TheSamba.com :: View topic - First Ride Report with the Toyota 3tc Engine!

Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:00 am

Hello again all,

I am making this post to comment on my finished engine conversion. I swapped (for no particular reason) my perfectly running 2.0L fuel injected engine for a 1982? 1.8L Toyota Corolla 3tc carbed engine. If you're not a fan of strange and usual conversions, now's the time to hit the "back" button on your browser...everyone else...read on!

The bus starts and holds idle very well. There is mild vibration at idle and at certain rpms due to the fact that I opted for solid motor mounts. This decision was made to allow adequate room for the radiator to be mounted horizontally next to the engine.

The power, while not amazing, appears to be smoother and fuller throughout the rpm range than was the 2.0L. I have yet to drive it for an extended period of time, but I can tell you that it enjoys climbing hills and seems to like cruising at 65mph w/out a wince. It's smoothness reminds me of my '97 Honda Accord...just doesn't feel right for a bus, but it's nice! There are no leaks to speak of (coolant or otherwise)...it's strange not seeing that one lone drip of oil under the engine after a drive!

That being said, there are still a couple of issues to sort out. I am currently running in the 205-215F temp range which is slightly warm for my liking. These engines run stock between 180-220F. As such, I plan to mitigate the heat as follows:
1. Run a cooler themostat...currently running a 190F...will switch to a 170F.
2. Properly shroud the radiator. I will use either the fiberglass/fleece method or tin to force air through the radiator. In the current configuration, the bus's natural vacuum is doing an adequate job of sucking air through the horizontal radiator, but I feel that it could be greatly improved by reducing the free flowing area around the rad.
3. Add a smaller radiator. Currently, I am using a thicker than stock, but stock sized (15"x17") civic radiator. Being that the stock Corolla radiator was actually slightly larger than this size, I am theoretically under-cooling the engine even if the rad were to be mounted in a stock orientation. Consquently, by adding a motorcycle rad (4" x 11"), I will be able to add 19% cooling area to my cooling system and see a very noticeable drop in operating temps.

Ultimately, the bus feels powerful and I am very happy with the end result of this conversion. I'd like to publicly thank Charlie Clark for the use of his brain, tools, and garage for the past several months. His help made this project a possibility. For anyone who is interested, you can follow a link to my website documenting the conversion: http://bettythebus.110mb.com/3tc.htm

Bus on!

- Jeff

Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:11 am

8) , but yoor website is a bit hard to see :shock:

Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:26 am

Yeah ...sorry about that...I understand that some ppl may have difficulty viewing the website due to individual computer settings. So please accept this as my disclaimer: I build buses better than I build websites :roll:

One of these days, I'll get around to fixing the formatting so everyone can see it well. In the meantime, please enjoy what pics you can see and what text you can read!

- Jeff

Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:25 pm

im new to bays, but i think thats its pretty cool that you took something like this on.

Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:41 pm

This conversion seems to have gone fairly smoothly. There are obvious advantages to using an "old skool" engine for conversion when it comes to wiring!

I hadn't considered the advantage of using an upright engine in being able to have your radiator next to the engine, which you couldn't do with a subaru conversion. Have you considered tilting the radiator slightly to help reduce airlocking and also possibly get a bit more air flow?

CLH wrote: 8) , but yoor website is a bit hard to see :shock:

It works with Internet Explorer or Netscape v. 8.1.3 which has a "view like internet explorer" option.

Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:36 am

I considered just about every radiator mounting position/location that you could imagine. From an engineering standpoint, it didn't make sense to tilt the radiator slightly as this would create a velocity gradient over the area of the radiator (read faster moving air through parts of the radiator and slower moving air through other parts). That's when I started looking at the oil spots on my rear window and thinking about where they came from...the bottom of the engine. By mounting the radiator horizontally, I'm capitalizing on the downward flow from the driver's side air vent and creating a uniform plane with faster moving air below the radiator and slower moving air above the radiator. By definition, this should force the air uniformly through the radiator. Keep in mind this is in an ideal world, but you get the idea.

As to airlock, it's hard to tell from the pics, but I drilled and tapped the two highest locations on my cooling system. When initially filling the cooling system, I was able to allow the system to pressurize and then crack these "valves" to allow the air to escape. Then it was just matter of sliding a hose over the highest valve and adding coolant until it came out of the lower valve. I saw an instant drop in temperature with this method.

As stated above, I still plan to add an additional radiator and a lower temp thermostat to cool the engine a few more degrees.

I agree...the "old skool" engine made the swap quite simple in terms of wiring. I heard lots of horror stories of the guys going to the efi subies and wiring nightmares, so I decided to save myself the headache and go with a carbed engine that was comparable in hp to the stock engine. The hardest part was figuring out how to bypass the voltage reg (IR alternator solved that problem).

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone! I'm always open to discussing future ways to improve Betty, so send any comments or suggestions my way!

- Jeff

Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:14 am

Interesting. Thanks for posting it.

BTW, the site's fine on IE6 here.

Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:22 am

Yeah, site's broken on Firefox, but ok on IE. Bleh.

Good job on the engine!!!

Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:09 pm

Really interesting job. I read somewhere that I/C engines work more efficiently at the highest temp possible, as long as they are not overheating. It seems reasonable that manufacturers would build in extra safety margin. Is this BS?

Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:22 pm

Post some pics! :wink: :D 8)

Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:56 pm

Jeff

I did a swap too, only I shoe horned a 231 Buick V6 into my bus. I love it, no more noisy, gutless 1835. The Bus is super quite now, can actually listen to my stereo and it's fun as hell blowing by people when I need to.

I'm guessing you are using the stock location for the radiator. I'm not really sure where that is on your bus as I'm only familiar with a air cooled Bus.

I put the biggest radiator I could cram between the frame rails and still leave room for two fourteen inch fans to the rear of it. The way it works is air is drawn up through the radiator into the area between the frame rails and body and then the air moves towards the back down through the fans to the ground. Everything is shrouded so as much air as possible goes up through the radiator. The only thing that hangs down is a spring loaded, move able air dam that I put behind the radiator. The faster I go the more the air dam drops, this helps stop the flow of air past the radiator. The air dam forces air up through the radiator and also helps suck it out at where the fans are behind the air dam. Works pretty good as I can drive for like five miles on the freeway at 70MPH before the fans kick on. I'm looking to use another smaller air dam in front of this one to help cool it more. I thinking if I do it right, the electric fans should not have to come on at anything over 45 MPH, just using the air flow that is already there to cool it.

A couple of other things I did to help cool the engine:

I installed two 14" fans, one on each side of the engine, these are shrouded so they draw all their air from the engine vents on the sides of the bus. They then blow the air around the engine and the air exits like a regular air cooled bus.

High output water pump.

Expansion tank.

Overflow tank.

20 PSI cap. You can go as high as 25 PSI.

Newer engines are designed to run at higher temps, they are supposed to be more efficient at higher temperatures. As long as it never boils over you are in good shape.

Deron.