At the moment I have a 1991 corolla with a 4afe engine in it. I want to know if I should leave it untouched or search for a 4age to put in it. As it is its pushing 103 horses, with the research I have done the 4age would do about 140 horses and I want fast.     

I was also wondering how hard it would be to swap an engine for someone with limited experience👍.  

It’s far more complicated than taking one engine out and putting another one in. Car is likely to be off the road for quite a while, especially if inexperienced. 
 

Seriously consider finding an original car and buying that and selling on yours. Will likely save you a lot of money and be worth more in the long run.  There are electrical, suspension, brake and fuel considerations at a minimum you won’t expect. 

Do it!  it would have to be the simplest engine swap possible and a great way to get experience. Buy a halfcut or a whole parts car so you get everything from the windscreen forward and as parrot said, be prepared for it to take a month. Keep everything from your car in case the 4AGE blows up within a couple of months, any second-hand engine is a risk. The ECUs are very particular too, they may not swap at all.

Lots of people must have done it already, is there a fan site for just this swap? I assume they're 4AGE smallport motors we are talking about here.

You do realise its worth all of not much in terms of torque increase... what, 4NM extra..... 4AFE is worth 77KW & 142NM or so, 4AGE 85-90KW with 148NM . You might not even feel it if the 4AGE is a bit worn!

What can you do to your 4AFE to get that much extra grunt?

yer i'm advocate for finding a decent 4age car already. 

you really need a smashed complete car to do an engine swap properly. loom, ecu, gearbox, drive shafts, brakes (your car prolly has drum brakes rear, 4age cars have rear disc rear brakes). 

My mate and I did it on a celica years ago, swapped a 3sge and everything over from a smashed "SX" into a 3sfe car. It was quite the job. worth it in this case as we did have a smashed complete car to get all the bits off, but it was basically rebuilding an entire car. 

I have seen some super nice ae92 SX and GTIs for sale for not much money lately, like 5k. 

The other issue is all these engines and parts are getting old, so if you try and piece it all together you'll have a hard time finding stuff, and when you do it probably needs to be reconditioned anyway. at least if its a running complete car there's a good chance most of the things will be in good condition. 

These cars are so old now they don't even want them at the wreckers. 

Edited June 10, 20242 yr by ke70dave