3a 3ac Whats the difference?

[tercelwill]

What is the difference between the 3a and 3ac motors. The reason i'm asking is because the id plate on the fire wall says 3-AC but the sticker on the motor says 3A. I heard somewhere that the extra "c" means electronic ignition. I doubt someone changed out the motor because I bought the car with around 150k on the odometer. I'm puzzled, does anyone know whats up?

[deejay1272]

I have the same sort of situation with my Tercel (that I purchased with ~224k on it!). The info plate on the firewall says that my motor is a 3A-C but the valve cover says 3A-S on it. There's a good Wikipedia article on exactly what the difference is between the 3A and 3A-C (it's mostly minor stuff).

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_A_engine

[tercel4wdrules]

The 'C' just means it's California emissions. Mine has the CA emissions and the valve cover says 3A. The difference between the CA emissions and Federal is CA models lack the high altitude compensation and have an air suction system. The only engines I've seen with the 3A-C sticker on the valve cover are early iterations of the engine. All of the 4AC engines I've seen have '4A' on the valve cover.

[tercelwill]

Thanks been wondering for a while. Thats weird the id plate doesn't just say 3A. It's also weird that my powersteering resvoir cap says TOYODA

[ARCHINSTL]

"Toyoda" is the name of the founding family, and has appeared in various places on the cars.*
However, an interesting excerpt from Wikipedia on the reason for the "t" and not the "d" is:
Vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda", from the family name of the company's founder, Kiichiro Toyoda. In September 1936, the company ran a public competition to design a new logo. Out of 27,000 entries the winning entry was the three Japanese katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle. But Risaburo Toyoda, who had married into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" because it took eight brush strokes (a fortuitous number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off two ticks at the end) and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced consonants are considered to have a "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to voiceless consonants, which are "clear"). Since "Toyoda" literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also helped to distance the company from associations with old-fashioned farming. The newly formed word was trademarked and the company was registered in August 1937 as the "Toyota Motor Company".
Tom M.

*Maybe part of the deal was to give a Toyoda family member a commission on each PS reservoir cap made...?

[danzo]

Good info, Tom. I had always heard the name change was due to Old Man Hashimoto Toyoda wanting to sell more cars by way of the name not sounding so "Japanese".

I'm sure Kiichiro lanced Risaburo to death with a large Katana to honor the appreciation of the successful name change....

[tercelwill]

Ha, Good info learn something new everyday. So is my PS cap some relic that had been sitting around in the factory since 1936 or did some part manufacturer not get the memo?

[ARCHINSTL]

The PS cap monopoly was given to the black sheep of the family, Saburo Toyoda, in 1936 in order to keep him off the streets after he flunked out of HS. Unfortunately, mathematics had been his academic downfall in HS and that fault dogged him in business as well - he misread a contract that was for one million PS caps and made one trillion; the supply is anticipated to be exhausted in 2069.
As a sidenote, this production kept his factory too busy to make military materiel during WWII and Allied occupation authorities simply let him alone.
Saburo's efforts to market the overages as first Micro Metal Frisbees, then water bowls for gerbils, and finally as Hydroponic Christmas Chia Crocks came to naught. His efforts here unfortunately disregarded early efforts at TV infomercial marketing, reputedly relying on Malcolm Bricklin for advice (this was before Malcolm was involved with the Subaru 360, the Bricklin sportscar, and the Yugo).
There were reports that, in shame, Saburo eventually attempted a rare form of seppuku known as belushibluto by stuffing his mouth with the caps (reportedly managing nine of them), but they are merely urban legends and are not borne out by a http://www.snopes.com search.

Note that Lexus and Scion have differently-branded caps, so that extends the life of the Toyoda cap inventory. As the PS cap monopolies for these vehicles were also given to Saburo's two slacker children Yoko and Ono, the family has hired the Madoff Group LLC as the auditors for the kids' companies.

Incidentally, Wikipedia has quite an explanation with many footnotes, one of which details a newly-found cache of the caps; a National Geographic special is scheduled for this April 1st, tentatively titled Treasures of the Toyoda Tops.
Tom M.

[tercelwill]

Ha Ha Ha you had me going there. but every one knows he tried committing seppuku using the ps cap dipstick not by belushibluto i mean thats just ridiculous

[ARCHINSTL]

Well. after further research - you are correct; the PS dipstick method of disembowelment, dipstikosaki, was his first method. However he failed because of two very much related reasons:
1. He did not sharpen the end of the stick, having been told that, unmodified, it could spread soy paste on sliced bread, thereby reasoning that it could probably slice his belly equally as well.
Obviously Saburo was not the sharpest samurai to fall off the sushi schooner.
2. He had been using an early model Ab machine from Tony Little-san (the MkI, precursor to 113 other models) and had an incredible eight-pack (an eight-pack is luckier in Japan than a six-pack). This proved impossible to penetrate with a dull dipstick.

Saburo was disappointed and swore his only attendant to secrecy. The rumor he attempted belushibluto was spread as a coverup to his dipstikosaki defeat.
Tom M.

[tercelwill]

WOW! thats fascinating! please tell me more about Toyota History!!! It's freaking HILARIOUS! but seriously you have way too much time on your hands hahaha

[sdoan]

The C stands for "Catalyst". The underhood sticker says weather it is a Federal or California car.

I have 2 1984 Tercs, one is labeled "3A-C Fed" and the other "3A-C Cal". The Fed car has 3 stickers for (vacuum diagram, tune-up and emissions, and on the aircleaner) - all say "3A-C". On the bottom of the tune-up and emissions sticker in large letters it says "3A-C Fed Catalyst". In both cars the original engine valve cover is labeled "3A".

According to the FSM, California cars have a Three Way Sweeper catalytic converter (which I believe requires the air suction system), whereas Fed cars have a TWC only. I've had one fed car with the high altitude compensation valve and one without so the lack of the HAC valve does not mean Cal emissions.

I've had 2 4A engines, the early marked "4A-C" and the slightly later marked "4A". So that fits with tercel4wdrules observation that the early engines got the 3A-C or 4A-C stickers.

[tercel4wdrules]

I've had one fed car with the high altitude compensation valve and one without so the lack of the HAC valve does not mean Cal emissions.

I noticed this on an early '83 T4WD, the underhood emissions sticker said "FED W/O HAC". I didn't know they had released a Federal emissions car without the high altitude compensation. The first noticeable equipment on the CA emissions model is the AS valve on the air cleaner. It's pretty interesting all the different emissions variations that were produced.

[sdoan]

I noticed this on an early '83 T4WD, the underhood emissions sticker said "FED W/O HAC". I didn't know they had released a Federal emissions car without the high altitude compensation. The first noticeable equipment on the CA emissions model is the AS valve on the air cleaner. It's pretty interesting all the different emissions variations that were produced.

The car without the HAC was an '83 too. My neighbor now owns it so maybe I can check to see what the sticker says.