- Because we are changing from the mid sump to the front sump, we need to relocate the oil dipstick to suit the front sump. There is a small recess in the block towards the front from where the stock dipstick location is on the 7M. This is where the dipstick will be relocated to. To do this, a hole will be drilled through this recess. The way I went about this is drilling from the inside of the block outwards. This way, if you still have all the ancillaries/exhaust/turbo bolted on the engine, you won’t have to remove them to drill this hole.
If you take the sump off and have a look on the inside of the block you will see a recess in the same spot as the one on the outside. Punch a mark in the dead centre of the recess inside the block, this will be the start of the hole we drill.
Take the dipstick and tube out of the stock location. Measure the diameter of the stock oil dipstick hole. It should be ~10mm. We made a mistake and measured the OD of the dipstick tube. To cut a long story short, the hole we drilled was too big (10.5mm) and the dipstick tube was a loose fit inside the new hole.
The second step is to drill a pilot hole through the block. To get the angle of this hole correct, get a long 10mm bolt or rod to put through the stock dipstick hole. You will then use the angle of that bolt/rod to line the drill up to the same angle ready for drilling.
With this setup, everything was ready for my dad to drill the hole with the electric drill. I was at the front of the engine looking down the block at the angle the drill was at compared to the bolt/rod, correcting the angle of the drill as was needed to match the bolt/rod. Take it slowly and stop if you need to.
Once the pilot hole is drilled, you can drill the final hole with a drill bit matching the diameter of the stock dipstick hole, which you measured earlier. Again, use the same process of lining up the drill to the same angle of the bolt/rod.
Once you have the hole drilled, which will be in the centre of the recess on the outside (because you lined everything up), simply put the lower half of the 7M dipstick tube into the newly drilled hole. It should press in nice and tight but it is wise to also use some Loctite Bearing sealant.
The top half of the oil dipstick tube needs some slight bending/straightening for it to line unto one of the bolt holes on the power steering reservoir.
This picture shows how far off the bolt holes are before bending. And after bending, it
lines up perfectly. This shows the
7MGTE dipstick located in its new home, securely bolted to the PS reservoir bracket. And yet
another picture with everything else installed.
Block off the old dipstick hole with a 10mm bolt the appropriate length. Because of the small recess into the side of the block, I had to use a Toyota bolt as the heads on the 10mm Toyota bolts are smaller than the heads on aftermarket 10mm bolts, which do not fit into the recess. You may find something else that works though. To seal this off, I used a piece of iron to act as a gasket under the head of the bolt and Loctite.
- Put the 5M front sump on using a sealant like 3bond or the special Toyota stuff. Do not use a cork gasket, they are evil and leak and require a few re-tourqings every few hundred km’s to stop the leaking.
- If the 7M engine you’re using was originally an Auto, you’ll need to install a spigot bearing in the end of the crankshaft and remove the spacer which sits behind the auto flex plate. If it was a manual, it’s best to replace this bearing. Put the flywheel on the back of the engine using new flywheel bolts and Loctite.
- Bolt the new clutch up to the flywheel. Don’t forget to use a clutch alignment tool to get the clutch disc in the correct place when torqueing the pressure plate on. Refer to the TSRM on what torque the pressure plate bolts are.
- Replace both the front and rear seals on your original transmission. Give it a thorough cleaning, then bolt it up to the back of the engine using some Loctite on the bolts.
Installation
- If you removed everything from the engine bay like I did to paint it, its best to re-install the brake booster and MC now along with the brake lines. Also re-install the clutch master cylinder and windscreen wiper motor. It’s best to leave everything else out so it’s easier getting the engine in.
- To install the engine into the car it’s simply a matter of getting the engine onto a engine hoist and lowering/manoeuvring it into place. Things to take note is that it’s easier to install both motor and gearbox at the same time. Make sure the radiator is out and also the PS rack as you will damage it otherwise. And remove the gearstick from the gearbox. It is easier to have 3 or 4 people helping you get this into the engine bay as to not damage anything.
- Once it’s in, install the bolts for the engine mounts, bolt up the transmission cross member and re-install the driveshaft. Fill the transmission back up with fluid through shifter hole and re-install shifter. Bolt the clutch master cylinder up to the bell housing and prime the system.
- Put the steering rack back in after giving it a good clean up. Use the stock 5M line from the PS pump to the rack. Buy some new hose the correct length for the return back to the reservoir.
- The charcoal canister can be made to fit in the stock location with some bracket bending. And you also need to chop off the lower leg on the bracket. It’s a very tight fit, ~10mm between the charcoal canister and the turbo heat shield, not so very good picture. It’s much better to mount it up near the brake MC so it’s not near the turbo, pic here. Also most states require at least 10mm clearance around the motor to allow for movement.
- Re-install the radiator along with the new radiator hoses.
- Install the 7M ignitor and resistor packs next to the fuse box. Also bolt the check connector box close by. Here is how mine are mounted using stock brackets bar a custom bracket for the check connector.
- The throttle cable will need shortening roughly 20mm (that’s not accurate). For a quick fix, I just looped the throttle cable around and electrical taped it up so it stayed in place. A few months later I cut roughly 20mm of cable off and re-drilled a hole in the lead thing on the end. I then poked the end of the wire through this hole and melted the lead into the wire with a really hot soldering iron. I did this to mock up one before I had a professional one made up to make sure I had the cable length measurements correct. At $45 for a new cable, it’d suck to have the wrong measurement. It turns out my mock-up cable was ~1mm too short. The cable has to have a little slack in it to allow the throttle valve to snap shut and seal. That mock-up cable which was 1mm too short was giving me a high idle of 2000rpm once warm because it wasn’t letting the throttle plate seal shut and air was leaking past.
- Feed the 7M engine loom through the firewall. I did this with a lot of electrical tape, glade wrap and a piece of string attached to the loom which I fed through the firewall first. Then after a bit of persuasion, it came through and the result.
- Hook up the vacuum hoses for the heater, heater tap, heater VSV and charcoal canister as per the diagram in this picture.
- I ran my boost gauge line off the line that feeds the actuator for the auto cruise control. Since my car is manual this was free. If yours is Auto and you are retaining the cruise control, just tap into this line with a T junction. The line then runs through the firewall in the same spot as the oil pressure gauge feed. I like it through the RH side of the firewall because it’s less mess on the LH side with all that wiring there and easier to work with.
- Install the intercooler up as high as you can. You’ll have to make custom mounts for this. My mounts consisted of 20mm wide strips of 2mm steel. You can see the LHS mount here and the RHS here, note they bolt to stock locations on the intercooler. In this picture, notice how the intercooler doesn’t go below the bottom of the front apron. This is very important for two reasons. 1, less chance of the IC bottoming out on the road and 2, the stock under tray will still fit with a little modification. Then mock up some IC pipes for the system. First time I did this was using as many stock parts as I could. It was pretty dodgy and turned out like this and this in the end but held 10psi (just!). When I fully redid them, I used 2 ¼” mandrel bends bought from a wholesale exhaust shop and custom made the IC pipes myself running the same course as per stock MA70. Here are the pictures, first the setup out of the car, the top, running through the guard and underneath.
- Bolt the fuel line up to the 5M fuel filter. Buy some new fuel hose for the return from the J tube to the return line back to the tank.
- Install new heater hoses to the heater core as per this diagram here.
- Install POD filter and connect any vacuum hoses/pipes that may be disconnected like the PCV, ISCV, BOV, PS vacuum.
- You can now find a spot to put the remote oil filter. I put mine on the inside RH fender near the AFM. This was just the easiest spot to put it and meant I didn’t have to make any holes through the inside fenders if I was to put it outside of the engine bay. Pictures here and here.
- Power steering cooler. If you like to go around corners really fast and even do a few track days its really recommended to add a proper cooler into the PS return line. The stock cooler ‘pipe’ just doesn’t quiet cool down the fluid enough and the stock system has been known to fail on the track. So run a line from the outlet at the rack through the radiator support panel where the stock PS cooler pipe used to be and run the lines up to the cooler mounted behind the grill. Then back through the hole and to the reservoir. And added benefit is that you have more volume in the system too.
- The following pictures best describe how I routed my lines for the oil cooler. I fed them through the same hole in the radiator support panel as the PS cooler lines run through. Then up to the cooler mounted behind the grill on the other side to the PS cooler and back through the hole and down to the bung in the sump.
- If you’re using a mechanical oil pressure gauge, run the line from the fitting in the block, then keeping it away from where the hot dump pipe will be, through the firewall to the gauge. Pictures in the Oil Pressure gauge section.
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