98 Tercel with 4e Engine and auto transmission

T

Tercelman1799

Fresh Recruit
Hey everyone,

I recently joined the forum because I am interested in changing my tercel to manual and eventually swapping out the engine for, ideally, a built 5e-fte or if not then a 4efte. I wanted to know if i could possibly slap on a 5 fwd gearbox on my car as is because as of right now with the automatic transmission, it's three gears as you would know.
Last thing is, if i can slap on a 5 fwd gearbox, which one should I go with? I have been trying to locate the actual 'name' of the box but i just find gearboxes labelled as ' 5 fwd geabrbox for 5e' so I am not sure if I could use those or not.
Ideally the gearbox that i throw on now would work well for the 5e-fte as well but if not, that's fine, I'll swap it again when I get the engine.

Thanks in advance for any help given.
 
G

gorganl2000

Lifer
yeah, i did the conversion a while back...that link that Jay provided is very comprehensive with details and pictures.
i'd chip in if necessary
since you plant to run a turbo 5efte eventually, i'd suggest a turbo starlet/ep82 or glanza/ep91 gearbox if you can find one in decent shape....these are c52 and c56 series.... (not to be confused with c52/56 gearboxes from toyota levin, which requires a bellhousing swap and 3 holes drilled/tapped to fit a bracket in order to work,,, but again these g/boxes have shorter ratios due to a 4.3 final drive)

the stock tercel and n/a starlet 4e/5e (possibly 3e) gearboxes will work, but they have different ratios and final drives and some claim they don't handle bigger power well, however, i've seen many people run them successfully over the years, just treat them well....even a ragged turbo ep82/ep91 box would give issues at some point
just try to get a 5 speed box, as the 4 speed tends to run out of puff fairly quickly, even on the n/a cars
 
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