2nd Gen 4A-FE Swap

[drafting3d]

Looking inspirational there.
I have been convinced this will be the 2nd engine conversion I plan for

is there room to mount it onto the cam gear itself? is it a 1 to 1 ratio?
20 valve guys do this:
https://shop.battlegarage-rs.com/produc ... cation-kit

Oh and if you need anything sourced from Aus let me know if I can assist.
There are plenty of 4afe here but starting to thin out as not many owners are keeping them alive

[Kozuto_98]

Looking inspirational there.
I have been convinced this will be the 2nd engine conversion I plan for

is there room to mount it onto the cam gear itself? is it a 1 to 1 ratio?
20 valve guys do this:
https://shop.battlegarage-rs.com/produc ... cation-kit

Oh and if you need anything sourced from Aus let me know if I can assist.
There are plenty of 4afe here but starting to thin out as not many owners are keeping them alive

Much appreciated, I'll keep in touch if I need anything.
There might be enough room to mount the distributor off the cam gear like the 20V people do, but it'd be pushing really close to the radiator
support. I think you'd also need to swap a couple plug wires around to keep the firing order correct. I have a couple gears of the same size
I will try, that should keep everything 1:1.

[Petros]

for everyone one revolution of the crank, two cylinders go through the power stroke, so the distributor should rotate at the same speed as the camshaft, one cam rev for every two crank revs.

At the cost of that one little bracket to mount the distributor up front, I think I would rather spend the money on installing a distributor-less set up. simple and ultimately a more modern and reliable ignition system, also cleans up the engine bay, saves a bit of weight as well. you likely can find a whole system from a wrecking yard off a newer 4 cylinder engine and get it work without too much trouble. I have been told the Ford Tempo (or some other 4 cyl. Ford model) is popular for retrofit since the ignition ecu is separate from the EFI system, and it has a neat little 4 coil pack.

[Kozuto_98]

Just gonna go over some more plans moving forward while I wait for parts to ship in, and something interesting with the 4A-FE I have.

Screenshot 2021-03-03 233651.png

Screenshot 2021-03-03 233607.png

Despite how everything looked on the outside, inside the engine was surprisingly clean. Cams and buckets had the typical wear pattern you'd see
after 250,000 Kms, the penthouse of the head was absurdly clean, valves had no pitting and very low amounts of carbon, ports are VERY clean,
pistons had low amounts of carbon, and the cylinder liners still had the cross hatching marks. I question if this example was rebuilt in it's lifetime,
but regardless it makes me feel a lot better knowing it seems to be well taken care of. I do still plan on refreshing the whole thing with new
bearings, rings, seals, ect.

So in terms on engine modification, the most I'll be doing is stock 4A-GE 16V valve springs, 4A-GE 20V silvertop rods, casting slag removal on the ports,
a light port polish, 7A-FE injectors, and slightly shaping the split in the intake ports to be slightly more knife edge like.

My reasoning for the 16V springs is to help reduce any instance of valve float and so I can increase the rev limit up to 7000 rpm or slightly higher.
I'm choosing to use silvertop rods as they are much stronger and should also help the engine cope with a bit higher rev limit. They're
comparable to 4A-GZE rods in terms of strength. These parts, along with the light porting should compliment the 4A-FE/7A-FE ITB kit from
SMR2U I plan on using. Yes, I understand that higher revs may be pointless given the 4A-FE power curve, but I am chasing slightly higher
revs for use off road and heavy snow conditions. The reason I'm using 7A-FE injectors is for a safety net incase the ITB setup requires a bit more
injector duty. (I can't see this being a problem, but again, just incase)

I managed to pickup both a spare cam bolt and distributor to start building the cam driven distributor setup.
What I'll be doing is welding a rod onto the spare cam bolt and adding a couple grooves for the drive dear to grab, and same for the spare
distributor. I'll first be trying some extra 3D printer parts I have laying around, and hopefully everything will be able to withstand.
Petros brought up a good point that everything will need to be shielded from dust and other elements, and for that I have a couple ideas.
I will need to head back to a local junk yard to pickup a spare timing cover. With that I'll make the necessary cuts and create a piece to
go in and cover the parts. I'll either 3D print this or make something out of fiberglass.

These are the gears I mentioned. These are available on Amazon.

61YKOnFG2EL._SL1050_.jpg

In the mean time everything is just a matter of waiting. All my replacement parts to rebuild the engine are stuck in shipping limbo due
to the recent string of weather in the US, and the IACV, Speeduino, and dual VR conditioner board will take some time as they're shipping
from Australia.

Again, input on these ideas are always welcome!

[Kozuto_98]

for everyone one revolution of the crank, two cylinders go through the power stroke, so the distributor should rotate at the same speed as the camshaft, one cam rev for every two crank revs.

At the cost of that one little bracket to mount the distributor up front, I think I would rather spend the money on installing a distributor-less set up. simple and ultimately a more modern and reliable ignition system, also cleans up the engine bay, saves a bit of weight as well. you likely can find a whole system from a wrecking yard off a newer 4 cylinder engine and get it work without too much trouble. I have been told the Ford Tempo (or some other 4 cyl. Ford model) is popular for retrofit since the ignition ecu is separate from the EFI system, and it has a neat little 4 coil pack.

That is certainly the better option, and I agree with what you say.
But I want to try the belt driven distributor first just to see how things work out. I love to experiment with things so it's just a me thing.
I do for sure want to peruse a COP setup for this swap in the future as like you said, it's more modern and reliable.

I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a Tempo or other 4 cylinder Ford in the local yards. Most yards around here are dominated by Toyotas, Hondas,
and GM stuff. There was a Ford ignition setup I've seen mentioned a few times but I forget the name off hand, but I might look into that.
I'll have to look into trying some off the shelf sensors for the cam trigger to make the Speedunio work with COP with the 4A-FE in the future.
(optical/hall effect)

[AugustusFerdinand]

I managed to pickup both a spare cam bolt and distributor to start building the cam driven distributor setup.
What I'll be doing is welding a rod onto the spare cam bolt and adding a couple grooves for the drive dear to grab, and same for the spare
distributor.

These are the gears I mentioned. These are available on Amazon.
61YKOnFG2EL._SL1050_.jpg

Welding a rod onto the head of the bolt raises a couple of potential issues. The first being difficulty in getting correct torque on the cam bolt with a rod in the way, but this can be worked around.

The second, and more important, is balance and eccentricity. Unless you have a lathe on hand, I'd find it difficult to get a welded rod hanging off the cam bolt to be centered anywhere near acceptability. The solution is in one of the pictures you posted earlier, just use a longer bolt and grind a couple of flats onto the shaft of that bolt to give the gears somewhere to bite.

[Kozuto_98]

What I was planning for with the rod was only adding as much as I need. The idea was just to use a deeper socket to fit when torqueing the bolt.
I'm glad you brought up the balance and eccentricity issue. I never gave that much thought. What i can do is weld on a thicker than needed rod,
and then have that turned down on a lathe to get everything more in spec.

I do like the longer bolt solution you brought up. If I come across a bolt I can use I'll give it a try.

[AugustusFerdinand]

McMasterCarr will almost certainly have the needed bolt. Just need to find out the thread pitch of the current cam bolt, add the depth of the pulley, and add to cart.

[teranfirbt]

Oh memories. Mine is still running, although all of the parts are much less clean. I ended up building a different header that clears an AC compressor (Texas is hot yo).

[Kozuto_98]

Oh memories. Mine is still running, although all of the parts are much less clean. I ended up building a different header that clears an AC compressor (Texas is hot yo).

Very nice! I'll have to do something similar because my Tercel has the factory AC stuff. I never really put much thought into clearing that.
Anything you'd recommend for a path and what not for making the header?

[teranfirbt]

Hmmm, only thing I'd watch for is making sure you protect the clutch cable from heat. I ended up wrapping mine with header wrap and still had issues with melting the inner lining when it was resting on the header. I was able to make it have an air gap with a zip tie on the brake master cylinder, lol.
If I did the whole project again, I'd go with a crank triggered ignition system + do a better job on the cooling system pipes. What I have works, but it's not pretty.

[Petros]

Teranfirbt,

some years ago when I visited you whey you lived in Oregon, you has a tercel set up with a crank triggered ignition. looked like a simple set up as I recall. what was that from? I seem to recall you adapted something from another car.

[teranfirbt]

The crank wheel was from DIY Auto Tune, coil packs from a Ford Escort, all controlled by a Megasquirt.

One thing to watch out for on the remote mount distributor is that the bearing is designed to be bathed in engine oil. It also only has one bearing, so the tension from the belt will ruin it very quickly.

[Kozuto_98]

The crank wheel was from DIY Auto Tune, coil packs from a Ford Escort, all controlled by a Megasquirt.

One thing to watch out for on the remote mount distributor is that the bearing is designed to be bathed in engine oil. It also only has one bearing, so the tension from the belt will ruin it very quickly.

Good point on the distributor bearing. Never gave that any consideration.

Speeduino and Megasquirt use the same tuning software, tuner studio. Would you mind giving a quick rundown of what you did for the COP setup
both software wise and for parts/wiring. If you already have a rundown on another thread a link is good to.

I have a set of 1ZZ-FE coil packs laying around I can use.

[Kozuto_98]

Forgot to mention I have a couple ignition coils from a Subaru EJ253. I'd have to do some reading on them to see if it'll work, but might be interesting.