93 corolla JDM 20V swap

[Jvsapp]

these were from 4/23. took the morning to rebuild the CV's. YUCK the grease in them was NASTY. the boots were broken, but it was the main thing keeping the suspension from going back together. all on now. ready for tires..
you can see the custom clutch hose in the 3rd pic. 4th pic showes master that i had changed, only to have to change it again on the 27th once i found out the junkyard one was bad.

last couple pics are shots of the coil wires about 2" too short. i had to extend them and i informed Dr. Tweak about it for hit future builds. last pic is my TO DO LIST taped to the windshield.

[Jvsapp]

4/26-27 i had a good run at it. got the rest of things buttoned up, installed the new pedals pulled the AC compressor out so i could get that custom hose made. i was able to reuse one hose so that cut down some of the cost. mounted the fuse block, got the battery in only to find out it was almost dead so i charged that. put the airbox on the back of the engine, got the hoses hooked up, put the air filter on, got the new throttle cable(super LONG) in, started filling fluids. trans fluid was tricky but good. i tried to bleed the clutch slave and that's where i found out the clutch master was BAD. sucks... it was 6pm and i had to pick up the other 1/2 at 7:30. only place that had a usable clutch master was 30 miles away. no problem i though... until i caught traffic because a truck lost it's load on the freeway. got to checker at 7:10 and the counter jockey couldn't figure out how to pull up a WILL CALL ticket. 20 min later i was already late... called the other 1/2 to tell her i'm on the way, running late due to traffic. will shoot pics tomorrow.

[Jvsapp]

4/28... this was supposed to be the day. supposed to fire up and drive it. got my cousin to come over to help me bleed the clutch master and slave. that went ok once he showed up. i had to install the new one first though. which entitled taking out the clutch pedal again, as well as the brake pedals too. started topping off the rest of the fluids power steering, radiator. hooked up the AC line that i paid $75 for. once all that was in, i was ready for it to fire up. i soo wanted to fire up. but no dice. crank, got gas, no spark. WTF... started troubleshooting. nothing from dizzy. nothing from coil. thought it might be coil or ignitor. depressed i left to go to work.

[Jvsapp]

4/29..... junkyard check. i figured today i would try the junkyard to see if i can find a coil and ignitor, just incase. while in the process i managed to climb up to the top of a 4 car stack to find an ignitor in a corolla. when i was about to leave i slipped and wound up cutting my hand pretty good. i was lucky that i only wound up with a cut on my hand and a scrape on my leg. i could have fell all the way to the ground. i used some superglue to keep the fillet of skin closed while i drove home once i got it cleaned out at 7-11. got back home and started trouble shooting it. still no dice. i threw in the towel. i called my friend and told him i'd probably have to bring it by to have him take a look. he said today would work. but i was wrapping up so i could go to work. told him tomorrow or friday. while sitting in the car i looked down and noticed that one of the plugs to the ECU was crooked. when i touched it, i found that it wasn't plugged in all the way. pushed the connecter in and turned the key again. IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!! it lives... OMG finally....

i guess my blood sacrifice to the auto gods was worth it. thinking of it, kind of like the Pirates of the Caribbean curse of the black pearl. they had to use the blood on the coins, i guess my blood on cars destined for the crusher was about the same thing. i'll shoot some pics tomorrow or friday. hopefully some video as well...

[samwise68]

Man, thats rough about your hand,. But congrats on getting it fired! It's a great feeling when you finally find the little problem that was the hold up.

Can't wait to see pics and a vid. good job.

-Sam.

[Jvsapp]

ok so after running around for a week or so, it runs like a dream. clutch is nice, still getting used to it. i did snap some more pics, and found out that the custom AC line is LEAKING. so once it runs out of freon again i'll take it off and take it back to the guys that made it to have them correct the problem. i'll see if i can post pics tomorrow. just won a OEM cluster with tach for my car so once that comes in, the interior will be done. got my shift boot wed and even though it was fitted for a 03-07 camry, it snapped right into my car's opening. totally awesome for $8 shipped(guy was nice enough to stick 2 in there because he wasn't sure on the color).

on a side note, because i'm running the quad throttle bodies, the intake is louder. it attracted Johnny LAW collected an Exhibition of Speed ticket because they thought i was revving the motor up. gotta go to court and plead my case 6/9 my excuse for the respectable judge will be that i converted the car to 5 speed because my auto trans broke and due to finances it was cheaper for me to go that route. and after it was done this is the first time i've driven standard consistently for more than a couple days. last time was only for a week 10 years ago so i'm a little rusty ya think? anyway hopefully pics tomorrow. still gotta shoot some video of the pickup the car has. totally awesome. idles at 800rpm, revving to 7800rpm and pulling up hill in 5th gear accelerating from 70-90 without breaking a sweat.

[samwise68]

Glad to hear you're on the road with it man!

But, really? Exhibition of speed? The Man just can't leave well enough alone...

Good luck with the court system though! I hope it all goes well for you.

And can't wait to see vids, haha.

-Sam.

[Jvsapp]

yup. not speeding, not running a red light. just exhibition. which i really don't understand but it's the officer's interpretation.

[Jvsapp]

wow it's been a while since i updated this. but here goes.

had some troubles start up with the car. it ran fine for a month then trouble started. it started out with the engine running rough and not being able to rev. but before i could do some trouble shooting it went away.

left me scratching my head. but the next day it came back. the engine wouldn't rev past 3Krpm. while troubleshooting, i unplugged the VVT solenoid and the trouble cleared up. so i thought ok done deal trouble found.

well that was coincidence. it came back. more trouble shooting, scouring the web for answers. someone told me TPS, that kicked out a code 41, someone told me O2, that kicked out code 21. both of which cleared once i plugged them back in without change. i was getting a code 12 which says RPM signal, check distributor, ecu or wiring. so next i tried unplugging the distributor, and that seemed to clear the trouble. but that didn't last long. the trouble kept on constant. it got worse. couldn't rev past 1500 without the engine bogging and wanting to die. had a friend check he said it might be wiring.

so the search started. called the guy that did my wiring and he was nice enough to send out a new distributor plug. got a new distributor after some heavy searching. also purchased another ECU. got a replacement fuel pump because someone said it might be the fuel pump. also picked up some other parts just to sell to friends because they were looking for stuff.

so the first thing that got in was the plug. soldered it in and NO DICE... waited another week and the ECU got in. it seemed to fix it. so Sat i'm gonna try plug the other ECU back in and see if the trouble comes back. i'm not sure if moving the wiring to just plug the ECU in fixed it or not. but i think there is a short or something going on because the battery was dead... and i replaced it because it was dead and i thought it was because i didn't charge it while i was doing the swap. so keep the fingers crossed and hopefully i can get some video done this weekend.

[Jvsapp]

update. well one year and 10K miles and it's still running like a champ. easily takes it up to 110mph when i want to. i've learned to shift 1st,3rd,5th because the engine makes that much power and is that easy to drive. gas mileage is almost identical to when i had my 7AFE that came out. still getting 26-28 mpg with the AC on and with me driving it hard every day.

here's a pic of it with the spark plug cover on and the new TRD triangulated tower bar that just came in. i still have to drill the firewall to bolt it in but it's almost all complete.

[Frizzle Fry]

You did a fantastic job on that. Well done!

[Jvsapp]

thanks FF. doesn't compare to the minx though. mine was merely a bolt in. i did find cusco suspension for my car, so now i'm contemplating getting those too. it's either that or a full TRD suspension.

[Woogeroo]

man... cool swap.

I woulda been flipping out with all those wires!

how did the 'exhibition of speed' case go with the Judge?

-W

[WIDESIDE72]

I swapped a JDM B18 VTEC and 5 speed into a 91 Integra B16/ auto. I bought the whole clip like you did. I decided that I am like McGruber... more of a three wire kind of guy...Although now I am putting a 94 LT1/ 4L60E into my 55 Chevy 1st series truck on an 85 S10 chassis, so I guess I am a glutton for punishment.

[RagingAsian]

nice!