Post by KING7thGen on Jun 8, 2010 23:29:20 GMT -5
Edit: I posted pics on the site - www.ae92corolla.com/?page_id=411
I had just under 160,000 miles on my AE92 Corolla and no matter how hard I tried I just could not kill this stock 4AFE. Regardless, it was time for an upgrade. The donor was a 7AFE from a 1995 Corolla. Originally I wanted a 4AGZE, but after three months of searching, I got fed up and decided to build a 7AFE instead. This motor doesn't look that great on paper, but the added torque is very apparent once you actually drive it. This is definitely a more commanding car even with only 115lbs of torque and 115lbs of horsepower.
To make it even better, a light weight flywheel was installed, along with a stage 3 clutch that should support up to 280hp. My plan at the moment should put me around 250hp, so should be plenty of clutch. This new clutch is a little harder to drive at first when compared to the stock clutch, but the more I drive on it, the easier it gets, and now that it is fully broken in it feels great.. The bonus to this is that the motor is a lot more rev happy and will jump to the higher RPM's quickly, especially with the AC and power steering pumps removed. This clutch grabs like never before, and was able to make the Corolla chirp at 40mph with only 115hp by dropping the clutch at about 5k RPM's in 2nd gear.
The swap was not as easy as we had originally anticipated. I didn't expect so many differences in the wiring harness, and I can understand why few people have done the 7AFE AE92 swap. I can think of much easier ways to get 15hp out of these cars, but in the long run I think the added torque will be more beneficial, plus they seem to give off a much better sound when they are all fixed up.
One thing that I noticed about this motor is that 3rd gear doesn't stretch as far as it used to although 4th feels a lot stronger than it used to, and I've got much more pull in 5th. What I mean, is that with the 4AFE 1st gear went to 30mph, and it was the same with the 7AFE. 2nd gear went to 60mph on the 4AFE and it was the same with the 7AFE. Now, on 3rd gear the 7AFE stops at 80mph, whereas the 4AFE stretched to 90mph. I'm really not sure how to explain this yet.
Now, don't get me wrong, if you are talented enough to splice into your wiring harness, then do not be afraid to do this swap. You can find these motors for around $500 but can expect to pay 2-4 times that for a 4AGZE or 4AGE 20v. Not to mention what it costs to actually put the motor in the car, which was probably another &1,000. I still need to get a final count on what that costs. Further down the road I will be building a forged 7A block, and swapping a black top 20v onto it. In the end it will have more power than either of those two motors, and produce more torque to get you off the line.
Almost everything mounts right up on this motor, so the swap itself was pretty painless. The motor mounts were exactly the same, and it bolts right to the manual transmission from the AE92.You will want to ensure that the 7AFE comes with a wiring harness and ECU as it will be needed for this swap. The 7AFE ECU I used is for an automatic transmission, but is running my ride without trouble. There are also minor differences in the vacuum lines to the intake manifold, but we capped almost everything off and did not worry about the AC since it has been removed from the car. If you plan to run your AC you will need the AC idle up piece from the 7AFE Corolla. One of the problems I had was a slight gap between the exhaust manifold and the down pipe at the donut gasket. I may have been using the wrong size gasket, but I fixed this with a turbo manifold. More on that later.
The only major headache here was the wiring. The AE92 body clips do not mate up with the 7AFE fuse box or ECU and the 7AFE clips do not mate up with my body harness under the center console, so we had to use the under hood fuse box from the 7AFE and wire it in. Due to the difficulty of writing down the wire locations while trying to wire it into the car, I will not be able to provide you with a how-to on making the wiring harness. I will be posting wiring diagrams that I used and trying to get a write up on the wiring harness. It is possible to run the Automatic ECU, so do not kill yourself trying to find a manual 7AFE, they are pretty rare. There may be other ways to wire in this motor, but this is the way we decided to go.
I haven't had the chance to fix the pictures yet, or post this to the site, but I wanted to give you guys a sneak preview. If you have any questions, let me know. I'd like to make the article as complete as possible. Once again, thanks for all the help CCC!!!!
I had just under 160,000 miles on my AE92 Corolla and no matter how hard I tried I just could not kill this stock 4AFE. Regardless, it was time for an upgrade. The donor was a 7AFE from a 1995 Corolla. Originally I wanted a 4AGZE, but after three months of searching, I got fed up and decided to build a 7AFE instead. This motor doesn't look that great on paper, but the added torque is very apparent once you actually drive it. This is definitely a more commanding car even with only 115lbs of torque and 115lbs of horsepower.
To make it even better, a light weight flywheel was installed, along with a stage 3 clutch that should support up to 280hp. My plan at the moment should put me around 250hp, so should be plenty of clutch. This new clutch is a little harder to drive at first when compared to the stock clutch, but the more I drive on it, the easier it gets, and now that it is fully broken in it feels great.. The bonus to this is that the motor is a lot more rev happy and will jump to the higher RPM's quickly, especially with the AC and power steering pumps removed. This clutch grabs like never before, and was able to make the Corolla chirp at 40mph with only 115hp by dropping the clutch at about 5k RPM's in 2nd gear.
The swap was not as easy as we had originally anticipated. I didn't expect so many differences in the wiring harness, and I can understand why few people have done the 7AFE AE92 swap. I can think of much easier ways to get 15hp out of these cars, but in the long run I think the added torque will be more beneficial, plus they seem to give off a much better sound when they are all fixed up.
One thing that I noticed about this motor is that 3rd gear doesn't stretch as far as it used to although 4th feels a lot stronger than it used to, and I've got much more pull in 5th. What I mean, is that with the 4AFE 1st gear went to 30mph, and it was the same with the 7AFE. 2nd gear went to 60mph on the 4AFE and it was the same with the 7AFE. Now, on 3rd gear the 7AFE stops at 80mph, whereas the 4AFE stretched to 90mph. I'm really not sure how to explain this yet.
Now, don't get me wrong, if you are talented enough to splice into your wiring harness, then do not be afraid to do this swap. You can find these motors for around $500 but can expect to pay 2-4 times that for a 4AGZE or 4AGE 20v. Not to mention what it costs to actually put the motor in the car, which was probably another &1,000. I still need to get a final count on what that costs. Further down the road I will be building a forged 7A block, and swapping a black top 20v onto it. In the end it will have more power than either of those two motors, and produce more torque to get you off the line.
Almost everything mounts right up on this motor, so the swap itself was pretty painless. The motor mounts were exactly the same, and it bolts right to the manual transmission from the AE92.You will want to ensure that the 7AFE comes with a wiring harness and ECU as it will be needed for this swap. The 7AFE ECU I used is for an automatic transmission, but is running my ride without trouble. There are also minor differences in the vacuum lines to the intake manifold, but we capped almost everything off and did not worry about the AC since it has been removed from the car. If you plan to run your AC you will need the AC idle up piece from the 7AFE Corolla. One of the problems I had was a slight gap between the exhaust manifold and the down pipe at the donut gasket. I may have been using the wrong size gasket, but I fixed this with a turbo manifold. More on that later.
The only major headache here was the wiring. The AE92 body clips do not mate up with the 7AFE fuse box or ECU and the 7AFE clips do not mate up with my body harness under the center console, so we had to use the under hood fuse box from the 7AFE and wire it in. Due to the difficulty of writing down the wire locations while trying to wire it into the car, I will not be able to provide you with a how-to on making the wiring harness. I will be posting wiring diagrams that I used and trying to get a write up on the wiring harness. It is possible to run the Automatic ECU, so do not kill yourself trying to find a manual 7AFE, they are pretty rare. There may be other ways to wire in this motor, but this is the way we decided to go.
I haven't had the chance to fix the pictures yet, or post this to the site, but I wanted to give you guys a sneak preview. If you have any questions, let me know. I'd like to make the article as complete as possible. Once again, thanks for all the help CCC!!!!
Aww man, at least you tried. What are you planning to try next?
