As some of you have read before, I purchased 4thgenceli's GTS a few months back. Due to some unforeseen events, I was unable to use the engine. I decided to finish the work put into my GT and keep the 3SFE for fuel economy/reliability since I've already invested money into a reman'd head cylinder, etc. Anyway I still have a horrible rear main leak to deal with (1 drop every 2 seconds at idle) and at this point I'd like to do the manual swap in a few weeks time. Instead of using the 3SGE transmission I'm going to purchase a 3SFE manual tranny locally however I was curious about the rest of the components. So my questions are... 1) Are the clutch pedals, shift linkage, and shifter assembly interchangable between the 3SGE and 3SFE? 2) What items CAN I pull from the 3SGE vs what should I be finding in the yard to complete the swap? 3) Is there any benefit to using the 3SGE transmission? I noticed that the starter location is different, would this be a problem? Thanks.
1. yes. 2. not sure 3. ge (s53) has shorter gears = faster acceleration, but worse for fuel economy (2nd gear only goes to 90km/h, 100km/h @ 3200rpm in 5th), while fe (s54) has a tad longer gears (100km/h @ 2800rpm in 5th). the GE starter pinion gear is bigger, and the flywheel is smaller compared to the FE/GT4 flywheel/starter pinion gear. FE starter is better since you can swap with newer, stronger v6 starters like the 3vz-fe or 1mz-fe. i also think if you used the GE starter, the FE exhaust manifold would not fit.
So can I swap the FE starter to the S53 transmission? Is my current flywheel on my 3sfe auto ok to match up to the s53?
no unless you drill the hole so the FE starter can go on. if you look at a GE trans, you'll see that the FE starter location is just a blank plate. your current flywheel (FE) is too big for a GE trans since the GE trans uses the GE starter. FE motor + GE flywheel (assuming that both are same # of bolts) + GE starter + GE trans will work. However, the stock FE exhaust may get in the way of the starter, so you might as well upgrade to the GE exhaust.
I have the GE exhaust and downpipe but I'd have to take it to an exhaust shop to so it would fit to the flex section. Ontop of that I would also need to swap to GE axels it seems. Looks like I'm better off just taking everything off the GTS but the transmission and pulling an FE transmission locally. I assume my current auto flywheel is the same as the manual?
Auto doesn't have a flywheel, it has a plate with a starter gear on it. FE axles are fine and will work with S53/4, you can fit GE axles later Whichever box you get, make sure to get the right starter and flywheel
Thanks. Could you tell me a bit more about the 3SGE starter on the 3SFE engine? I assume the 87 GTS I have has the S53 tranny? If the starter isn't a problem I may just have the transmission shipped up here instead of sourcing it locally.
You need an FE gearbox and flywheel to fit your starter GE box and starter won't fit unless you change the exhaust too
That means I'd have to do one of two things: 1) Take it down to an exhaust shop to connect the downpipe to the FE exhaust. 2) Mail up the entire GE exhaust from flex to tail pipe.
stig, just wondering as i was thinking about it the other day. are the actuall gears (e.g. 1,2,3,4,5) a different ratio between the fe and ge boxes or is it just the diff? I know what the numbers are but im wondering if that just because its calculated through the diff. I guess the question is are there different numbers of teeth on the gears themselves? -was pondering the idea of an fe diff in a ge box. my gears (1st,2nd) are way way way to short.
I ordered my new clutch set from Rockauto.com and I've been looking at flywheels and I've been trying to decide what to do. If I pull a flywheel from the junkyard I would need to resurface it right? Or I could buy an aftermarket one from Summit for $50 (Zoom Performance) or from Autozone for about the same. Also I'm not sure if the bolts are included as they didn't specify. The only bolt set I could find was the ARP set which is about $50 also. Since this is a DD I'm not looking for performance so I figured I wouldn't need to spend the extra $ on ARP flywheel bolts. I'll most likely be doing this without a lift so I wanted some clarification on whether I should look into a transmission jack or if I can balance the tranny on a standard jack. I'll be using air tools and the car on jack stands.
which box are you going to use? you can leave the passenger's side mount on, drop the crossmembers, drop the driver's side mount, then use a normal jack to lower it a tad bit to give you space to drop the trans
There's slight differences on some boxes to 1st, 2nd, 3rd but 4th, 5th are the same - It's the same story on the "E" series. There's only 2 diffs available - 4.1 and 3.9. Switching to a 3.9 will drop revs by only 300rpm at 100km/h in 5th I suggest fitting larger rims/tyres as well No you can't just swap gears/diffs without rebuilding the entire gearbox Gen1 Flywheel bolts are different to FE and later gen GE flywheels - be carefull Gen1 Flywheel needs to be swapped for a 5S/3S-GTE gen1 flywheel if you want to run the FE type starter box - no other flywheel will fit
I would just be uber careful with doing this. The engine is only supported by the passenger side mount at this time. You'll need something to support it. I have one of these. This way my motor will be supported and I don't have to worry about it falling and damaging the front or oil pan.
You can actually hang the whole bit from the p.s. mount (engine+trans). put a rag in between the harmaonic balancer and frame. ive done it 3x. so yes you can do the whole bit off jack stands. -clutch kit probably wont contain fly wheel bolts, i just re-used them (i know, i know). you MAY be able to get the right bolts at Tacoma Screw, but iirc the "blank" part of the bolt (part w/o threads) is a bigger diameter than the threads to align the fly wheel, so maybe not. un sure weather or not bolts would come with that.....now that i think about it toyota has flywheel bolts. $3 each iirc....maybe i did put new ones on the dog. -if you can get a brand new fly wheel for $50 i'd jump on it, id imagine a re-surface at a shop is half that anyways. i would buy it from somewhere local though, just in case you get the wrong one, it wouldnt be cheap to ship back to summit. I would also guess someone like summit may easily mix up ge/fe or maybe not even show 2 different parts. could turn into a hassle. -LOTS of blue lock-tite and a torque wrench. thats the key.....and the clutch alignment tool (should come with kit). -If you need help let me know, but Im pretty much only available on sundays.
I mean I could always pull one locally and have it resurfaced. I'm not sure how much it would cost via a machine shop but at pick n pull flywheels are like $20-30 I think. I have a torque wrench handy with lots of blue loctite I may have to look into Toyota for the flywheel/pressure plate bolts. I was assuming they came with the kit but since I'm coming from an automatic I don't have them at all. I didn't really want to the spring from the ARP ones @ $50 but we'll see how much the OEM ones are. I appreciate the offer and may take you up on that. I wasn't planning on doing the swap until the first week of Aprilish probably take three days off like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
