I know very little about cars and may be just a dreamer at this point, but i'm hoping you folks can share you wisdom with me. I love my wagon. It have about 220000 km on it, so I am curious about an engine and transmission swap. I'm curious what cars would make ideal donors. I want a manual transmission, mine is an auto with O/D. I would love to make it a diesel but another 4 banger gasoline engine I know is more probable. I want the engine to be reliable, efficient and low maintenance. Performance is nice, but I assume more money, and more maintenance. What cars would make would the easiest swap?

 

Thanks,

 

Hardy

is it the ae95?

 

if so, will need to go with a manual ae95 box (unless u want to go fwd c series lsd box or something).

most people will say 4age but id say 7afe so a simple swap (or 7age if your keen)

Looks like this

 

http://www.google.ca/search?q=corolla+wagon&hl=en&rlz=1C1BLWB_enCA524CA524&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=aaEnUcW1J8eerAGEhoGIDA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=651#imgrc=M0O8rrz0DiI8OM%3A%3B-Ir4iiLEKQcKwM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fupload.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252F9%252F99%252F93-95_Toyota_Corolla_wagon_front.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fuk.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252F%2525D0%2525A4%2525D0%2525B0%2525D0%2525B9%2525D0%2525BB%253A93-95_Toyota_Corolla_wagon_front.jpg%3B1536%3B812

 

it's FWD

Could probably put a 20V in or build a 7AGE. There were diesel engines available but probably slower than the engine in it.

That's an AE10x wagon, so anything A-series from that time (5AFE, 4AFE, 7AFE, 4AGE 20V, 4AGZE in order of good-ness) will be the easiest swap, I'm guessing it has either a 4AFE or 7AFE in it at the moment? Best option would to to simply keep whatever engine you have and just replace the transmission, minimum of fuss and least amount of things that can go wrong (especially on the wiring side of things).

thanks for the info.