4age Upgraditis

[Ayrton]

Hi all
Thought I'd stick a post up see if anyone has any useful suggestions.
I have an 88 Mk1b that I've sorted for the track pretty much a la challenge spec - Konis, bushes, brakes and lightened here and there to about 930kg (target is 900).
Had a blast at Cadwell in Feb & it's pretty awesome...well almost...it needs more power.
I've looked at all the engine swap options & ruled them out - I like the NA screamer.
Supercharger & 1.5 turbo concersions - too lardy.
20v - not enough horses to justify.
Plus all these conversions are big bucks & a lot of hassle.

So the plan is cams, verniers, thin gasket, maybe head work on std ecu, & set up/timing on RR (similar to Tracpac but better hopefully)
I want an engine that will feel like it wants to bounce off the limiter.
All work done by myself (except RR) so budget under £500 all in.
Aim for 160ish and still 930kg - nice.
Power to weight nearly as much as a tuned SC.

I've just got some Kent 272 cams off Ebay.

So the questions are:

which gasket to go for - seen a TRD 0.5mm one on Ebay ?
Are there any issues with head gaskets this thin ?
Any other mods I should do while I'm at it.
Is it worth getting the head ported / skimmed etc

Or should I spend a bit more & do a proper job aiming for 180ish - megasquirt, injectors, fuel pump, more head work.

Cheers

[Lauren]

Just use the standard gasket. If it ain't broke....

Trouble is the stock head already has ports that are a bit on the big side, so porting isn't really going to help. The later spec engine from the AE92 with the 'small' port setup is better and you can port it too.

Why not stick the cams in set it up and see how it goes.

[Pete]

I'm going down the same road too... infact you beat me to those cams tonight

I knew I should have bought them when the buy it now was there .

I plan on normal bolt-ons, lightweight flywheel, plus some cams then see how it goes

Cheers
Pete

[Ayrton]

Yes for cheapness might just put them in & see how it goes.
Was just thinking the higher compression was something to strive for - an extra few horses.

Sos Pete - I got them with 1 sec to spare - bit frantic at the end.

I'll let u know how it goes.

Mark

[PW@Woodsport]

ayrton you will spend a fortune trying to achieve what you want from the 4a-ge,£500 is a totally unrealistic budget mate,id times that by 5! and the most you will ever see is maybe 170bhp if you're very lucky.We have people that have gone down this route,throttle bodies,cams,ecu,exhaust etc and you end up with a horrible idling unstable unit on the edge of its reliability....remember the 4a-ge is already pretty well tuned in its stock form.

True the 1.5 is heavier but 300bhp+ is a doddle to achieve,and will dance all over the best 4a...probably cost you less too in the long run,£ per bhp gained its way ahead of anything else you can do. Have you considered a honda v-tech swap too? sounds more your thing,one of our members has built one.

Just trying to advise,others have gone down the same route and wasted thousands/gaining very little real world difference and sacrificing reliability.Imagine putting all that time and money into it only to see a stock mk1 turbo leave it dead?

In my opinion the 4a is not worth spending money on,speak to a guy called "firstmk1" over on TB,hes been down the road you are about to travel.

just my 2p mate,good luck with the project though

[Icsunonove]

Had a blast at Cadwell in Feb & it's pretty awesome...well almost...it needs more power.

Well at 900kgs and 122bhp, they still go pretty well! I love driving Tim's racecar, it's a lot of fun!

I've looked at all the engine swap options & ruled them out - I like the NA screamer.

I do know where you're coming from.

So the plan is cams, verniers, thin gasket, maybe head work on std ecu, & set up/timing on RR (similar to Tracpac but better hopefully)
I want an engine that will feel like it wants to bounce off the limiter.

They already do (gosh you're fussy! )

Power to weight nearly as much as a tuned SC.

I'd love to get a clear lap in Tim's race car in the dry and a clear lap in my SC (which 176bhp but weighs 1180kgs fully fueled) to see which is quicker. I am really not sure

I've just got some Kent 272 cams off Ebay.

So the questions are:

which gasket to go for - seen a TRD 0.5mm one on Ebay ?
Are there any issues with head gaskets this thin ?
Any other mods I should do while I'm at it.
Is it worth getting the head ported / skimmed etc

You need to work out the compression ratio change to see if it is worth it. As far as the head is concerned I'd definitely have the valve seats and valves recut. And get the inlet valve seat cut right on the outside edge and a very narrow seat at that. Then I'd grind off the leading edge of the inlet valve to a radius. I'd also consider replacing all the valve guides. And then you could cut them back where they protude into the inlet tract.

It can't hurt to get the port matchings between inlet manifold, T-VIS and head (using dummy gaskets. If there is a mismatch you can put it right. Same on exhaust manifold. As far as skimming the head, you at least need to check it's flatness. When my head gasket blew I checked flatness and it was 4thou out in total. I marked the high and low points and told the machine shop to remove the absolute minimum required. But when I got it back they had removed 11 thou! Anyways it seems fine.

Or should I spend a bit more & do a proper job aiming for 180ish - megasquirt, injectors, fuel pump, more head work.

Personally I'd just do the headwork / cams first and see how it goes. You can always add the other bits later.

Please keep us updated and let us know how you get on.

And best of luck!

[nick_w]

ayrton- what have you done to achieve your 930kg weight

[Ayrton]

Ok - thanks guys for all the input.
Think I'll bang in the cams & a set of pulleys get it timed on a RR & see what the score is.
At the end of the day masses of power isn't what it's all about - it's the grin factor, which an NA screamer can certainly give.
Been down the big car big bhp route before & yes it's fast but not that much fun on track.
Then I'll chuck it all out & get a SC engine !

Ayrton

[MartG]

There's always the 7A-GE route

http://www.club4ag.com/faq%20and%20tech ... d%207A.htm
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/t98590.html
http://shell.deru.com/~sgn1/AW11/Engswap.htm
http://te51levin.superjamie.net/7ageintro.html
http://www.aeu86.org/index/engine-4age- ... post=60902

[Sports Toyota Breakers]

4AGZE with some peppy cams

[luthor1]

What lift are those Kent Cams?

I know Kent do a special profile for the 4AGE (or it may have been piper) with over 10mm of lift. THATS what you want, high lift and moderate duration. These engines respond well to that. You can get solid lifters off the Toyota Yaris, it's well documented upgrade.

I'd also Megasquirt the engine since it's a 'plug and play' install with just a simple re-wire of a 2nd hand ECU connector to get the ECU working fine, then you have control over all engine parameters...

[firstmk1]

You may find that those cams are too much for the standard ECU. I think 264 is regarded as the limit.

As Paul says £500 won't get you very far as one or two mods will leave you way short of your power target. My engine had (it's in bits after the bottom end gave up) throttle bodies, 288 deg cams with a GEMS ECU and I'm only expecting 160bhp.

I thought it would be the easier tuning route but if I was starting again I'd go turbo/V6 swap. It would have been cheaper even if Woodsport had done all the work.

The tuned 4AGE sounds great but if you want power on a budget you've got to swap in a bigger engine.

[luthor1]

£750 headwork, £400 cams, £225 MS ECU, £160 cam pulleys, £80 head gasket, £80 solid lifters, will see you up to a solid 175bhp at the engine.

that's £1750. The Turbo conversion is £1500 + donor parts, so you'r looking at £2500 and you're not getting the engine style you want.

The correct head/cam/bucket selection with the megasquirt to control it is vital in extracting power from the 4AGE. Remember they make 190+bhp in race spec, so 175 is perfectly achievable with road manners in tact.

[luthor1]

FYI: plugging the following numbers into Cartest:

power 175bhp @ 7100rpm
torque 115lbsft @ 5400
Compression 10.5:1
8000 rpm limit
car weighs 930kg's with 85kg passenger
car lowered by 1 inch with 195x50/15 tyres

performance is:

0-60 5.98
Top speed 144mph
1/4 mile 16.7 @ 94.4mph

That's some pretty good stats...

For comparison plugging the turbo engine in with the turbo gearbox and 210bhp/200 torque (ie a basic install) gives:

0-60 5.4
Top Speed 150
1/4 mile in 13.7 @ 102.6mph

[Ayrton]

Yep lots of good points.
They're 272 cams with 7.9 lift iirc - Yes a standalone ecu might get the best out of them but should work fine with std one - I think.

Re Weight loss so far - I've weighed it as it's come off:

Before After Loss
Seats 38.0 14.0 24.0
Wheels 61.6 53.6 8.0
Spare 15.4 0.0 15.4
Tools 5.0 0.0 5.0
bumpers 24.0 12.0 12.0
battery 13.0 6.0 7.0
soundproof 5.0 0.0 5.0
Misc trim 5.0 0.0 5.0
RearCarpet 8.0 0.0 8.0
speakers 4.0 3.0 1.0
air filter 4.0 0.0 4.0
Front Fans 8.0 0.0 8.0
spoiler 4.0 0.0 4.0
106.4
Still to do: lightweight sunroof, front bumper bar (?!), single skin boot, bonnet, take some weight out the doors maybe.
Heater ? - ooer no I don't think I'll get rid of that.
Potentially it should be possible to get down to about 880 but it would be cold, noisy & you wouldn't want to drive it much - bit like a seven.
Car's still perfectly usable at the mo tho - still got interior trim, stereo & carpet.

Ayrton

[luthor1]

Personally, I would sell those cams, speak to Sabre Heads in Salisbury for his advice and get the special piper grinds which with solid lifters will TROUNCE the poxy 7.9mm lift of those cams. Seriously - I wouldn't do it.

Get over 10mm lift on a 270 degree cam with the solid lifters, some mild head work to compliment and the Megasquirt and you'll be making serious power.

[HT]

£750 headwork, £400 cams, £225 MS ECU, £160 cam pulleys, £80 head gasket, £80 solid lifters, will see you up to a solid 175bhp at the engine.

that's £1750. The Turbo conversion is £1500 + donor parts, so you'r looking at £2500 and you're not getting the engine style you want.

The correct head/cam/bucket selection with the megasquirt to control it is vital in extracting power from the 4AGE. Remember they make 190+bhp in race spec, so 175 is perfectly achievable with road manners in tact.

Would be interesting to hear from anyone who has done this to their 4-age. I agree its much more to do with getting the type of power you want rather than just output figures. Tbh 160bhp plus a little more torque would be plenty for most people in a light(er) weight mk1

[firstmk1]

£750 headwork, £400 cams, £225 MS ECU, £160 cam pulleys, £80 head gasket, £80 solid lifters, will see you up to a solid 175bhp at the engine.

that's £1750...

You missed off the cost of mapping the ECU which at (average I was being quoted) £400 makes a bit of a difference. I'm sure you'll say it can be done on the road but it'll never achieve its full potential.

My car was fun with the engine mods but it needed mapping. Didn't idle too bad and town driving was fine but 18mpg (down from 32mpg) and an engine that could, and did, give up at any moment were the downsides.

If I started again I'd look at the turbo or V6 engines as these give you the (massive) power increase but you can run them in standard trim. Power, economy and reliability are not downsides

If you really want to go down the tuned 4AGE route then I recommend you read this website http://www.billzilla.org/4agmods.htm

Ian

[Icsunonove]

My engine had (it's in bits after the bottom end gave up) throttle bodies, 288 deg cams with a GEMS ECU and I'm only expecting 160bhp.

Ian, the bottom end of a 4AGE can take loads more than 160hp. You were just unlucky. If you haven't damaged your crank just replace the mains and big ends and you will be fine. I have knackered the bottom end on mine due to an idler bearing failure causing a major overheat. But I changed the big ends (in situ) and it has been fine ever since.

[firstmk1]

I took the "in for a penny, in for a pound" route and swapped in another (std) engine so I could rebuild the lot. My crank has been checked and bearings sized. I'm just waiting on a few bits to be sorted at SBITS and it'll be ready for a rebuild with some fancy rods, new pistons and possibly a thinner gasket not sure yet. I figure that I'm past the point of no return so I'm telling myself that it's an investment in the long term kit car plan, which I've had for nearly twelve years now

At the end of the day there will always be a faster/better car available so if tuning a 4AGE makes you smile it's all worth it. (says the man who's had maybe three months use of his only car in the past year )