3s-fe? Interference, Or Non Interference?

December 19, 2007

Hi everyone,

Has anyone else had a cambelt go on a 3S-FE Carina E without it wrecking the engine?

My 1993 L Reg Carina E 2 litre abruptly died on Monday about 1/2 way around a roundabout, possibly after a

hasty change down to second (not racing just passed some dawdler that was lost, or driving by Sat Nav on the

inside before entering the roundabout).

I called out the RAC. Turned it over, he says "Cambelt has gone, there's no compression".

The RAC helpfully the car recovered to a garage I sometimes use and then researched on the web. The garage has

been pretty good in the past I think. The chap knows his stuff.

I found the links on here to the Gates catalogue - Thank you. After a midnight walk I found the engine code number

atop the cambelt cover. '3S-FE'.

The Gates catalogue says NON INTERFERENCE.

The garage says the same as the RAC Man, 'put a cambelt on it and see what happens' - however they did warn

me that the information that they have says it's an INTERFERENCE engine.

Are they just covering themselves? The garage has given me a quote should it have bent valves.

Would it be cheaper to just replace the whole cylinder head with a used one if the engine is bent?

I understand that this is the same engine as used in the MR2 and Celica, but with a detuned cylinder head.

If it has bent valves, does anyone think getting a used cylinder head off of a Celica or MR2 would be worthwhile?

** APOLOGIES IF THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAMILY SECTION - I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO MOVE IT **

March 2, 2009

Hi everyone,
Has anyone else had a cambelt go on a 3S-FE Carina E without it wrecking the engine?
My 1993 L Reg Carina E 2 litre abruptly died on Monday about 1/2 way around a roundabout, possibly after a
hasty change down to second (not racing just passed some dawdler that was lost, or driving by Sat Nav on the
inside before entering the roundabout).
I called out the RAC. Turned it over, he says "Cambelt has gone, there's no compression".
The RAC helpfully the car recovered to a garage I sometimes use and then researched on the web. The garage has
been pretty good in the past I think. The chap knows his stuff.
I found the links on here to the Gates catalogue - Thank you. After a midnight walk I found the engine code number
atop the cambelt cover. '3S-FE'.
The Gates catalogue says NON INTERFERENCE.
The garage says the same as the RAC Man, 'put a cambelt on it and see what happens' - however they did warn
me that the information that they have says it's an INTERFERENCE engine.
Are they just covering themselves? The garage has given me a quote should it have bent valves.
Would it be cheaper to just replace the whole cylinder head with a used one if the engine is bent?
I understand that this is the same engine as used in the MR2 and Celica, but with a detuned cylinder head.
If it has bent valves, does anyone think getting a used cylinder head off of a Celica or MR2 would be worthwhile?
** APOLOGIES IF THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAMILY SECTION - I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO MOVE IT **

Don't take my word for it, but to my knowledge the 3S-FE is a none interference engine. It's the same engine as in my Avensis and i had the cambelt changed a couple of months ago, since it was way overdue. The mechanic that did the job told me it was non interference. But mind you, allthough he's one of the best, he doesn't work for Toyota.

Regarding head swap. You're right, that the 3S-FE in your car and the 3S-GE in the Celica share the same engineblock, but have different heads. Without variable valve timing or lift, any engine would be a compremise between high rpm peakpower and low rpm torque. The FE head in your car and mine are made for low rpm torque and achieves this by restricting the airflow into the cylinder, where as the 3S-GE in the Celica has better airflow into the cylinder, which alows it to breat more freely at high rpm, at the expence of the low rpm torque.

The head should fit right on, but the question is if the internals can withstand the extra power. If it's one of the older versions with 150 horsepower, it shouldn't be a problem, but some later versions of the 3S-GE had around 200 horsepower, so question is, can the pistons withstand that kind of power. The turbo version, the 3S-GTE had some kind oil cooling system addet and i believe the late versions of the none turbo had that too. However if you use the same pistons and same compression the increase in power should be within the limits