Intake manifold and carb.

[CT9A]

Ok, so I've decided to completely tear down my block after some serious knocking started. On of the things I've noticed is that the carb. is very anorexic and the intake manifold is not exactly ground breaking in design. I know that there is the Holly(?) carb. conversion, but I couldn't find the threads that went through this conversion. Also, does anyone make a "high performance" intake manifold? Might as well upgrade everything as I'm going through.

As an afterthought, what about cams, valves and rockers? Any performance upgrades for these?

[ARCHINSTL]

Search the "Webery Goodness" by Typrus on the front page and for "Weberiffic" by splatterdog.
Tom M.

[CT9A]

Thanks. Anyone have any input on the valve train and intake manifold?

[Mattel]

Have a look through Petros's messages about this subject although he has some head gasket issues due somewhat to the performance upgrades he has undertaken. There are companies in the US that will supply custom cams and stuff. There is a fair bit of stuff on here. I'd start by searching through Petro's posts first though.

[CT9A]

Thanks.

So, I may have missed it in the posts that I read, but what is needed or is best of the 3A-C? Vacuum, water, electric or manual choke when it comes to the Weber carb.?

[Mattel]

Any of these will work, however most have the DGEV (the Electric Choke that plugs straight into our current wiring) or the DGV which is the manual choke. Depends what you can get for the price you want to pay, I got a slightly used DGV for $180 so I have a manual choke that works fine. I think Lateer had a DGAV (water actuated choke) that he modified to a manual choke(see Typrus's "webbery goodness" post on the home page) but I don't see why the water one wouldn't work if correctly set up. I'm just not sure anyone has done it yet.

[Petros]

the weber carb is a one option that gives more power, but it is somewhat costly in my opinion. if you need to replace the carb anyway, it is a good way to go, but realize you still use the same intake manifold. But you can get a rebuild kit for the factory carb for only about $30, presuming the throttle shaft is not worn out and the electric components are still working (there are simple functional tests you can do, see the FSM). Also, in many states going to the weber would be a illegal mod since it removes most of the emission controls.

I have found I can get better performance with doing other mods to the engine without replacing the carb, and still get good gas mileage. These other mods are less expensive than a weber conversion, and will still pass as legal in most states. I have considered writing up detailed instruction for the "repair guide" section of this forum on how to do a performance rebuild.

I know of no other intake manifold available except perhaps a duel SU carb set-up that came only on Japanese market cars, you might be able to find one of those set-ups from an engine importer. I am very familiar with the SU carbs and I like them, but most people hate them (I think mostly because they do not know how to tune them) and they are somewhat sensitive to tuning.

Since you are rebuilding the engine anyway, along with all of the normal stuff you do with a normal rebuild, this is what I would suggest to improve performance:

Go max overbore of 1.00 mm, and replace with either the stock type piston, or the flat top pistons available from Sealed Power, balance (or have a speed shop do it) the pistons, con rods, crank and flywheel and clutch cover. Before you have the flywheel balance have a machine shop remove as much weight as possible, it is way too heavy the way it comes, the heavy rib on the back can come completely off. Do a port and polish job on the head, open them up as much as possible (there are good "hobby" web sites that can show you how do do this), and clean up the combustion chambers as much as possible too. If you have an air compressor you can do this yourself with a die-grinder and a sanding kit from tool supply store (I think Harbor Freight tool sells them). You can clean up intake manifold too, remove all the sharp edges under the carb, and you can match the ports by using the gaskets as a cutting guide. The best deal on cam shafts is to use the Delta Cams (of Tacoma WA) regrind, it is about $60 exchange, it improves the power without affect the economy, and it still idles good.

I would replace the exhausts valves with new ones (the best quality you can find), intakes are okay to regrind. Even stock engines can suck exhaust valves and trash your whole engine, they over heat and lose their head into the top of the piston. And then have your valves and seats reground with a 4 cut regrind job, typically only performance minded machine shops know how to do this. They will charge a bit more, but it is worth it. Have the check your valves guides while you are at it, if they need replacing do it (mine did). You likely can put larger valves in it, but this is pretty costly and not worth it since you still are stuck with the POS intake and exhaust manifold limitations. Go with a more modern head design (like a 4afe or 4age head) and upgrade to EFI before you put money into installing larger valves.

When you resurface the head you can remove as much as 0.040" to raise your compression ratio. I have mine at about 11.2 to 1, which gives great power using premium fuel, but it has been the problem with blowing out head gaskets. If you want to continue to use regular unleaded I would keep the CR at about 9.5-9.8 to 1. The 1.00 mm overbore and taking 0.020" off the head will bring the CR to about 10 to 1 by themselves. Taking another .020" off the head (.040" total) will bring you up to about 10.5 to 1 CR, which is the highest I would recommend. and you still should use premium fuel. To go higher, like I did, you will need the flat top pistons. Higher CR will give you more power and better fuel economy, but you will have to use premium fuel. If you have to go to octane booster you start loosing total economy cost because even at better MPG, you still have the extra cost of the octane booster.

There is a simple head gasket modification I did to improve the water circulation (to improve the cooling) around the area where my head gaskets kept blowing out. I do not know if this has solved the problem yet, but so far so good. I have been having to replace the head gasket about once a year because of the head not cooling evenly around the exhaust valves, I am hopeful that adding a few more holes in the gasket in these areas to allow more water circulation to keep it cooler there, and keep the gasket from failing between the 1 and 2 cylinder (right in between the exhaust valves). I would do this mod on all 3AC rebuilds I do now, even a total stock one.

You can also clean up the exhaust manifold too with a iron cutting bit on the die grinder (which is what I did), but it is still not a very good design. There is one company that used to make headers for this car, and they sometimes show up on e-bay for about $150 (not a bad price at all), or you can make your own exhaust header. Even with the stock manifold having a 2 inch or larger exhaust system will be a big help as well. This is not an inexpensive thing to do unless you can build it yourself, but if your system is rusted out and needs replacing anyway than I would definitely go to a 2 inch or larger exhaust system. I am still using my stock wimpy exhaust system, and hoping it will rust out soon so I can justify replacing it with a larger system.

A few other minor modes you can do: Make sure your mechanical and vacuum advance still works on the distributor, I disabled the vacuum retard lines on the distributor vac adavance, they effect fuel economy, but you can easily replace them for emissions test. Set your spark advance at about 10 degrees BTDC. I also rigged my cold air intake to full open so it will not take any heated air off the exhaust manifold. Colder intake air gives both better power and economy, cold air is more dense and more efficient.

With these mods you can still go to the Weber carb if you do not have any emissions issues, which is I think about the maximum limit to power you can get out the 3ac engine without serious reliability problems. If you want more power than that you should consider swapping to a different Toyota engine, either a 4afe or even better a 7afe fuel injected engine, or better yet, for max power a 4age. These present some swap challenges, but they will bolt onto the Tercel trans and engine mounts, and you will need a custom header and perhaps intake manifold, but it can be done and you get more power and reliability. I am in the process now of getting what I need together to go to a larger EFI engine. I want to get rid of the carb and go to EFI, and get better power and likey will gain more MPG as well, with better reliability and lower maintenance.

Good luck

[CT9A]

Holy cow, thanks for the reply. I have so many questions, but my pillow is calling to me, so I'll be back tomorrow with them.

[takza]

With a stock engine and carb I found that the vac advance was working but the diaphram slowly leaked down when tested. I'm currently running it without vac advance...just centrifugal. Stock setting is advanced some, but since the key on the front pulley is deformed can't say exactly what the advance is. I do get 35 mpg in summer and decent power...idle is a little rough, but it also is with the vac advance hooked up.

Interesting thing is that I can't get it to ping...no matter how advanced I set the dist with no vac advance... and it is not likely the slow vac leak in the vac advance causing this...since I've used an air bleed with both setups and it doesn't seem to affect the pinging issue.

[CT9A]

the weber carb is a one option that gives more power, but it is somewhat costly in my opinion. if you need to replace the carb anyway, it is a good way to go, but realize you still use the same intake manifold. But you can get a rebuild kit for the factory carb for only about $30, presuming the throttle shaft is not worn out and the electric components are still working (there are simple functional tests you can do, see the FSM). Also, in many states going to the weber would be a illegal mod since it removes most of the emission controls.

I've decided that I'm going to wait to get the motor together and running before I do this. Thanks for the tip on emissions. They do sniff tests, but not visuals, is the sniff test going to be effected?

I have found I can get better performance with doing other mods to the engine without replacing the carb, and still get good gas mileage. These other mods are less expensive than a weber conversion, and will still pass as legal in most states. I have considered writing up detailed instruction for the "repair guide" section of this forum on how to do a performance rebuild.

I know of no other intake manifold available except perhaps a duel SU carb set-up that came only on Japanese market cars, you might be able to find one of those set-ups from an engine importer. I am very familiar with the SU carbs and I like them, but most people hate them (I think mostly because they do not know how to tune them) and they are somewhat sensitive to tuning.

Since you are rebuilding the engine anyway, along with all of the normal stuff you do with a normal rebuild, this is what I would suggest to improve performance:

Go max overbore of 1.00 mm, and replace with either the stock type piston, or the flat top pistons available from Sealed Power, balance (or have a speed shop do it) the pistons, con rods, crank and flywheel and clutch cover.

I have decided to take your advice and go the 1.00mm overbore. Which do you think I would get the most out of, stock type or flat top? My intention is to have a decent off road vehicle that can still get through the mountains without holding up 2 miles of traffic. Balancing seems a little extreme to me, does it make that much difference and how much more can I expect to spend? This is a budget repair that I want done right, so I'm willing to spend the money if it's worth it, but trying to keep cost as low as possible.

Before you have the flywheel balance have a machine shop remove as much weight as possible, it is way too heavy the way it comes, the heavy rib on the back can come completely off.

Does anyone make an aftermarket one that you know of? Mine is looking pretty beat, I found out from the original owner (my step father) that it has never had a clutch job and the car has 182K! I know I could get it machined, but with the cost of shaving it, I think it would be cheaper if there was an aftermarket application for lightweight.

Do a port and polish job on the head, open them up as much as possible (there are good "hobby" web sites that can show you how do do this), and clean up the combustion chambers as much as possible too. If you have an air compressor you can do this yourself with a die-grinder and a sanding kit from tool supply store (I think Harbor Freight tool sells them). You can clean up intake manifold too, remove all the sharp edges under the carb, and you can match the ports by using the gaskets as a cutting guide. The best deal on cam shafts is to use the Delta Cams (of Tacoma WA) regrind, it is about $60 exchange, it improves the power without affect the economy, and it still idles good.

Cleaning up the runners, combustion chamber, etc. is something I can do. I have an air compressor and die grinder as well as a good ole' Dremmel. I've been talking to some folks at (I honestly forgot the name of the place, but it was one of the two shops mentioned on this board for regrinds) about their "torque" grind, which is what they recommended to me for what I'm wanting. They said that porting will actually hurt the performance of their cam due to velocity issues. I know I should know this, but is taking the edges off considered porting? Or are they referring to port matching or opening up the ports?

I would replace the exhausts valves with new ones (the best quality you can find), intakes are okay to regrind. Even stock engines can suck exhaust valves and trash your whole engine, they over heat and lose their head into the top of the piston. And then have your valves and seats reground with a 4 cut regrind job, typically only performance minded machine shops know how to do this. They will charge a bit more, but it is worth it. Have the check your valves guides while you are at it, if they need replacing do it (mine did). You likely can put larger valves in it, but this is pretty costly and not worth it since you still are stuck with the POS intake and exhaust manifold limitations. Go with a more modern head design (like a 4afe or 4age head) and upgrade to EFI before you put money into installing larger valves.

I'm planning on replacing all intake and exhaust valves as well as all the seats, so that's taken care of. Will a 4 cut regrind worth the extra cash over me just reseating the valves? Do I still have to reseat the valves even with the grind?

When you resurface the head you can remove as much as 0.040" to raise your compression ratio. I have mine at about 11.2 to 1, which gives great power using premium fuel, but it has been the problem with blowing out head gaskets. If you want to continue to use regular unleaded I would keep the CR at about 9.5-9.8 to 1. The 1.00 mm overbore and taking 0.020" off the head will bring the CR to about 10 to 1 by themselves. Taking another .020" off the head (.040" total) will bring you up to about 10.5 to 1 CR, which is the highest I would recommend. and you still should use premium fuel. To go higher, like I did, you will need the flat top pistons. Higher CR will give you more power and better fuel economy, but you will have to use premium fuel. If you have to go to octane booster you start loosing total economy cost because even at better MPG, you still have the extra cost of the octane booster.


I don't want to have to start using premium. If I can, I'd like to still fill it up with 85 for as cheap as possible. With the 1.00mm overbore and .020" off, will I need to use premium? How about if I just had .010" taken off?

There is a simple head gasket modification I did to improve the water circulation (to improve the cooling) around the area where my head gaskets kept blowing out. I do not know if this has solved the problem yet, but so far so good. I have been having to replace the head gasket about once a year because of the head not cooling evenly around the exhaust valves, I am hopeful that adding a few more holes in the gasket in these areas to allow more water circulation to keep it cooler there, and keep the gasket from failing between the 1 and 2 cylinder (right in between the exhaust valves). I would do this mod on all 3AC rebuilds I do now, even a total stock one.

Do you just drill your own holes with a regular drill and bit? Can you show me where these holes should go? If it's going to increase the reliability or life span of the motor, I'm all for it.

You can also clean up the exhaust manifold too with a iron cutting bit on the die grinder (which is what I did), but it is still not a very good design. There is one company that used to make headers for this car, and they sometimes show up on e-bay for about $150 (not a bad price at all), or you can make your own exhaust header. Even with the stock manifold having a 2 inch or larger exhaust system will be a big help as well. This is not an inexpensive thing to do unless you can build it yourself, but if your system is rusted out and needs replacing anyway than I would definitely go to a 2 inch or larger exhaust system. I am still using my stock wimpy exhaust system, and hoping it will rust out soon so I can justify replacing it with a larger system.

Yeah, can't justify that at this point. Maybe in the future when the stock one finally falls off, like you're waiting for.

A few other minor modes you can do: Make sure your mechanical and vacuum advance still works on the distributor, I disabled the vacuum retard lines on the distributor vac adavance, they effect fuel economy, but you can easily replace them for emissions test. Set your spark advance at about 10 degrees BTDC. I also rigged my cold air intake to full open so it will not take any heated air off the exhaust manifold. Colder intake air gives both better power and economy, cold air is more dense and more efficient.

Ok, now I'm lost. I have no idea how this distributor works. Can you link (or give me your best MS Paint pic) me to a diagram of which lines do what and where? Also, how do they effect fuel economy, better, worse? Again, with the emissions, is this something that can pass a sniffer?

I assume 10 degrees Before Top Dead Center (sorry, it's been a while since I've dealt with a distributor), and how the hell do I time it? I can't see any timing marks on the pulley or the cover. Am I looking in the wrong place?

What cold air intake, the stock one or an aftermarket/home made one?

With these mods you can still go to the Weber carb if you do not have any emissions issues, which is I think about the maximum limit to power you can get out the 3ac engine without serious reliability problems. If you want more power than that you should consider swapping to a different Toyota engine, either a 4afe or even better a 7afe fuel injected engine, or better yet, for max power a 4age. These present some swap challenges, but they will bolt onto the Tercel trans and engine mounts, and you will need a custom header and perhaps intake manifold, but it can be done and you get more power and reliability. I am in the process now of getting what I need together to go to a larger EFI engine. I want to get rid of the carb and go to EFI, and get better power and likey will gain more MPG as well, with better reliability and lower maintenance.

Good luck

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

[Petros]

CT9 wrote:
I've decided that I'm going to wait to get the motor together and running before I do this. Thanks for the tip on emissions. They do sniff tests, but not visuals, is the sniff test going to be effected?

Since they usually do the sniff test at idle and/or at some mid throttle setting, and not full throttle, the Weber carb usually does pass according to others on this list. Many states do a visual inspection too, but these cars are so old they usually do not even know what they are looking at, some have even passed the visuals too!

Adding the carb later is a good idea, it is easy to put on anytime so there is no reason to do it when you do the rebuild. If budget is an issue, then do only the things you need to do with the engine out of the car. You can even wait to go with the reground cam shaft later since that is an fairly easy swap. Though the reground cam is not too expensive.

I have decided to take your advice and go the 1.00mm overbore. Which do you think I would get the most out of, stock type or flat top? My intention is to have a decent off road vehicle that can still get through the mountains without holding up 2 miles of traffic. Balancing seems a little extreme to me, does it make that much difference and how much more can I expect to spend? This is a budget repair that I want done right, so I'm willing to spend the money if it's worth it, but trying to keep cost as low as possible.

The flat top will give you more power and fuel economy by raising the compression ratio, but if you want to use regular gas (not the premium) then go with the stock type piston. Note that my fuel economy was raised enough with the higher CR so my cost per mile is about the same with the premium fuel vs. the regular. So the higher cost of premium fuel does not really cost you more to drive it. And with the high CR engine you will have more power when you want it. On the other hand, the lower compression stock pistons will also have lower risk of head gasket problems.

I love driving a well balanced engine, it runs much smoother, especially at high rpms. But it does not really produce more power (perhaps 1-2 percent more. some claim more but I doubt it). If you do not want to pay for balancing, usually about $100-120 for a 4-cyl., you can do most of it yourself. You balance the pistons and rods your self with an accurate gram scale (grind off weight until they all match the lightest one), and have the flywheel and clutch cover spin balanced, and live with it like that. It will be better than stock, and not cost much. You really must lighten the flywheel, it improves drivablity and throttle responce, but it will not make more power (but it feels like it does). Drag race two identical cars, one with a heavy flywheel and one with a light one, the light one wins every time. After the flywheel is lightened, it must be rebalanced anyway.

Does anyone make an aftermarket one that you know of? Mine is looking pretty beat, I found out from the original owner (my step father) that it has never had a clutch job and the car has 182K! I know I could get it machined, but with the cost of shaving it, I think it would be cheaper if there was an aftermarket application for lightweight.

After market flywheels cost much more than lightening a stock one. I doubt you can buy them, no one ever professionally raced a tercel.

Cleaning up the runners, combustion chamber, etc. is something I can do. I have an air compressor and die grinder as well as a good ole' Dremmel. I've been talking to some folks at (I honestly forgot the name of the place, but it was one of the two shops mentioned on this board for regrinds) about their "torque" grind, which is what they recommended to me for what I'm wanting. They said that porting will actually hurt the performance of their cam due to velocity issues. I know I should know this, but is taking the edges off considered porting? Or are they referring to port matching or opening up the ports?

This is silly folklore, the bigger the ports, the better the power. If you have really big intake ports sometimes the low end power suffers a little, but that is not the case here. These heads are so pathetic they can use all the help they can get, do not worry about it, there is only so far you can go with them anyway. Match the ports at the manifold/head interface, clean up all the edges and lumps and make them smooth, get rid of the necking or "venturi" like shape just inside the seat, and go with the largest exhaust port you can fit without risk of breakthrough (this will not harm low end power at all)

I'm planning on replacing all intake and exhaust valves as well as all the seats, so that's taken care of. Will a 4 cut regrind worth the extra cash over me just reseating the valves? Do I still have to reseat the valves even with the grind?

Unless your seats are bad, there is no reason to replace them, having the seat re-ground is far less costly than replacing them. The 4 cut seat (vs. 3 cut) is not that costly, and worth it. Regrinding the seats, even with a 4 cut regrind, is cheaper than replacing the seats. I would opt for the 4 cut reground old seats rather than putting new ones in, especially if you are on a budget. I have rebuilt perhaps 30 engines, and only once did I need to replace a seat (an exhaust and I replaced only the one). IF you mean by "reseat the valves" to lap them in after the regrind, that is no, but it does not cost much to do yourself. Standard overhaul is to seat the recut valves with lapping compound so it makes a better seal. After only 1000 miles of driving I think they will be seated just fine without the lapping, if you were building a race car you want max power for the first 100 miles of driving anyway. A street car is different, but lapping is easy to do yourself.


I don't want to have to start using premium. If I can, I'd like to still fill it up with 85 for as cheap as possible. With the 1.00mm overbore and .020" off, will I need to use premium? How about if I just had .010" taken off?

If you go 1.00 mm overbore with std. type pistons, and take .020" off the head, you can run regular gas for most of the year. You might have to use premium (or mid grade) if it is really hot out and it is pinging, (I switch to premium with our stock Ford van when pulling a trailer in the summer because of the ping). This should keep the CR at or below 10:1 which should run regular fine if you are not overloading it. But as I pointed out above, if you go 10.5-10.75 (with the flat top pistons), you will get better fuel economy, off-setting the higher premium fuel cost so the cost per mile is about the same. It is your choice.

Do you just drill your own holes with a regular drill and bit? Can you show me where these holes should go? If it's going to increase the reliability or life span of the motor, I'm all for it.

Yes, just a normal drill, or a round punch. And then clean up the edge of the hole with an exatco knife. The holes go on the port side of the head between the 1 and 2 cylinder, and between cyl 3 and 4right where there is a water jacket port, about 1/4" dia. There is a thread in this forum where I have a picture of it on a copper head gasket I tried. I will find it and post it later when I am back in my office (I am at home snow bound and dial-up is just too slow!)

Yeah, can't justify that at this point. Maybe in the future when the stock one finally falls off, like you're waiting for.

The exhaust header, and 2" exhaust system is somethiing that can be added later since it can be installed with the engine in the car.

Ok, now I'm lost. I have no idea how this distributor works. Can you link (or give me your best MS Paint pic) me to a diagram of which lines do what and where? Also, how do they effect fuel economy, better, worse? Again, with the emissions, is this something that can pass a sniffer?

The distributor has a mechanical advance which advances the spark when the rpms go up, you can check this two ways, with a timing light on the front pully (where the mark is) rev the engine, if the timing mark advances you are good. The other is to pull the dist cap and see if you can move the rotor forward about 10 degrees, and it snaps back when you release it. (the dist mechanical advance can be test in the car, or out of it if you hold the gear). To fix it you just put light penetrating oil on it and work it free. if that does not work you should dismantle the disturbutor and free up the weights, use graphite lub. The vacuum advance will advance the spark when at part throttle cruise, it will improve the fuel economy. The higher the manifold vacuum, the more spark advance (the spark and flame front in the chamber travels slower in lower density airfuel mixture, so advacing the spark improves fuel economy). The vacuum line on the end of the little pie-tin looking disk on the distributor is the advance, put a tube on it and suck real hard, the little arm should retract and move the plate in the distributor. If it moves you are good, if you just suck air through it and the arm does not move, it is junk. There is no easy fix for it, just rplace it. Get a replacement at a wrecking yard (test them the same way), the dealer has them but they are costly. The 3a engine has a single retard vac line, and the 3ac has two. Under cetrain driving conditions it will retard the spark timing to reduce emissions. But it is a very bad way to do this, it will cause you to burn exhaust valves (fuel is still burning when the exhuast valve opens and it overheats the valve) and it affects fuel economy. That is why I disabled my retard lines (plug them with a screw). Note the vacuum advance does not affect max power since it is not doing any advancing at full thottle, it is only there to improve part load fuel economy (like when driving on the freeway).

I assume 10 degrees Before Top Dead Center (sorry, it's been a while since I've dealt with a distributor), and how the hell do I time it? I can't see any timing marks on the pulley or the cover. Am I looking in the wrong place??

You use a timing light, and the timing mark is on the front pully on the right side (as you face the engine). You will see it when you rebuild the engine.

What cold air intake, the stock one or an aftermarket/home made one?

the stock aircleaner housing should have two extension off the intake horn, one goes to the shourd on the exhuast manifold to suck in warm air from around the exhaust manifold, the other is a corregated plastic exention that goes from the end of the intake horn to the bulkhead next to the radiator. Your could be missing, if so get one from a wrecking yard. there is a temp controlled valve that keeps the air intake temp frairly high to reduce emssions by mixing the warm air and cold air in the airfilter housing. But it lowers the desnity of the air, cold (dense) air will give better power and fuel economy. So I disabled the vac controled flap valve so it only draws cold air from behind the grill, but it looks like it is installed and working normal.

[CT9A]

Thanks for clearing all that up for me.

I *think* (I'm sure I'll change my mind a couple of times) that I'll go with the standard pistons, 1.00mm overbore and .020" decked off the head.

I got confused AGAIN, with the distributor. Since I have a 3A-C, does my dist. have both mechanical and vacuum advance? Does this mean that it also has two vacuum retard lines?

I'm going to have to take another look for the timing marks, I have the engine on a stand and didn't see any markings. I haven't pulled the lower part of the front end yet though (timing cover, pulley, etc.).

I have all the pieces for the stock intake, I just wasn't sure if you were referring to an aftermarket intake or stock.

Thanks again for the help, I know I'm going to be asking more questions as I go. This is the first motor I have rebuilt in something like 10 years.

[Petros]

"CT9A" wrote:


>I *think* (I'm sure I'll change my mind a couple of times) that I'll go with the standard pistons, 1.00mm overbore and .020" decked off the head.

Yes, I do the same thing every time I rebuild a motor. The low end is pretty stout, no reason to spend any money there except to lighten the flywheel and balance it if you want. All the time, effort and money will be spent on the head, it is only marginally acceptable on a stock head, and if you improve the power output any, it will need all the work you can afford.

>I got confused AGAIN, with the distributor. Since I have a 3A-C, does my dist. have both mechanical and vacuum advance? Does this mean that it also has two vacuum retard lines?

All Tercel distributors will have both mechanical advance, and vacuum advance. You should have the one advance and two retard vacuum lines, but it is possible someone swapped it out with a 3a distributor and it only has one vac retard line (and one advance line). It makes little difference, just see if the distributor has three lines, or two lines going to the vacuum advance module.


>I'm going to have to take another look for the timing marks, I have the engine on a stand and didn't see any markings. I haven't pulled the lower part of the front end yet though (timing cover, pulley, etc.).

The front pulley has a single little notch on the inside lip. The black plastic timing belt cover has the scale and the marks for 0, 5, 10 deg BTDC on, just to the right of center as you face the front of the engine. It would be really strange if you did not have this, I think it is the same on all the 4a engines as well (same basic block, just bigger bore).

>I have all the pieces for the stock intake, I just wasn't sure if you were referring to an aftermarket intake or stock.

There is no aftermarket intake system except the weber carb which gets rid of the air filter and heat riser. So all my reference
was to the stock intake system.

Below is the picture of where I placed the hole in the head gasket (the pencil is pointing at it), this is between the 1 and 2 cyl. I also put one between the 3 and 4 cyl in the same spot. I used 1/4 inch drill, a punch would work better since you need to clean up the edges with a drill on a conventional gasket. This is on a copper gasket, which I have since removed from the car (it needs a lot of trimming to make fit properly, I did not want to mess with it since I had to get my car running, so I just put in a fel-pro). But the location is the same.

[CT9A]

Thanks for the help, I'm going to end up naming this car after you.

[CT9A]

Hey Petros, where would you find the Sealed Power 1.00mm over stock type pistons? I didn't see them at Rockauto.com, they only had .020" from Beck/Arnley.