This one's a grab bag of things I did before firing up the MR2.
Transmission Fluid
The fill hole on this transmission is hard to get to, so I made a really long funnel. You can stretch plastic hose pretty well if you heat it with a hot air gun.
If you set your gear oil in a pot of boiling water for about 10 or 15 minutes (about as long as it takes to make a long funnel), it'll pour more like regular engine oil and less like molasses. Make sure to open the jug since it does expand some.
Oil Cooler Hoses
These are notorious for leaking and mine are definitely guilty. Three of the four ends are easy enough to get to, but the fourth is in a spot you can't actually see. This is one of those things that happens when engineers take a drivetrain meant to be mounted in a front-engine front-wheel drive car and stick it in the back of a sports car.
Drain to the oil pan:
The oil cooler itself, which exchanges heat with the engine coolant:
These flex drivers were really useful for getting to the clamp I couldn't see.
Out with the old, in with the new (wrapped in the old heat shields):
I also replaced the old T-style hose clamps with modern band clamps.
Oiling The Engine
Being that the engine had sat for a while, I figured I wouldn't gamble on it starting and building oil pressure right off the bat, so I decided to oil the top end myself.
All the tools needed to pull the valve covers:
The nice thing about having the engine back here is the trunk lid makes a nice workbench.
I took each valve cover off and poured about 2 pints of oil all over the camshafts.
A while back I had poured a few tablespoons of 30 weight oil into the cylinders to keep the rings from freezing to the cylinder walls. To get this stuff out of there and to give the engine a bit of time to splash some oil around before starting, I pulled the EFI computer fuse and the spark plugs, then ran the starter a few times.
This didn't fling out as much oil as I expected. Put it all back together, and it started on the 3rd or 4th try! Unfortunately, it's got some weird rattles to debug:
There is also still an oil leak from the back of the engine that is hopefully the distributor. I've got a rebuild kit for that, so I'll redo that and see if that fixes it. Time to start on a list of things I need to do before she's roadworthy.
Random questions.
How hard was it to get that hidden hose hooked up? How long has the engine been sitting? What oil weight did you use for this and will it be different than the oil weight you'll use when it's running? Don't most people hand crank the engine to get the oil spread or is using the starter pretty normal these days? Any theories on the rattles, such as bad motor mounts or failing harmonic balancer?
Getting the hose off was far harder than getting it back on. I found some pictures online of what I wasn't looking at which helped me figure out what I was feeling.
Engine has been sitting a little under 2 years, I think. I just used 10w-40 which is what the 4age takes. I'll run this for 500-1000 miles or so and change it. I'll also be keeping an eye on it to see if it gets dirty faster than I expect. I oughtta put some seafoam in the oil too.
Starter vs hand-crank is kind of a personal choice, I suppose? It's hard to get to the crank bolt on this engine. For what it's worth, with the spark plugs out, the engine doesn't even sound like it's turning over; I thought the starter bendix had frozen up at first. So I don't think spinning it with the starter puts too much force on the crank and cam bearings.
I don't think the rattle is motor mounts since I've got urethane inserts on mine. Current thought is maybe exhaust, which would make sense since it's been rednecked together. I also recall a mystery rattle from before I parked the car, so odds are that that didn't fix itself by sitting. The constant rattle could also be an alternator bearing since it's coming from that part of the engine and it's a crap Autozone alternator that has given me nothing but sorrow.
Due to the age of the engine, are you thinking about using a slightly thicker oil? I know a lot of people tend to do that on higher mileage cars to help compensate for the loosening of tolerances due to wear and tear.
I hear both the 4A-GE and the 4A-GZE are pretty tuner friendly. Are you tempted on modifying the engine much?
I've never had oil pressure issues with this engine (except when cornering hard at speed, but that's because I need to baffle the sump if I'm going to drive it like a racecar). I'm actually not sure how many miles the engine has; the chassis has ~210k miles but the engine was swapped at some point, so all I know is that the engine has more than 30k miles on it.
I am very tempted! Now that I have a second supercharged MR2 that most likely needs an engine rebuild, I will save my modding for that car first. This one might eventually get a 20 valve 4age or something else down the road, but that'll be after I graduate. Toyota makes a couple of other engines that are worth swapping in, or I hear that doing an H or F series Honda swap isn't that bad either.
Honda engines sound pretty reasonable actually. I've been to import events where I've seen Civics and Preludes run high 11s and low 12s so they definitely have some room for modification. Seeing as how pretty much all of their engines are for a transverse setup, it'd probably be a relatively easy install. Though I figure, hopping up the current engines would be cheaper and easier if they're in good shape.