2zz-ge Tuning

October 19, 2004

whats the best induction kit for the 2zzge e.g. performance/sound/quality?

and can the vvtli point in the rev range be changed by a ecu controller or a remap?

for some reason i posted this on the MR2 forum earlier today :blink: numpty!

October 23, 2004

You have alot of options. INJEN or AEM CAI or SR (Cold air intake or Short Ram)

and other manufactures. Biltz - TAC - Brashboy etc

Yes the lift point can be changed by use of after market ECU's although tunning and sourcing this will cost alot. Generally the lift cut off limit could be increased to 8.5 or 9k but not sustained for a long period of time. Personally I would'nt go over 8.5 unless you intend to change the valves, and springs etc.

Lowering the lift engagement is possible say 6k or 5.8 with the drop off but not lower as you wont see any benifits.

October 23, 2004

You have alot of options. INJEN or AEM CAI or SR (Cold air intake or Short Ram)
and other manufactures. Biltz - TAC - Brashboy etc
Yes the lift point can be changed by use of after market ECU's although tunning and sourcing this will cost alot. Generally the lift cut off limit could be increased to 8.5 or 9k but not sustained for a long period of time. Personally I would'nt go over 8.5 unless you intend to change the valves, and springs etc.
Lowering the lift engagement is possible say 6k or 5.8 with the drop off but not lower as you wont see any benifits.

After reading an tuning article with an apexi unit on the 2zzge it seems the engagement point of the lift is best left as it is because of the small+large cam cross over point in the bhp cerve is at it max at 6500rpm, so would it not be better to change the cams for aggressive ones?

as for the air filter there is a carbon fibre induction kit thats available for the the lotus exige but its £430 :o

October 23, 2004

As far as I am aware there are no cams available for the VVTLI engine at the moment. Piper cams amongst others have said they are under development many months ago and we are still waiting. Problably won't happen this year, and seriously doubt it early part of next year as well. CAT cams I have heard offer a regrind option but who is gonna send them their stock cams unless you have a spare set lying around. Ideally both cams need to be developed and redesigned more agressivly.

You could of course Stoke the engine upto 2 Litres but again you would be looking at alot of money TRIAL 3ZZ could be a option,

But if you wait Toyota might introduce a Turbo or supercharger. Don't expect great figures thou as this will be designed conservitavly. Toyota already offer a supercharger option in the U.S (140 aka GT only). Give it 5 years or so and we might see it over here unless someone in the U.K. Head office gets their finger out.

October 23, 2004

Sorry to barge in on this thread, but i'm interested in getting an Airfilter / induction kit for my corolla T Sport (same engine i think) also I had my windows tinted last weekend and the guy round the corner makes custom exhausts so I popped in for a chat, he took a look at the cars standard exhaust (don't know if this is the same as the celica) and told me the first thing I want to do is fit a sports Catalytic converter, he wreckons with the filter and the sports cat I would see about 25-30 bhp gain plus a big improvement in engine responsiveness and sound, seemed a genuine guy, i know his garage has a good rep, anybody else gone down this road, also anybody know if a performance filter for a Celica will fit a Corolla T Sport...

Thanks

October 23, 2004

You would certainly not get no-where near as much as 25-30 bhp gain from a highflow cat and intake. Having a decat maybe 5/6 hp but you ideally need a DYNO as proof same as the intake upto 8hp probably 4 or 5 as well.

Highflow cats are an option as the stock Toyota CAT is very restrictive. Personally I would recommend a flanged bolt on/off decat, and have your old cat flanged as well so you can swap for the MOT. You will probably get a CEL (Check Engine Light) occure if you go the Decat route. But there are ways around this to fool the 2ndary sensor by fitting a MIL eliminator, couple of wires and resistor can't rightfully remember the how to but is certainly possible.

October 24, 2004

It seems i have come to the right place for tuning advice!

As the 2zzge is a new engine for lotus, advice and parts are thin on the ground

Lotus are rumoured to be adapting the blitz S.C for the exige but its still just rumours .

I have changed my exhaust for an S/S sport one wich has given the car a much faster throttle responce.

I think an iduction kit and cat replacement pipe will also help the car breath, a CRP will be on sale soon . I dont want to pay £430 for an ITG air filter in a carbon case when i can get a jap one for half that price and probably a better quality filter, so which jap one would you go for/ and the best place to buy one ?

October 24, 2004

moomin if you are very carefull you can do this.

Take out the stock air box and connect a pipe connected to the exhiasting rubber / plastic throttle bodie tubing. Keep the MAF Sensor mount and tubing. By extending the tube dirrectly connected to the air box (have this specially manufactured more perminate), try to position and route it to a side vent or somewhere at the bottom of the car, could cut the wheel arch plastics also.. mount a large K&N filter on end. This will make a srota hybrid CAI (Cold Air Intake) out of this stock piping.

Relocate the upper air sensor which has 2 tubes attatched to it from the stock air box somewhere safe. The other sensor just disconnects and is not used has a blue connector tie this up somewhere.

Next this this hard to explain. If you look at your thottle bodie there is a small silver metal tube which sticks out (probably has a black tube already covering it), leading to a T-shpped air connector also take note of a blue and black one way vacume valve. Basically you need to put the blue end in the pipe running from the left of the engine alternator side and connect another pipe into the black end and push over the small throttle bodie tube. (THe T-xonnector and rest of tubes connected to the air box are removed)

Assumbing you can do this correctly you will have a very good CAI for your car. positioning and ducting and choice of filter is important. This WILL work for the gen 7 Celica and other cars using the same VVTLI engine.

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Before hand you must dissconnect the car Battery and be VERY CARE WHILST WORKING AROUND THE MAF SENSOR as it is very expensive to replace.

I would advise doing this if you car is out of warintee as Certain Toyota Dealerships will get funny as you are "Modding" the car. Even thou if anything goes wrong and they put blame on mods they MUST PROOVE that the aftermarket part has actually has caused the problem just something to remember.

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Hope this helps a little.

BTW £400 + for a aftermarket intake is a rip off

October 24, 2004

I was going to go down the removing the Cat completly route, but my mates just been done £800 / 6 points after an emission test by our local Mr Traffic plod, so i'm going to run with the better cat in place and an air filter, i'm not really after that much horsepower increase more just engine response, i gathered the standard cat would be quite restrictive.

My car is quoted at 192 bhp or 189 depends where you look, is this the horsepower at the wheels or the horsepower the engine produces?

October 24, 2004

You have to remember that this is a very highly tuned (by Yamaha) engine in stock form. It is going to be very difficult/expensive to extract more HP from it.

You could remove the cat, but then you risk being fined. Of course, if you only use your car for trackdays, you won't have to worry. I would have thought that the standard cat is a pretty good one anyway, so a high flow replacement probably won't have much effect.

The stock air filter must be pretty sorted as well. You might get a less restrictive filter, but it IS going to let more particles into your engine. I don't fully understand VVTLIProbe's mod but it sounds as though he is describing a way to get more cold air/ram air effect. Take a look at where your air intake gets it air from. I would have though that Lotus would have made an effort to get a decent cold/ram air supply, but you might be able to improve it.

One simple thing you can do is to always fill up with super unleaded, if you don't already. You will probably need to reset your ECU so it forgets about 95 octane fuel. Or you could use octane booster or avgas (if you can get it).

Like I said above, it is going to cost serious money to make much difference. If you use high octane fuel you may be able to increase the compression ratio. A lighweight flywheel might be an option (I don't know how light the standard one is though). This will improve throttle response a bit.

Nitrous is an option for the occasional boost in power. Turbo/supercharging is the only way to get a big increase in power. Look at something like the Rotrex superchargers.

It is worth remembering that this engine has an alloy block, and is not going to be as strong as an iron block.

At the end of the day you have over 100 hp/litre, which is pretty impressive for a mass produced engine.

Something you may or may not be aware of is the problem this engine has with it's lift bolts. They are part of the mechanism that changes the cams over, and they are prone to wearing and breaking. If they do break then you can end up with bits of bolt floating round the inside of the engine (not nice). It sounds like quite a common problem as well, people have claimed theirs have gone after 12k miles. So far Toyota seem to be playing the issue down, but it is clearly a design flaw.

Backsheep, 190 bhp is at the flywheel.

October 24, 2004

I don't particularly want to extract any more horsepower out of the engine, what I wish to do is to get the most out of the Engine and remove/alter restrictive things like the standard cat, i've heard from various sources the Cat is actually very restrictive as is the standard air filter, both of these stiffle the performance of the car, bit like having an athlete with a jubilee clip tight around his neck...

All I really wanted to know is if I fit a less restrictive cat and an aftermarket filter will I have to make any alterations to the ECU, i'm happy to make the mods to simple things such as mentioned above but I don't want to start bodging this and that and playing with the ECU if I can help it.

I'm happy with the cars performance but i've spoken to loads of people that have fitted induction kits etc and state not so much a huge power increase just a car much better to drive, this is what i'm trying to find out if anybody has done to there Celica/Corolla...

October 25, 2004

You don't want more hp, but you want to get more out of the engine?

Less restrictive air filter or cat = more efficient air flow = better volumetric efficiency = more torque/hp.

The only measures of getting more/"the most" out of an engine are more torque (anywhere in the rev range) or improved mpg.

I'm happy with the cars performance but i've spoken to loads of people that have fitted induction kits etc and state not so much a huge power increase just a car much better to drive

What do you think they mean by better to drive? More responsive? That can only be caused by an increase in torque at low revs.

Most, if not all, induction kits increase are louder than the stock induction system. A lot of people fit an aftermarket kit, and they can hear the improvement, i.e. the car sounds faster because it's louder.

Manufacturers spend a serious amount of time and money engineering an efficient induction system with minimum noise. By comparison, it is relatively easy to make a exhaust system which is both quiet and efficient. That's why most cars have a louder intake noise than they do exhaust in factory trim.

I don't know about gen 7 celicas / corollas / new lotus, but my gen 5 (18 year old engineering) has an incredibly complicated induction system. There is an air scoop picking up cool air from just below the front bumper. It then passes into the wing of the car where there is a great big air box of some sort. From there is goes back into the engine bay where a second intake pipe (which starts just behind the headlight) joins it. Then it reaches the air filter box. I don't have a clue how it all works, but I know for a fact that any aftermarket air filter designer does not have the resources/skills/time to come up with a more effective solution.

October 25, 2004

Actually I agree/disagree there's also a cost element to count for, I've been told the cat on my 192 bhp T-Sport is the same as the 1.0Ltr yaris, and probably the same Airfilter as a lower spec Corolla, all I want to know has anybody done the mods and how was it afterward...

October 25, 2004

this is one informative thread :D

glad you asked

i to have the corolla t sport and looking at tinkering with it

all i am going for is things like trd plugs, filter (oil), sports cat, induction if you look on fensport web site theres already stuff there for new corolla . including a new flywheel :lol: