What to do with my '83 SR5? Also a peak at my '88 4WD van.

[Don]

My first car was an '84 Tercel Wagon SR5 that I bought for $500 that had the blue plaid seats and scratches all over the hood from a goat named Kermit that used the vehicle as a boost over the fence. "The Goat Mobile" as my high school friends dubbed it really grew on the young impressionable 16 year old me. So much so that after I sold it to buy a first generation 4runner, then a GMC pickup, and a couple of Toyota Vans, one that I still own, I decided that I needed more T4WD in my life. That's when I found Oscar, my '83 SR5 with beautiful brown plaid seats.



For the last two years Oscar has treated me very well on trips down the coast to California and through the mountains of central Idaho but now he's in need of some engine work to get back on the road. I've been putting off repairing him for a while because I figure if I'm going to invest the money on repairs why not make some improvements instead. So I've been doing some research on engine swaps but could use some advice from the forum members. The first and in my opinion ultimate engine swap would be for a european 1.4l TDI engine that could possibly achieve mind blowing gas mileage! Improved fuel economy being one of my biggest motivations for the swap. I know acme makes adapter plates that allow Toyotas to bolt up to TDI engines but haven't heard of anyone successfully doing this to a tercel wagon. I've also considered the 1n-T, 1c-t, or 2c-T diesel engines from Toyota and am wondering if anyone has mated the Tercel to either of these engines. Lastly, since gas is cheap perhaps a 4a-ge engine, either the 16 or 20 valve because it would be nice to have fuel injection while picking up a little more umph! I believe Petros and maybe a few other forum members have successfully swapped the 4a-ge and if you're reading this please chime in. Notice any difference in fuel economy? Also if you have any other suggestions I'm all ears . . . and eyes. Would love to hear any cutting edge ideas for these 30+ year old marvels and as far as I'm concerned the best vehicles ever made.

Not to leave the vans out of the equation, also wonderful vehicles and capable of hauling many more things. Here's my '88 4WD 5-speed.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to hearing what you guys come up with.

[Gottolovem]

Welcome Don nice car's always liked the vans.
Here is a link to probably the best engine swap this forum has ever seen! viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7576

A 4ac swap is the easy swap gaining minimal horsepower but zero mods.
TDI sounds like major surgery keep in mind the tranny your dealing with, much more than 120 hp and it can't handle the load diesels have a lot of torque.

[dlb]

there are several pertinent threads i can think of for you, don. larry swapped in a 4age and detailed the whole thing incredibly well. cathoderaytube has been working on a 1n-t diesel swap for a while but i believe he has been stalled for a while. here are those threads.

diesel swap: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5475

4age: viewtopic.php?t=7576

[Petros]

Welcome to the forum, the best most direct swap is the 4ac, very easy change over and a noticeable improvement in power, slight drop in economy unless you are really easy on it, than it is about the same. both the 4afe and 4age have been done, the 4afe is a lower rpm, high fuel economy engine best suited to this car but will take major alterations, and a lot of work to make work (custom exhaust header, switching to distributorless ignition, EFI conversion, etc.). 4age gives the best power and economy so far, but also present major alteration challenges: flywheel, custom header and exhaust, EFI conversion, intake clearance issues.

there are threads on all of these topics in the archives. the 4ac can be swap over in a weekend, anything else will take weeks of planing, custom parts and likely $2000-3000 worth parts and fabrication, not counting the time spent on it.

[drege]

You know, I once had the pleasure of driving a open center differential equipped audi 4000 quattro with the 2.2l 5 cyl as opposed to my fwd 1.8l 4cyl.
It was amazing the cornering I was able to obtain, where as my little fwd would drift, ass swinging wide - this thing gripped the pavement like a panther stalking a marmot at speeds upwards of 50mph.

Now just 10 years later I see them less and less, in a way they were alot like our tecels, the fwd model was akin to the VW fox, it was a longetudial front wheel drive, the gear selector entered the tail of the trasnmission, and the transaxels came off the bellhousing: I'm not really sure where the differential was witch is funny cause I had that transmission down twice over the period of 3 days as I struggled to get the right clutch disk for it.

But the OCD audi 4k-q had a dial switch just under the stereo head unit that had 3 positions.

and two static iterations of a 4 wheel drive train, they would light up according to what selection you made of the drive train; front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or full time dynamic 4 wheel drive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattro_(f ... ve_system)

While these were road cars, never really imagined for offered capability like T4WD sort of was, I think it'd be a neat thing to do to a tercel, just gut it and give it a full drive train swap.
Trying to adapt a german engine to a japanese transmission is madness.

[Don]

Drege, interesting you mention the Audi quattro with awd. The Corolla All Trac also has the center differential awd and would be more compatible with the T4WD. Has anyone played around with All Trac parts on the tercel wagon? It seems like their transmission would be a good candidate for a 4age 20v engine swap and I remember Petros talking about how their rear drum brakes could be a possible swap to beef up breaking with the more powerful engine. Has anyone tried swapping the awd into the, in my opinion, far more handsome tercel frame?

[OLLIE86WAGON]

Love both cars!

[Petros]

I suppose it is possible, the AWD trans in the all-trac is a transverse installation, which means a lot of cutting and welding to get a transverse engine and trans installation to shoe horn it into a tercel. There are much easier ways to improve the Tercel. Besides, I think the 4wd tercel trans is more common, it is much lighter and simple (no center diff), which I prefer for rugged simple 4wd like the Tercel. A 4afe or 4age swap into a tercel4wd is a much easier project as compared to coveting it to a transverse engine installation (which would lkely cause it to gain a lot of weight, and put way more load on the front suspension since the cg will move forward). You would have to rebalance the suspension and brake bias as well, it would take a lot of effort to sort it out.