Feeler: rebuilt 3A possibly for sale...

[golden_glory]

So here is situation, I rebuilt the engine for my Tercel last semester and due to budget constraints I never put it in. I bored it over 0.020, replaced the pistons, rings, piston pins, rod bearings, crank journal bearings, valves, and valve guides. Just about the only thing not replace dwere the valve seats as they were in good shape and time was sort of an issue. All the machineing was preformed by myself except for the final honing of the cylinder bores, this was done by a reputable area engine shop. The head surface and oil pan rail were resurfaced and both the block and head were completly stripped and cleaned. I also put on a new oil pan and painted the head white (I chose this color mainly to annoy my instructor). I also painted the accessory brackets either white or gold (again this was done to annoy the instructor). I may have left some things out here, please feel free to ask me any questions. My email is sjiles@gmail.com and this is the best way to reach me.

While I did use a lot of assembly lube I have not yet primed the engine with oil. I also have not ran the engine yet. The main reason for this is I was waiting until I could install a new cooling system; rad, hoses and heater core. Local pick-up would probably be best as I have no idea how much it would cost to ship this thing. Idealy I would like to get around $250.00for this thing in order to cover most of the parts cost of the rebuild, but I am open to any reasonable offers. I think I spent about $180.00 or so on internals and seals and gaskets, another $85.00 or so went to Toyota for the oil pan.

Again this is only a feeler thread and I am more than willing to answer any questions. sjiles@gmail.com is my email and if you would like to speak with me directly feel free to call me at 608.212.4668. I am usually awake from 8am to midnight if you want to call.

Long story short,

Rebulit 3A - $250 OBO
Location - WI, 53704
Contact - Stephan (say - stef-on) 608.212.4668, or sjiles@gmail.com

Oh yeah, the reason I might want to sell it is because I had the hair-brained idea to convert to electric. I would sell in order to fund raise loot for the conversion.

[jimpomm]

I meet a guy at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair [held in Wisconson around solstice time every year] that was going to convert a terc 4wd to electric. Go to the fair this year and ask around ,you might find him. Think he was one of the organizers of the fair back in the mid 90's.If you do it,please share info with the group.

[Petros]

A small turbo charged, computer controlled deisel might be an easier conversion, and it would make an interesting 4wd with more range and less weight than electric. you could get 60 to 90 mpg with biodeisel. This seems to me a better option for a "green" Tercel 4wd. I know Toyota makes a number of small diesel engines, some might even bolt up to the Tercel trans since they came in several models that use the 3a and 4a engines.

[golden_glory]

Heh. So after looking at the cost of parts involved to convert to EV vs. the cost to put my engine back in there... It is going to remain a gas car for a while. EV conversion parts can get pricey really quickly.

I might just try and make it to the energy fair next time it happens. My friend went one time and said it was pretty fun. He came back with visions of a wind turbine in his back yard. Sadly this never came to fruition.

Diesel would be an awesome conversion. But I think that I am just going to have to stick with the 3A for now. I read the post by the guy who converted his Tercel to TBI, that seemed like a viable plan to me to. I do think that I should really install the engine with the carb and make sure it is running right before modding it like that though. I let the group know if I do do (hehe, doodoo) a conversion like that. On that note, does anyone know if Toyota sold a TBI engine under 2.0 in the US?

[Petros]

You will like spend $6000-10,000 doing an elecric conversion, you can save half of that perhaps if you use surplus or salvaged equipment. You will end up with a Tercel 4wd that has about a 60 mile range, no cargo capacity, and weigh about 800 lbs more, and will take about 2 minuts to accelerate from 0-60mph (way slower than the mighty 62hp engine it has now).

The real question is does it really save resourses. The measure of the resourse consumption is the amount of money it takes to buy, maintain and operate the vehicle over its useful life. I think if you do a life cycle cost analysis (total cost divided total miles driven), most of the "alternative" propulstion vehicle cost much more to own. So you trade off gasoline costs for electricity costs, and all of the costly components and mantenance over its life. You would end up wasting resourses, not saving them.

Getting a used small diesel engine and adapting it to fit, optimizing the engine and the exhaust system, and use bio-diesel fuel (bio-diesel fuel around here cost less than pump diesel), you would have a viable alternative fuel vehicle. It would cost less to operate and less to maintain than a gasoline engine. You would also have about a 500 mile range per tank, and have lots of low-end torque. That would be an improvment. Strip all the excess weight and interior out of the Tercel it will get even better fuel economy.

BTW the later year Tercels went to fuel injection, and the head will bolt onto the 3a block. The engine produces more power and gets better economy. The problem with doing this conversion is the distributor comes off the back of the head (it is driven directly by the cam shaft) since the later Tercels have transvers engines. If you go to a distributor-less ignition you can just plug the distriputor hole and use this head and EFI system on the 4wd Tercel. Supposedly the Ford escort distributor-less ignition is an easy conversion because it uses a separte processor/controller for the ignision, so it can be adapted to any car. And they are readily available from the local wrecking yard.

[golden_glory]

Yeah I'm aware of the costs involved in the EV conversion. 6K-10K seems rather high by my findings though. Some of the biggest costs after sourcing the motor and controlling hardware seems to be paying someone to machine the necessary parts. This would be less of a problem in my case as I have access to a full machine shop . I'm not to terribly concerned that the range will be limited, I rarely drive more than 30 miles at a time as it is. The maximum range could be as high as 100 miles with the right mix of parts. I understand that it wouldn't really be "saving" any resources, merely transferring one dependency for another. I was thinking of doing it just to see if I could. I also think it would be kinda cool to have an electric winter car too. I dunno, maybe I'll look in to it later on. Cost of ownership is already a win for me and the Tercel, it gets (got?) better mileage than all the cars i had prior barring one. In the 5 years i have owned it it has only cost me about $2600. This includes purchase price, title, parts I've put in to it including the engine rebuild. I don't recall how many miles I have driven it and the odometer is sporadic in its functioning anyway.

Thanks for the tips on the FI systems too. I was thinking of going with the TBI because it seems that it could be done with relatively little hassle and it a little simpler system to diagnose. The is a pretty good scrapyard nearby that lets you pull parts, the biggest cost would be the management system. A friend of mine has an extra Megasquirt unit laying around that I could probably pick up rather cheaply though. I don't really want to replace the head as I just rebuilt mine and want to use that in order to see if I did it right. That and I put a bunch of new parts in it and I already own it. I'll have to go down to the scrap yard and see what they have for e to use before I make any final decisions though, EFI is still an option. Since most of these ideas a pure speculation at this time anyway I'm not really trying to rule out any options. I do like the idea of using the 3a though, just to see how much can really be squeezed out of technology that that old.

[Petros]

Somewhere on this forum is someone that used the TBI from the earlier injected Geo Metro. I would use the Metro controller too, the engine is about the same size, so it should about right for the 3ac. The Metro TBI also has all the sensors contained within the TBI itself, I do not even think it has an O2 sensor, so the swap is a lot less complicated. If I was not doing an engine swap already I would consider the Metro TBI conversion.

Good luck.

[golden_glory]

Nice, I might just have to go to the yard on saturday if it is not too cold out or snowing. Thanks for the tip.

[Mattel]

Hey Petros, I think your talking about Gasoline Fumes and these pics

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0903/ ... /?start=20

here's some right up on his site of his Metro EFI conversion

http://www.geocities.com/gasolinefumes/ ... index.html

[terceldude]

A small turbo charged, computer controlled deisel might be an easier conversion, and it would make an interesting 4wd with more range and less weight than electric. you could get 60 to 90 mpg with biodeisel. This seems to me a better option for a "green" Tercel 4wd. I know Toyota makes a number of small diesel engines, some might even bolt up to the Tercel trans since they came in several models that use the 3a and 4a engines.

Why would you get a "green" T4wd when there are millions of SUV's on the road?? They all should be driven off-road all times, but the yuppie women who drive them are "status freaks" who don't know why SUVs are hurting our planet and more.... I would also consider the TBI conversion though... However, the car does not have a stock Malfunction Indicator Lamp, so maybe I could swap in some Mercedes-Benz dashboard like some Norwegian guy did with his T4WD that he was selling with a Mercedes-Benz dash.....

[golden_glory]

So the engine is going back in the car. No more silly ideas of an EV... That plan turned out to be way to expensive. And more than a little to complex for the little beast.