Need help and pointers on building a Blue Top 4age

[Project AE86]

Hello fellas,

New to the 4age world and is in the process of taking out and rebuilding my Blue Top, the question I want to ask is "how do I achieved a few horses (close to 140-150 hp at the motor) in the build?" Willing to drop somewhere around $1,700 on this rebuild. I'm not looking for a rocket just something solid and reliable a mild build. Hopefully, some of you who actually have done and achieved these numbers can give me some detail tips, such as specs on parts and exactly what needs to be done to get there. I've Been reading around and ppl talks about bring up compression to 10.1 with high duration camshaft 282 does that sound right? Car won't be a daily and planning to keep it original (Blue Top 16 valves N/A) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[gotzoom?]

Welcome. After having built a few engines for these cars, here are some things that might be of interest. Obviously, the service manual is going to be your best friend, so be sure to read up on everything before turning a wrench. Personally, I don't see the value in getting caught up in a horsepower number. The only place that makes sense to me is in a race class where you want to be at the max allowable power (and more importantly, torque.) These cars are light and a fresh rebuild on an otherwise stock engine makes them plenty of fun to drive around town and on track.

Here is what I would do, if I were you:

1. Put down your wallet until you know what you have. Tear the donor engine down and measure everything. All the specs are in the service manual on the reusable parts. The important ones are to measure the block bores for roundness, measure the head mounting surface for flatness, and measure the crank journals for roundness. Those are the expensive parts if what you have is out of spec. An overbore will probably run you around $200, a head skim and 3-angle valve job will probably run you around $250 and a crank turn will probably run you around $150. You may be able to find those items that are in spec for considerably less than the machine cost, so that may factor in to your decision making.

2. Since you have already decided to raise compression and get cams, I can tell you a sure fire combination that will work well and likely make you happy. I built an engine like this a few years back and it worked out really well. Get a set of smallport (AE92) pistons. You'll need the matching connecting rods and crankshaft, though. It is likely that the crankshaft that you have in your current engine is the smaller variant, with 40mm journals. Your options are few on higher compression pistons for that crankshaft without spending some pretty decent money. The later generations of 4AGE all came with crankshafts with 42mm journals and this is what the smallport and 20V rods require. I'd recommend trying to find a set of "blacktop" connecting rods. They are the lightest rods that came in a 4AGE and the journals match the 42mm crank and the wristpin size if correct for the smallport pistons. It would be worth having the rotating parts balanced, if your budget allows. When you mix and match stuff, the balance is likely to be off and you'll end up with a lot of vibration in the new engine.

3. The stock ECU runs fine with Tomei Poncams. The idle will be slightly lumpy, but you'll otherwise not notice any ill effects of running them with the stock ECU.

4. Don't believe the hype. There are plenty of aftermarket brands that make quality replacement parts for the 4AGE. All of the engines that I have built have used Felpro seals and gaskets. I've recently been using Sealed Power brand rings and bearings. I always Plastigage the bearings and measure the ring gap before engine assembly and in EVERY case, the Sealed Power parts have been exactly the middle of the factory spec.

5. Clean up the head. Whether you do it yourself or have a machine shop do it, it's worth spending some time and/or money on the head. Do a 3-angle valve job. Clean up the casting. Clean up the bumps in the ports. Match the exhaust ports. Deshroud the valves.

The largeport engine that I built with smallport internals and Tomei Poncams ran happily on 89 octane with 12 degrees of timing (max I can get with an AW11 distrbutor.) It sounds like gnomes with ballpeen hammers are inside the engine if I used 87 octane, though. I hope that helps.

[oldeskewltoy]

gotzoom makes a number of good points... although I prefer OEM head gasket, over most of the aftermarket. The only exception would be a metal gasket.

The 4AGE responds well to being carefully built. Your machine shop is your best performance friend, so do some research into your local machine shops. Make sure they have the proper equipment to work on "such a small engine". The FSM - factory service manual is vital, it is available online. Bring the specs with you and see if the shop will build it Toyota's way.....

$1700 isn't a lot of cash to build a 4AG... a basic rebuild can cost over $1000 (gasket/seal kit, oil pump, bearings, rings, machine work)... so adding performance parts can drive up costs quickly.

Ideally a compression ratio of about 10.5 works well with the Tomei cams. To achieve that you can use 1990+ pistons (10.3 instead of 9.4), and a squish gap of .040" (squish gap is distance piston flats are from combustion chamber flats), and a head with careful deshrouding (chamber volume = 36.5cc)

[Project AE86]

Thanks for your time and tips guys. I have been looking around for a small port (Redtop) either engine or donor car for some time now but no luck. Most find are $$$$ and anything good lower than $900 is a pretty rare find, with that said I'm thinking it'll be more cost effective if I just use the cash towards my Bluetop off the top instead. I know it's a complete different power plant but going off Honda knowledge and some research, if I bring up the compression to 10.1-10.5 either on stock or bore out to 82mm with probably a 0.80mm TRD head gasket on top of some camshaft of 260-270 degrees duration then hopefully I would be able to reach my intended goal of about 140-150hp...does that sound correct? like I said new to the 4age and would like to know specific specs and parts. Thanks again for any inputs gentlemen

[Project AE86]

Off topic, but been reading around and it seem that you've earn many ppl respect here on Club4ag Oldeskewltoy keep it up...I would like to run the Ae101s pistons but wouldn't that mean that the I'll have to upgrade to the 20mm piston pins, along wit the conrod, and 42mm crankshaft? If that's the case then like I mention in the above post wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to go straight with the stock Bluetop internal and buy aftermarket pistons to raise up compression than to source out these parts/engine?

[gotzoom?]

Be careful about going too crazy with internal mods. More compression and bigger cams mean that you need more fuel. This means you will need bigger fuel injectors and might need to mess with the AFM to change the richness. The stock ECU map is not versatile enough to handle heavy mods. I gave it a good shot, but the stock ECU will not run my current engine for some reason that I have not been able to figure out.

If you still want to go down the bad road, Supertech makes 11:1 pistons that are reasonably priced with an 18mm wristpin. This will allow you to use largeport connecting rods, but they will need to be slightly machined in order to work with the Supertech pistons.

Here is the result.

[oldeskewltoy]

Off topic, but been reading around and it seem that you've earn many ppl respect here on Club4ag Oldeskewltoy keep it up...I would like to run the Ae101s pistons but wouldn't that mean that the I'll have to upgrade to the 20mm piston pins, along wit the conrod, and 42mm crankshaft? If that's the case then like I mention in the above post wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to go straight with the stock Bluetop internal and buy aftermarket pistons to raise up compression than to source out these parts/engine?

1990+ is still AE92. The smallport was only available in 1990, and 1991 in the Corolla... interestingly enough it was available in 1993, in the Geo Prizm GSi. In the USA the AE101 was never available with the 4AGE.

"Bluetop" is too vague... and after 30+ years you could have anything inside the engine you currently have... BUT if you have a pre 1987 engine and it hasn't been swapped, then you are correct, it likely does have the 40/18 rods.

The Supertech pistons do fit the 18mm wrist pin, but the crown isn't ideal... as it was designed to accommodate O/S valves. O/S reliefs require a taller crown... like gotzoom posted.


TRD once had, and I helped re-create a piston last year, designed for stock valve reliefs. In an otherwise "stock" rebuild using my re-creation pistons, static compression would be about 10.7

TRD's



My re-creation



If you are interested.... my TRD re-creation piston can be made with 18mm wrist pins

[Project AE86]

Yea no doubt the Supertech pistons is way to hardcore for me. "Gotzoom?" you've mention an important fact that I forgot to include as a part of this build and that is I do still want to run the stock ecu and fuel system. The vehicle is a 1985 Corolla GTS and I purchased it mid of this year. The info I got from the pervious owner was that the car was all originals expect for the intake and the super loud exhaust, but who knows he got it from a guy who got it from the other guy etc. I check and the vehicle dose have a 3 rib block along with the big port head so I'm guessing it is the stock 1985 motor or something very similar to it if swapped (so best guess would be that it'll still have the 40mm and 18mm internal). I am very interested in your pistons "Oldeskewltoy" and is serious about picking up a set if all goes well. Some few questions if you don't mind answering on the forum otherwise email me and we can have a separate talk, here goes...have you or anybody you know ran with these pistons and what was the set-up/results? How close are they specs wise compare to the originals? How much were u looking to sell a set of four along with rings and pins? Hope to hear back from you soon

Thanks

[yoshimitsuspeed]

$1700 is a tight budget to upgrade on but if you do most of the work you can do a bit for that. Personally I would try to stretch that budget just a little higher and you could see quite a bit more power. LIke 140-150+ at the wheels.
Personally I wouldn't do anything less. When you are looking at dropping a grand just to get back to stock lethargic hp spending another thousand to gain 50% more power seems like a pretty good way to spend your money.
Now A couple things I have to disagree with.
1. Increasing compression does not increase fuel requirements. Compression gets more power out of a unit of fuel. You are not increasing the air going into the motor and therefore do not need to increase the fuel.
2. The stock ECU can handle more cam than is practical to run on it. You will not exceed the stock fuel requirements by running a bigger cam. At a point you will move the VE curve so high that the cam will make peak power above stock redline. This will actually reduce the amount of air going into the motor lower in the revs. Therefore if you want to stay on the stock ECU your main strategy will be picking a cam that makes you power within that stock redline range.
This is a subject that OST and I definitely disagree on as he seems to lean towards and suggest smaller cams. The more I talk to people who build motors the more I lean toward bigger cams. TED components makes fun of me every time I start talking about anything smaller than a 272. They wouldn't run anything smaller than a 288 even on a DD/street car and they make 288s that would have a very strong power band for that type of driving.
Of course their cams will eat up a good portion of your budget but you wouldn't regret it once it was dialed in.

In my opinion 10.5:1 is way too low for a cam like the Poncam but it does depend on the octane you plan to use. How much compression you want to run will be primarily dependent on your octane of choice and cam of choice. And this isn't as simple as looking at advertised duration. Heck even looking at lift, adv duration and duration at 1mm or .050 still doesn't tell you all that much.

Poncams used to be my biggest seller but I have started to move away from them and found my own source for better cams because Tomei is really bad about keeping inventory in the US. Some times they would be in stock. Other times I would wait 3 months for them to get back in stock. So instead I came out with my own line of cams and tried to price them as competitively as possible. I can't quite match the price of the 16v Poncam but considering my cams are made in the US by one of the top 4AGE cam manufacturers I managed to get them pretty dang close.
My mildest cam is the most similar to the Poncam. It is advertised as a 262 vs the Poncams 264 but it's duration at .050 is notably higher than the Poncam so it will behave very similar to the Poncam, if anything with just a little more top end. I don't generally recommend this cam because it is so mild but it has two benefits.
1. with 8.2mm lift it's quite safe to run on stock springs.
2. With only 8.2mm lift it will work with my non interference piston design. With a cam with any more lift it really isn't practical to try to stay non interference.
So for the mild street build this is a nice setup because it's simple and keeps you non interference.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/products/matrix-garage-262
This is the non interference piston. http://www.matrixgarage.com/products/ma ... ompression
I believe that with 92 or better octane 11.2:1 is about perfect for a Poncam or my 262 but it is on the agressive side so I will be offering it in a 10.8:1 CR for those who want to run a little more conservative or want to run a thinner headgasket without gaining more compression. This piston is designed for stock diameter valves but could be made for oversized.

The next step up is my 265. These cams are going to be similar but with 8.7mm lift and a little more duration both advertised and @.050 it will open the motor up a little more. This cam should still have very strong low end and just a little more on top. People have run bigger cams on the stock 16v springs but upgrading springs is highly recommended.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/products/matrix-garage-265

Honestly at that point though I would step right up to my 272. This cam has been proven to perform very well across the range. It is a very small cam for a 272 and actually has less duration @.050" than the other two so it's not going to feel like a huge cam. With the right compression you should see similar low end and peak power that will really put a smile on your face.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/products/matrix-garage-272

The 265 or 272 will do very will with our Arias new design pistons. This is a piston that we have been working with Arias on for the last 6 months and is now their new line of shelf pistons.
These are similar to OSTs design but they are designed off the actual combustion chamber geometry and not copies of other manufacturers pistons. They also have about two years of development into refining the design by me and the last 6 months with me working with Arias to dial them in.
They are still a shelf piston so they are designed for oversized valves and have some compromises but it's the best shelf piston you will find for the 4AGE.
For more refined builds we can always make semi custom pistons that take the general design features and make changes to things like valve relief diameter or depth to better suit your build or we can make something fully custom based specifically off your needs. Of course that adds cost.

The 10.5:1 is a great piston for moderate builds. Run a thin headgasket to minimize your squish gap and you will have about a perfect compression ratio for a mild premium gas build. You can also shave a bit off the head if you want a little more.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/products/ar ... 051-piston

If you are going for a more aggressive build we have our 11.5:1 but that definitely sounds like more than you are looking for.

Now this is all for the 20/42 rotating assembly and I highly recommend finding one because aftermarket support is much better.
With that said I can get any of the above pistons made for the 18mm rods but it will take a few weeks to make and add a little cost. Personally I would rather put that money towards the bigger rotating assembly with fully balanced crank and floating wrist pins.
For the same reason I wouldn't waste my money with the Supertech pistons. You would need to spend money to get your rods machined and I would much rather put that money towards better pistons and preferably the better rotating assembly.

[oldeskewltoy]

This is a subject that OST and I definitely disagree on as he seems to lean towards and suggest smaller cams. The more I talk to people who build motors the more I lean toward bigger cams. TED components makes fun of me every time I start talking about anything smaller than a 272. They wouldn't run anything smaller than a 288 even on a DD/street car and they make 288s that would have a very strong power band for that type of driving.
Of course their cams will eat up a good portion of your budget but you wouldn't regret it once it was dialed in.

I tend to suggest cams that remain emissions friendly... for MOST of my clients are running their cars on the streets. Running cams over 272 duration is awful difficult to keep clean..... as for power production with a "big" cam.... no problem....

I think where you and I tend to diverge on N/A builds is; A) in headwork, and B) in using a "specific" piston, or using a more generalized piston.... The rest you and I tend to agreed far more often then we disagree.


As to possible rods... Molnar makes a 40/20 rod. They would add $400, but would allow you to keep the smaller lighter crank, AND allow you to choose/use any 20mm piston

[oldeskewltoy]

"Oldeskewltoy" and is serious about picking up a set if all goes well. Some few questions if you don't mind answering on the forum otherwise email me and we can have a separate talk, here goes...

a) have you or anybody you know ran with these pistons and what was the set-up/results?

B) How close are they specs wise compare to the originals? How much were u looking to sell a set of four along with rings and pins? Hope to hear back from you soon

Thanks

A) Think I've sold 3, or 4 sets... forgotten exactly how many, but I'm sure I could find the info. I do know one purchaser (New Zealand, or Australian) was planning on using them in their "spec" race car, this set was built to 81.25 bore so my client could keep his overall engine size under 1600cc. They were planning on running a "squish gap" of about .8mm, I've forgotten if he decked the block and used a stock headgasket, or just used a .8mm gasket.

b) The center of the dome/crown is .015" taller then the TRD. So my redesign has a volume of 2.5cc, where the TRD had a volume of 1.8cc. This provides a tiny bump (about 2/10s of a point) in compression over the original. My re-design has enough "meat" in the crown that it can be safely machined .030", and lowers the volume to 1.6cc. As the originals were designed around stock valve sizes, my re-design was too. Additionally, the re-design does take advantage of a couple of "learned lessons", the original TRD piston used a near vertical rise to the crown in the areas parallel to the wrist pins, the re-design has a 70 degree bevel there now to add a tiny bit to the overall squish affect, and the TRD used very minimal skirts, and this could cause issues between the piston and cylinder, so the redesign uses a fuller skirt to keep the piston steadier in its bore.

These are similar to OSTs design but they are designed off the actual combustion chamber geometry and not copies of other manufacturers pistons.

As were my re-designs, they used chamber geometry, as they had this casting along with the other pistons.... that is where the crown/dome shape design changes occurred....

[gotzoom?]

I'll step out of the deep technical discussion, but since you mentioned keeping the stock ECU and fuel system, here are a couple points to consider. The AFM is very restrictive, and the largest reason why the MAP equipped markets had higher horsepower than the AFM equipped markets. Even with completely stock internals, that restriction is a factor. If you decide you need larger injectors, there are a number of Honda cars from the same era that have 200cc injectors that use the same connector and are the same form factor as the stock AE86 injectors. Just pay attention to the impedance on them. Stock AE86 injectors are low-Z and make use of a resistor mounted near the fuel filter. If you want to continue using the resistor pack, you will need to use low-Z injectors. Otherwise, you can chop off the connector from the resistor module and shunt all 3 wires together and use high-Z injectors.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

The AFM is very restrictive, and the largest reason why the MAP equipped markets had higher horsepower than the AFM equipped markets.

This is absolutely not true. The MAP motors were rated for their market and it's believed that at the time those markets allowed a little more flexible power ratings. AFM and MAP 4AGEs have been dynoed against each other enough times to prove that a MAP 4AGE will make roughly the same amount of power as an AFM. Other tests have been done to test the restriction of the AFM as well and they all come back the same. A 300 hp 3SGTE lost only 3 hp when an AFM was dropped into the intake. That's 1% change or on a 4AGE closer to 1 or 1.5 hp. That's assuming a linear power drop but since the 3SGTE AFM isn't 3 times bigger it's not likely a stock 4AGE would see that. Perhaps one making 50% more power than stock might see a similar percentage loss. so maybe 1.5 hp on a 150 hp 4AGE. Still though the 4A AFM isn't that much smaller than the 3SGTE so that's a big assumption.

[oldeskewltoy]

I'll step
The AFM is very restrictive, and the largest reason why the MAP equipped markets had higher horsepower than the AFM equipped markets.

actually... the higher hp of SOME TVIS - largeport models were those markets that got 10 to 1 pistons(4AGE). They also were not equipped with catalytic converters. These models were rated @ 125hp, where the rest of the largeport -TVIS models were equipped with 9.4 to pistons(4AGEC) as well as cats, these are rated between 112hp and 115hp