I have been offered a smashed Corolla 1.6 16V for very little. I would appreciate the comments of others who have used this unit to power their Locost.

What mods are required to the standard chassis?

What is required to mate the standard FWD to the Escort prop and axle?

How easy are the mods?

Is it a good choice?

Any comments welcome.

A lot depends which version, both are 16v twin cams....the most common version in the corolla is the 4A-FE which has a narrow valve angle and one driven cam (the other is geared off it).....or the 4A-GE which is the more desirable (more power) version...

Either one needs a RWD gearbox, ideally the Toyota T-50 (not common) or some adaptation to a common gearbox....

IMO if it is the 4A-FE I'd forget it....if it's the 4A-GE then it is worth using...

Thanks for the help. Having never looked under the bonnet of a Corolla, how can i tell if it is one or the other?

Is it obvious?

Any guess on the price of the T50 gearbox?

Someone has said that it possibly marries with the Ford T9 box?

Yes, fairly obvious..


4A-FE


4A-GE

Albertz, I managed to get hold of a Corolla GTi very cheap and going to use the 4AGE engine in my Indy. My Corolla was a 1988 FWD AE92 so I had to find a way to mate it to a Ford type 9 gearbox. I did look for a Toyota RWD box but no luck so in the end I went for a RWD conversion kit from Raw Engineering. It was quite expensive but I didn't have much choice in the end. A word of warning, if your workshop manual says the procedure for removing the engine is from below the car with the gearbox attached then do as the manual says. I decided to ignore the advice and remove the engine only from above. To cut a long story short I managed to get the engine stuck solid half in half out with the front wheels off the ground. I ended up with 3 neighbours helping out, we had to use an angle grinder to remove the inner and outer wings and the front panel to free the engine but not before writing off the engine crane. Ended up like a 1 ton bannana.

I was under the imperssion that the T50 gearbox too wide to fit in a locost, although I'm not certain.

Mark

try this site out

www.robs7.com

he seems to know his stuff about putting in a 4-age

have toyed with the idea myself as an upgrade later on

not easy getting your hands on one so grab while u can

Alan, I think we need to go into business shipping those poor folks T50's. Last breakers yard I was in had 3 or 4 RWD Corollas, and that seems to be the case in all of them I've been to. I paid $37.50 (about 21 quid) at our local PickNPull (you pull the parts out) yard for the one going into my car.

Bill J

only way to pull a 4age through the top is to cut the donor car apart, we did this with a J-spec half cut we bought with a 4agze to go into a corolla (nice swap too)

if you havn't bought the engine yet, and want to go with the 4age setup, the 4agze is a nice option, the supercharger makes this one peppy little engine, only other toyo engine I'd consider (for forced induction) is the 3SGTE,
I have displacement issues.