Disneyland, Hawaii, Chuck-E-Cheese, all great places to go on your birthday. Me? I packed a bag of tools and headed to the Pick N Pull to compare Camry Parts. I had run into a few issues and knowing that the SV20 Camry shares most of it’s chassis with the 10 I figured we would do some comparison shopping.
Part number one: The Sway Bar. Because the 2SE exhaust exits in the rear of the engine just below the intake, the suspension wasn’t really designed for the 3SGE’s B pipe. Somehow in Japan they made this work, but I wasn’t about to try and source something like that. I could of course cut the B pipe and fit it, but then I loose the heat shields and that factory look.
Luckily the SV20 comes with the 3SFE and 5SFE both of which have a front exit exhaust. Even better is that it has a sway bar designed to accommodate that exhaust.
The ends are angled slightly different than each other but it doesn’t effect the way it fits. I imagine after 34 years they bushings won’t be happy with the angle change, so I’ll start looking for some replacements. In the mean time the exhaust now fits, and lines up within an inch of the factory cat. I haven’t tried swapping in the Celica catalyst to see if it’s longer yet, but adding an inch is a pretty easy task when you already need to swap a flange. I’m just not sure if the cat back section will stay or get upgraded now.
Take a close look at the location of the radiator inlet. Yeah, that aims at the exhaust manifold. I could go spend some time at the auto parts store looking for a hose that fits, or a couple to splice together. I even have leftovers from Red and could build a hard line, but I really wanted to keep this stock-ish if I could.
The SV20 (bottom) has about the same size core, and moves the hose to the drivers side where it needs to be.
The problem is the lower mounting tabs don’t quite match up.
I think the plan is to drill out the spot welds and move the tabs to where they need to be to fit the new radiator. I’m 90% sure the Celica radiator would work as well, but I’m not sure mine is correct to start with. A previous owner has re-drilled the top mounts, and I’m not sure why. A final decision maker is that the SV20 parts should be far easier to find that either the V10, or the ST162 would be. The V10 fans came close to mounting right up. Six of the Seven bolts went right in. Number seven should be easy enough to make work.
My original plan was to keep the stock air box. Well the 3SGE aiflow meter is larger diameter than the box allowed. It was also larger than the SV20 Camry air box allowed. Guess we need a car with more horsepower. Like a V6 car built on the same chassis. The first VZV20 we happened across was the ES250 Lexus, so that’s where the air box came from. The box bolts right in to the factory points, and fits the 3SGE air meter. The inlet tube isn’t a perfect fit, but a bit of trimming and a spacer will make it work. The hose from the AFM to the throttle body is a whole different story. I grabbed one from the 4 Cyl Camry, but it was too small in diameter, and too long in distance. I think my factory luck has run out and I’m going to have to build something for this part.
Additional mention items:
Power Steering: the pressure side hose from the Celica pump connects right to the Camry hard line. The reservoir feed tube from the Celica was too short. The Camry one would probably work perfect, but mine was in poor shape so I used some 5/8″ bulk hose to make the connection.
Air Conditioning: I used the compressor from the Celica, but had to swap the top plate from the Camry on to make the Camry hoses work. You could probably use the entire compressor from the Camry, but; one mine sounded so bad that I bypassed it a while back, and two the engine harness already has the Celica plugs in the right places.
Throttle Linkage: I kept the cruise control from the Camry, but had to swap the cruise to throttle body cable from the Celica in place. The Camry one just wasn’t quite long enough.
Brake Booster: I looked at a few different junkyard options for something that looked factory, but found nothing. I ended up just taking about an inch off of the Celica hose, and splicing it t the Camry hose with a union. Not my favorite part, but it will work, and I can go custom later if the car takes that route.
Radiator Hoses: Lower can be either the Celica, or Either Camry. Upper will end up being the Celica or a trimmed SV20 Camry. If you choose to keep the V10 radiator, you are on your own.
Hopefully this helps anyone else that may ever think about doing a project like this.
