detail of your posts keep 'em coming!

[It's_AUDM_Yo]

Nice post!

 

Any reason for going 5m-ge and not the larger 7m-ge or gte?

[Jimmy P]

Thanks for the kind words! I chose the 5M over the 7M because of money time, and the 5M-GE is period correct for the early 80's. So now I started to clean up the TE72’s engine bay a little. It’s not quite done yet, but I got most of the heavy dirt and grease off. I also started to pull the 5M-GE from my Supra. I am working slowly on this part because I need to remember where everything plugs back in, when I’m done. I am also removing the power steering pump and A/C compressor from the engine. I have not been taking as many photos during this part, simply because other people might just get a 5M-GE and transmission, and not the entire car.

 

I started off by just studying the engine and its components. I wanted to feel comfortable around the motor and get a good idea where everything was under the hood. This allows me to plan out the engine swap better,

 

 

 

One thing is for sure, there are a lot of vacuum hoses on this engine. I will probably delete all the EGR stuff and most likely do away with all the vacuum controlled jibby-jobbies. But for right now, let’s just take this one step at a time.

Here I am trying to sort out all the crazy vacuum lines.

 

 

Let's look at some retarted over-engineering from toyota shall we; to remove the power steering pump from a 5M-GE:

First, stand in awe for nine minutes at all the crazy friggin braces and bars and brackets that hold the pump to the motor.

 

 

There are two big braces on the back of the pump. One bolts onto the exhaust manifold and the other bolts onto the engine block somewhere under the manifold. Then of course, there is a bracket that connects the pump to the alternator. To even remove the pump, you have to: drain and pull the radiator, and fan shroud, detach the Power steering pump pulley with an impact wrench, and undo about five bolts. :roll:

It is frickin ridiculous. I was glad to see it go when it finally came off.

 

 

 

 

After removing all the useless garbage there was a surprising amount of space on the exhaust side of the engine bay. The motor doesn't seem so big anymore.

 

 

Next, I unplugged and removed the engine bay harness. I also removed the cruse control. Since that garbage is out of the way, we can move onto better things.

The engine bay harness is really made up of three different wiring looms. The first loom spans the face of the car, connecting the headlights, parking lights, turn signals, horns, and headlight motors. This harness is known as the “headlight harness”. The second harness is on the passenger side of the car. This connects to the vacuum switches for the Charcoal canister, and the auto climate control valve. It also carries the wires for the AFM, alternator, oil pressure switch, and a couple of grounds. The third wiring loom is much larger than the first two, and enters the engine bay through a hole in the driver’s side fender. This carries the main wires to the engine bay fuse box. The connections in this loom include; the cruise control circuit, ignition coil, starter motor, engine main fuse, entire heater control circuit with fuses and relays. All three of these wiring harnesses connect to one another via “quick disconnect” plugs, to form the engine bay harness. Lots of fun!

The engine harness is separate from all of this mess. It arrives in the engine bay through a grommet in the firewall. It includes temp sensors, throttle Position Sensor, distributor wiring, crank angle sensor, and other essential electrical engine components. The other end of the engine harness is the ECU which will need to be removed with the dash harness. And that’s an entirely other day altogether.

[Jimmy P]

Also, forgot to add that I stopped by a local automotive bookstore and found the 1984 Toyota Supra, Factory Service Manual full wiring guide. It had some really great detailed drawings of the wiring layout and function in the Supra. So I swung into Kinko’s and had them blow-up the drawings..... to NINE FEET WIDE! I hung the poster on the wall so I could see it from inside the Supra. It was a fantastic help, every time I had a question, I would just look at the wall and there would be the answer.

 

 

 

Here is my Wife, showing me what I am doing wrong. hahaha!!

 

 

But it really is a great resource, I would encourage anyone who's doing a similar type of project to have good access to the right diagrams.

[Jimmy P]

I need to remove the dash harness from the Supra, so I can transfer it to the TE72. The process of removing the dash harness took me hours and hours. The entire dash and all the braces and air ducts and vents need to be removed in order to free the harness. The result is a complete uncut harness, ready to be swapped into the TE72. 8)

 

 

 

I started removing the dash harness from the driver’s side. I figured this would be the easiest, but you can do it any way you like. There are a number of screws and bolts that hold the plastic dash pieces in place. Systematically remove all retaining hardware and lightly tug on each piece, this way you won’t break something if you forgot to remove a screw somewhere.

 

 

 

The radio was gone when I bought the car so I didn’t have to worry about removing it. But the previous owner had a lot of “custom” mods on the car, so I have to cut through his bad wiring to get down to the factory harness.

 

 

 

Toyota made it easy to get to the ECU in these cars, which is quite nice. Simply open the glove box. Unscrew the door. Remove the backing inside the glove box. And there it is, nicely tucked up under the dash.

 

 

 

Here is the center consol wiring. These old school Supras are crazy luxurious. There is a little fan inside the center consol that sucks air from the rear seat cigarette ash tray, and filters it!!! But all these “niceties” make the car very heavy. And make the wire harness way too confusing.

 

 

 

Pulling out the gauge cluster. Not too hard, just remove all the attaching screws and disconnect the speedometer drive gear. Out she comes!

 

 

 

If this looks fun to you, than you can stop reading right here; there is something wrong with you.

 

 

 

To feed the engine harness through the firewall, you must disconnect the plugs from the ECU. Then move the Fan motor housing out of the way.

 

 

 

 

Finally! The entire wiring harness is uncut and completely out of the car. Now comes the task of removing all non essential wires from the loom. IE: power windows, power door locks, power moon roof with sunroof, power mirrors, cruise control, auto climate control, and all that other junk.

 

[Jimmy P]

Now, since all the wiring is out. We can pull the motor. Hooray!!!!

I started by checking to see what was holding the 5M-GE in place. I narrowed it down to: fuel lines (two), drive shaft, transmission mount, and engine mounts. So I took care of those items and brought the engine hoist over.

 

 

 

I chained up the bad boy and started lifting.

 

 

 

It got hung up for a second on the PS lines but a handy 2X4 helped persuade the PS line to let go.

 

 

 

 

She is out!

 

 

 

This transmission is real greasy, but a little scrubbing should clean it up nicely

 

 

 

Much better!

 

[Jimmy P]

This weekend I plan to finish taking apart the front end on the Corolla. Thanks for looking! :rock:

[widomski]

this is awesome!

i was eyeing off the 5m/7m-ge motors at the local u-pull-it, given cost of 4age's at the moment....but that won't happen.

:y:

[Jimmy P]

Yeah the cost of a used 4A-GE is kinda ridiculous these days, I've had my fair share of AE86's to play with, and I still own an '85 MR2 (AW11) but I really wanted to try something new and original. We'll see if it backfires on me. hahaha!

So, this weekend I got some good work in, I decided to remove the cross member with all the suspension pieces still attached. This way I don’t have to unbolt everything piece by piece. The list of things to remove includes: 18 bolts, two brake lines, a steering box, and a pitman arm bracket. Then the entire setup just drops right out. These are the main areas.

 

The forward brace (where the tension rods and sway bar attach)

 

 

 

The four bolts that hold the cross member (two on either side)

 

 

 

The three bolts at the top of the shock towers

 

 

 

I started with the brake line. Remove the clip that holds the brake line in place against the inner fender. I used a pair of pliers to pull the clip out.

 

 

Once the line is free, use a 17mm and a 10mm wrench to loosen the brake line compression fitting.

 

 

 

Next remove the bolts on the skid plate.

 

 

 

 

Then remove the eight bolts holding the tension rod brackets.

 

 

 

Remove the four bolts holding the steering box to the steering column.

 

 

 

Then remove the three bolts holding the steering box assembly.

 

 

 

Once the Steering box is free, set it on the cross member.

 

 

 

Then disconnect the pitman arm bracket and make sure it is out of the way. P.S. By this time the entire steering system will be loose. It does not like to co-operate, don't let it hurt you. It's heavy! LOL

 

 

 

The steering set up should look something like this.

 

 

 

Then remove the four bolts holding the cross member to the frame rails.

 

 

 

 

 

For the last step I mounted the wheels back on finger tight. Just so I could roll the front section around in one piece.

 

 

 

Finally, remove the three bolts at the top of each shock tower. And make sure to stand clear. The entire sub frame will fall as soon as the last bolt is out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All nice and clear!

 

 

 

More updates soon guys, wish me luck...

[Jimmy P]

Well, I got some more work done, I removed the front bumper! Yeah, I guess it's really not that big of a deal, oh well, I love these cars..

Let's go through my steps shall we:

 

First step, Disconnect the wiring to the turn signals.

 

 

 

Then remove the bolts in the engine bay.

 

 

 

NOTE: The bolts on the battery side are usually pretty well rusted. I had to apply a little more force to get them to break free.

 

 

 

Then remove the two bolts on the face.

 

 

 

Last, remove the clips holding the edges of the bumper cover onto the sides of the car. (under the corner parking light)

Then just grab the bumper and pull it out.

 

 

 

 

I've got a ton of work done on the supra wiring. I've removed almost 30 lbs of wire, relays, and tape. I got a huge freakin bag full of old supra wires. Ha ha ha ha ha and I laugh everything I think about the thirty lbs I just removed from the final project.

I still need to figure out how to hook the supra and TE72 wires together.

 

I did not take any pictures of the wiring process, because my hands were so sticky from messing with the 25 year old electrical tape, and I didn't want to ruin the camera. I will take some photos of the finished product (if I get around to it).

 

I got a surprise in the mail also!!!!

My wife showed up at the garage with a big box addressed to me. "What could this be" I said to myself. I removed the outer packaging, and there was a strange hieroglyphic. It read "OBX performance exhaust".

HOORAY!!! It had finally arrived! I tore open the next box and as soon as the last flap was moved aside, an amazing sparkle appeared! Yes my friends, 11 feet of polished stainless steel shines like a diamond.

 

 

 

I test fitted it to the engine. It hits the P.S. bracket, but that’s not a problem at all because I removed all that junk anyway. I only had the bracket on the engine because it also is the forward engine hook. So I will have to install the header while its in the car. At that should be fine, there is lots of room on the exhaust side.

 

 

 

 

I built a mock-up of the new dash panel to test fit my gauges. It is just some scrap cardboard I had laying around. I used the layout of the gauges to make the gauge wiring harness. I bought a professional set wire crimpers and a new soldering gun, just to do the wiring right.

 

 

This is the gauge harness. It should work great when installed!

 

 

Edited May 16, 2013 by Jimmy P

[styler]

Ah man love the details in the swap! A 3tc to 5mge though, wow that's the most absurd swap out!

 

Did you consider modifying the 3tc at all... just out of interest?

[Jimmy P]

Thanks for the question; I'm not a fan of push rod motors, and I defiantly wanted EFI. I've seen some monster 3T-C engines and 4A-GE's too, But I really wanted to do something different. Hahaha and different seems to be exactly what I have here... :)

 

 

Wiring, wiring, wiring.............

 

 

Next on the list is to run the wiring through the dash and start hooking things back together. I notched the hole on the passenger side so the AFM connector could fit through.

 

 

From the passenger side I started pushing the entire wiring harness through the car. I fed it through the hole inside the passenger wheel well.

 

 

Then I carefully wiggled the harness and pulled it through the hole and ran it across the dash and out the driver's side wheel well hole.

 

 

I had to drill a hole on the Driver's side, for all the wires to come through.

 

 

This is how the harness will enter the engine bay.

 

 

 

 

Apart from being really ugly AND in the way, I wanted the battery tray gone! I started by drilling out the spot welds. Oops! I accidentally drilled all the way through, three times. :oops:

 

 

Once all the welds had been drilled, I tapped the side of the tray, and it popped loose.

 

 

There was a lot of rust and dirt under the tray that I could not clean before, but now I can fix it. I started by rounding the hole on the driver's fender so it could accept a firewall grommet that I modified.

 

 

Then I stopped by the local auto parts store and picked up a wire wheel and a can of spray paint (that is extremely close to the factory paint).

 

 

Before:

 

 

Second coat:

 

 

After:

 

 

More updates real soon, hope everyone is enjoying so far!