mbomberz1

Hey Guys,

Well, lets start this over again. I made this thread 3 years ago, and the timing just wasn't right then, but for better or worse I have a good opportunity to make this swap happen this year and I am going to jump on it.

I have a deposit down on an engine out of a 99 4Runner 4x4 manual trans, coming with all the accessories I have gathered through my research. Should be able to pick it up at the end of the week. I was planning on buying a whole truck but this engine came in at a reasonable price and with out an ideal place to store a wreck I had to jump on it. Going to cost me a bit more since I wont have much to part out but that hopefully also comes with a few less headaches not dealing with storing, parting out and disposing of the wreck.

I just got a call back from a Ref at the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, he went over with me briefly what I am trying to do and answered a few questions. He was semi familiar with this swap, as he knew about the exhaust issues I was going to face. He didnt have an exact answer when I asked him about the driver side drop, but he said he would call up the state and see if it would be ok for me to drop it down on the driver side. Hopefully that is good news. He also said that he didnt think there would be any issue using parts that have Executive Order numbers on them in replacement of stock parts. I asked about that in terms of headers, while in the back of my mind also wondering about the TRD supercharger.

Now I just finished repainting my truck this year, what could be more exciting than sticking in a shiny new 3.4!! Here are my goals:

• Stock as possible looking installation
• Rebuilding engine if needed, if not I will do a full new set of gaskets and tuneup, waterpump, pullies, timing belt and all that
• Supercharger + 7th Injector after I get it BARd
• Headers if it makes sense
• Rebuilding my transmission, have a kit from marlin already.
• Repaint engine bay, this will be my excuse to make the engine bay look as good as the exterior does now finally.

As for swap plans:

• 3.0 Radiator
• 3.0 Alternator (Have a 130 amp from LCE)
• 3.0 Starter (Its new..)
• 2" Bodylift (Already installed)
• Doing my own harness, TOS as a backup plan
• More to come as I dig further in

Cant wait to get the new engine up on the stand and start cleaning it up. Probably going to spend the next month getting the 5vz all prepped and starting my wiring research between the two.

Thanks for any future help and input!!

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

Reach out to, or search threads with member "RMA" - believe he's done this swap several times and lives in San Jose. He's got some good threads here with lots of info and photos on that swap.

mbomberz1

Thanks for the info, looks like I have some more reading to do tonight.

One quick question for you guys, i got a call today from Rancho, they got a 2002 Tacoma that is coming in, manual, 4x4 v6, everything i would need on it. Iv been finding conflicting info, but is it correct that the Tacomas didnt have Drive By Wire throttle until 2003? Am i safe getting this engine, or would it be better to hold our for an older one. To me it sounds like a good one to grab if its lower miles since its newer.

-Edit

called him back, says its not a Drive By Wire engine, so sounds like the Tacos were 2003+ and 4Runners were earlier.

mbomberz1

Well this project is getting restarted, 99 4Runner engine should be coming in this week. Fingers crossed.

mbomberz1

Good news!!!

Just got another call back from the Ref. After talking with the state office, he confirmed its ok for me to drop the exhaust down the driver side. I just have to keep in mind the cat and o2 sensor distances and I should be good. I explained to him about some of the issues people have run into about this recently, and what I should do if the Ref I get tells me its not ok during my inspection. His response was that you can just have them call up their state office and get clarification, and in addition to that he has notes about our conversation put into the system already regarding my swap inquiry so they can reference that as well.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with how helpful the guy was. Seems like a good omen!

Charchee

Looks like we'll be getting started at about the same time. Going to pick up my donor 2000 4Runner tomorrow morning. Best of luck on your project. That's a great looking truck.

mbomberz1

Thanks! How did your trip to get the 2000 go? Looking forward to following along your progress, hopefully we can help each other out along the way.

mbomberz1

Picked up the engine today, looks like I got most of the stuff. Things I know I am missing that they are going to ship out to me next week are:

• ECU
• O2 Sensors
• Exhaust up through cats
• Possibly the body wiring???

I am only able to find what are 3-4 of the main big white wiring connectors. I think I need a few more based on the research but I know this can change from year to year so I am not exactly sure what I am looking at here. If anyone is willing to take a look at the pictures in this album and see if I am missing anything critical that would be amazing. I can let the wreckers know to send it on out to me monday. I think the wiring looks pretty complete and they were really great about not cutting anything, I just expected a bit more. I tried to take pictures of all the major wiring leads coming off the engine.

https://goo.gl/photos/Z7xXK27Xp9yoWrvz9

Thanks a bunch!!

Charchee

The 2000 purchase went even better than I could hope. The guy wasn't the kind of guy you'd want to buy something from or even be in the same room with. Fortunately he didn't show for our meeting so I went to his address and talked to his mom who actually owned the truck. The purchase was legit and I found a better truck than I expected. It had a good leather interior and a factory e-locker. Since I also have a 2002 model with a basic, fair condition interior and no locker, I was thrilled. Two donor vehicles in one. Only thing it was missing was the actual engine fan. I acted like that might foul the deal for just a second and he came down to $225 and that's how the story goes.

Steering system is busted so I have been winching and twisting on it for three hours but it's now in my carport in front of the engine hoist. Time to get started. My neighbors will have dreams of war tonight as the sound of my impact wrench rattles their windows. They have come to expect that kind of behavior from me on occasion.

Best of luck with your project. I look forward to working with you on it. I've never done one of these before but since I have three running trucks and two parts trucks, I can take my time and not get frustrated. One good thing we'll have going for us is the fact that I have a 3rd gen Runner to use as a reference along with a very nice 3VZE engine harness hanging on my wall that I can lay out and study. I've also got an 88 4Runner parts stock in my shed with most of the wiring. I can probably find the cab harness to study as well. Let me know if I can help in any way.

mbomberz1

That is great news on your donor, especially with the no fan discount, and it supplying parts to both of your trucks. Cant beat that. How was the late night progress? Hopefully all of the neighbors were giving you thumbs up in the morning!

This is my first swap as well, now that I have the engine sitting in the backyard, I'm a little overwhelmed with there the best place to start is! I guess im going to start getting it mounted up onto the engine stand, a compression test and see where to go from there.

Really curious to find out if I am missing any wiring I need. Just got my TIS subscription, and downloaded all the EWD for the 1999 4Runner and 1990 pickup. I know the pickup probably wont help much, but I thought it couldnt hurt to have as a backup.

Should I have gotten any of the body wiring? From what I can tell I only got the engine wiring harness.

Charchee

I didn't tackle the engine removal last night. Ended up swapping over a bunch of the interior over to my 02. I love the new leather seats. I've been pecking at the engine all day. I took it extraordinarily slow, just feeling my way around. I learn best that way. I've got all of the wiring loose, i think, I'm pulling the starter now and am about to unbolt the transmission. I can't count how many engines I have removed from heavy equipment but this is my first one on a passenger vehicle and it's making me feel like I've never turned a wrench before. Its probably because I have unlimited options as to how to do is since I own the donor truck. I need to just pick a plan and go with it.

As far as the body wiring goes, you are going to need your 02 sensor circuit. I don't know where it ties into the engine harness but it gets to the ecm somehow. I'll let you know this weekend what you are going to need. Remind me if you don't hear from me tomorrow. I wish somebody else at work hadn't needed the car hauler this weekend. I would have left the whole thing on the trailer while I took a cutting torch to it. That's what I did to the last one I parted out.

Charchee

I finally got the engine out of my donor. I pulled all of the wiring attached to the motor. The harness includes a lot of stuff for the transmission but the end of the line was the two O2 sensors. If you have wiring back that far, you should have what you need.

mbomberz1

Thanks a bunch for checking that out. I will have to dig through the wiring diagrams to see if I have the o2 plugs or not. Hard to tell from the spiderweb of wires currently attached to it. But my guess is probably not. Hopefully I will get that sent out to me from the yard I got the engine from, they are still sending me a few more things, and I asked them to include that.

As for my engine, just got done doing a compression and leak down test. Not looking good. I was hoping that everything would check out ok as it appears that the engine had been rebuilt already. Looks like cylinder #2 is in need of repair. Here are the numbers I got from the tests:

Driver Bank | Passenger Bank
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 (185 psi) -25% Rings | 1 (195 psi) -18% Exhaust Valves
4 (205 psi) -8% | 3 (200 psi) -18% Exhaust Valves
6 (210 psi) -8% | 5 (200 psi) -22% Exhaust Valves

PSI was the compression results and % was the leak down differential from the incoming pressure to how much the cylinder was holding with notes to where the pressure loss was coming from.

Looks like I am going to tear down the engine and investigate further. While not spending the money to rebuild it would be nice, I am not thatupset to get a chance to really clean this thing up and make it perfect either. More to come soon.

mbomberz1

Well I started tearing down the engine last night. Seems to me that it probably had a headgasket done in the relatively recent past. Heads are too clean, and the gasket sticking out looks newish. Doesnt matter now, time to come apart.



I finally got the ECU shipped to me, I am a little confused by the main ECU connectors right now. Just not sure yet how to approach the connectors I seem to be missing. I have 2 main engine harness connectors that plug into the ECU, but I am missing a few others that I am not sure where they should come from yet.. any advice would is appreciated! I assume these missing connections are to a body harness? Still in the very early stages of wrapping my head around the wiring, sorry for the naive questions.

SacRunner

You will need the EWD to figure it out. Look at the section titled "ENGINE CONTROL (5VZ-FE)" and on the last couple of pages all of the connector shapes will be listed that are used in that section of the EWD, their name/ID is also listed. Find the shape of each of the 3 connectors you're missing, write down their name/ID, then search through the EWD (either this section or the overall EWD) for those names/IDs and make a list of the various signals/functions that connect to each of the pins on each of the connectors, then from there you should be able to determine where those plugs should come from. I know with my 97 based swap, there were 4 ECU connectors, 3 were attached to the engine harness and the 4th came from the dash harness (which I built a conversion harness to sit between my factory 91 4Runner harness and the factory 97 5VZ engine harness); so I'm sure at least 1 if not both of your missing connections would come from the dash harness.

mbomberz1

Heya SacRunner,

Thanks for the info and stopping by. I got my subscriptin to TIC over the weekened and downloaded every PDF they had for the 99 4Runner electronics as well as the 90 Pickup just in case. After I posted, i spent some more time looking around, and I think I realized I am basically missing all of the dash harness connectors like you mentioned. I called up the company I got the motor from, and they still have the truck luckily, and are allowing me to run down there this saturday to cut out whatever remaining wires and connectors I need.

From what I can tell I still need the following connectors:

• E11
• E12
• E14
• OBDII Port
• Engine Harness to Dash Harness connector? basically whatever hooks up to this plug in the picture below. If anyone thinks of something I didnt mention let me know

SacRunner

The connector numbers change over the years (for some reason), so I can't verify those numbers, but I'm sure that's right; and yes, you definitely want the mating connector to the big one you have pictured. I'd recommend giving yourself 6"-12" of wire when you cut the connectors off the junkyard truck, it just makes life easier.

mbomberz1

Thanks for the tip, I was able to grab the remaining connectors today from the wrecking yard. Only thing I wasnt able to get was the OBDII port, but I assume that one should be easy enough to source. Was interesting experince climbing up into the 4runner sitting on top of the ford cutting out wires, thats for sure..



Made some good progress this week. Got the engine all torn down. Figure out what was causing the leakdown results on #2. Cylinder wall was really scored up, and when talking with the machine shop, they thought something might have gotten down in there and started it all at some point.



Made it back in time from the wrecking yard to take everything down to the machine shop today as well. Things are moving quick! Looking forward to getting the call from them so I can order up my rebuild kit. Looking for advice on what kit would be best to go with from anyone who has been down this road before. Im tempted to go with the kit from LCE, going to call them monday and confirm if their oil and water pump are made by Aisin, if so I will probably go with that unless I hear otherwise.



More to come soon I am sure!!

Tried to start some wiring tonight.. didnt make it too far

mbomberz1

Cleaned up some of my parts today, going to be a long process cleaning everything up that is for sure. Spent the most time getting the valve covers all cleaned, they are pretty oxidized unfortunatly so I think i going to paint them. VHT wrinkle red i think it will be. Really liked how my 3vz valve covers turned out with the black vht wrinkle paint. Think it might look nice with a little more color under the hood.

mbomberz1

I am posting up a few wiring examples, based on what I am finding some of this might not be as hard as I was imagining it, while some of the other bits are not very clear at all to me. Part of the issue I am running into is that the 88 wiring diagrams dont contain info about the 3vze. The 90 diagrams do, and seem similar, but I cant 100% rely on them. There is still a lot to figure out but I was hoping to get some feedback from those who have done this successfully.

I am pretty sure this one is hard to screw up:



The starter relay is a bit more confusing..



Got some time to paint my valve covers today, looks better than the oxidized mess that was on there before.