Hi people, I placed this post in the general discussion, but thought it might be more appropriate here after reading around a bit more. Thanks for any advice.

I have an old 76 Toyota Corolla E55, which i recently blew the engine in. I was talking with friends and we decided on trying our first engine swap, placing a newer 4 cylinder into it. The problem is, we don't know much on the engine mount and engine compatibility issues. We know we can put almost anything in there, but we want to do the majority of work ourselves, and keep it within a budget on labour. We were liking the SR20DET, but were thinking that maybe Toyota S engine would be easier to work with. Price is not an issue on the motor, but we would like to do the work ourselves, as a project. Also any thoughts on using the SR20DET AWD from a Pulsar Gti-R, or a 6-cylinder SB25DET?

Thanks for any input or ideas on the matter.
Nath.  

i dont know to much about toyota's but i know some about swaping engines and there is allways more cost than expected, usualy the little things that add up..motor and tranny mounts can be easly re-located to suit the new setup.. but you would also need the correct ecu/pcm and wiring harnes...going from 2 wheel drive to awd is a whole new beast im sure there would be alot of custom work involved in that one..  

not to get off the topic so soon but MAN what a find i love old import cars im keeping my eyes open for an 70's celica. oh and is your corolla RWD???..drop a k20 in..NO lolZZ the sr20 kinda sound like it would fit.. though im no engine swapping ninja but it sounds believe able..the sr20.. sorry for not being a help lol  

A Nissan engine in a Toyota...Hmmm... It's doable but it will require you to manufacture all the parts that you will need for it to sit in the engine bay. The electrical part of it will be a nightmare, if you aren't well versed in both the engine and wiring schematics of how it will work. It's daunting work. I would suggest installing a Toyota engine and turbo it. It would be a lot easier than figuring out the mess of wires, sensors, PCM requirements along with its wire harnesses, the gauges... The list is extremely long. Not impossible, just long. If you're really stuck on wanting the SR20DET for that classic, go for it. Take your time and plan out how every thing is going to work, fit and move. Planning is 60% of the work. It's like they say in carpentry. Measure twice, cut once. Keep us posted. It's an interesting swap. I like it.  

dude, put an old supra engine in there!  

That's a thought. It would be easier that splicing all those wires to put in a really new engine. Good call, Mtown.  

Hey guys, thanks for your ideas, and opinions. We were looking at putting in a 1jz-gte from a newer supra half-cut, but we're a bit worried about the extra weight, and its effect on the handling. I think for our first time we will stick with a toyota engine to keep things simple. The 4a-gze looks like a winner at this stage. It starts with 160 odd horses, and we'll throw a turbo on there as well to get things going a bit quicker. The supra engine is still a possibility though.  

That's the way to go, man. Keep us in the loop. We would love to see the out come. It's not every day you see those cars.  

A turbocharged 4agze like is in my corolla GTS would make an awesome powerplant for your early corolla.  We're making around 220 hp on the stock NA ECU.  With good fuel management I feel 275 would be easy to make.  The motors are fairly cheap, easy to get parts for, modern reliability, and install into an early corolla would be fairly simple.  Almost a bolt in affair.  Do some research, www.club4ag.com has alot of info regarding these swaps.  Don't just jump on the "SR" bandwagon.  They break and parts are not easy to get or cheap.  Are you building a street car, drag car, or track car.  If you building a street/fun car you dont want more than 250-275 HP for your chassis.  Any thing more will just be lost to tire smoke.
Check out the photos of the engine, in my "reader's garage"  

I beg to differ on the "hard to get parts for" that you said. You're right about the parts not being cheap, though. Reliability is from the individuals point of view. How you build an engine determines its reliability. If you skimp on the essential parts you get skimpy results. That's just a simple fact. I've seen SR20 engines built by my friends that have gotten a beating and are still running well after 30k miles. Albeit, they will need refreshing soon, but they got a lot of miles out of them, reliably. It's like I always say, you get what you pay for.
220 on your turbo charged 4AGZE is respectable and is a good swap for the early 76 Corolla, like you said. Toyota 4banger engines are nothing to sneaze at, either. They can be made to handle some real horse power gains, considering if the builder doesn't skimp on the quality parts.
To keep things in s perspective, though, a SR20 engine is not hard to find parts for like it is for a 2liter Rav4 engine. I'm having a hell of a time trying to find a turbo for mine. I know that some folks have built 2liter Camry with a turbo... I wonder if that could be a way to go. They both have the same 2liter engine assembly.
Any way, you see what I mean.