AE101 20 Valve Levin - What to look for.

[MikeMan]

Hi all

I am looking at a 1991 AE101 Superstrut car later today, anything I should specificaly look at that is a weak area on the cars?

[GTCRSHR]

just from the suspention side of things or the car in general ?

Creaking from the suspention for the superstrut

[slighty_sykotic]

Smoke
4 wheels
superstrut stuffed, knocking etc
water and oil is in the correct places
lights working?

Search man... Been covered alot.

But its a 16 year old car, its going to be sick. Superstrut will be $&#$% out if it hasnt been replaced, and if its been replaced with cheap shit, it will be on the way out again.

If its got a warrent, rego, 4 good tyres, superstrut hasnt fallen apart yet, and you can shift gears without leaving a trail of syncros then you are good to go

--Sykotic

[rollas22]

Don't Pay crazy $ for one.... They worth sweet $#*K all

Electrics, syncros, cambelt, general maintence, ABS works...

[EVL20V]

take it for a huss and go down some hills to check for smoke etc

[solitaire]

If its got a warrent, rego, 4 good tyres, superstrut hasnt fallen apart yet, and you can shift gears without leaving a trail of syncros then you are good to go

--Sykotic

Love it

[sergei]

Also if it is a prefacelift, watch out for exsesive black smoke under load and rough idle. Many of them suffer from "bad injectors".
Start it up when cold and listen for how long bottom end knocks. If it is too long, it means it is worn out pretty badly.

[TRD_ZERO]

[quote="sergei"]Also if it is a prefacelift, watch out for exsesive black smoke under load and rough idle. Many of them suffer from "bad injectors".
quote]

Yeah my ae111 does that the idle is a little rough and get alot of black smoke under load. Is this from bad injectors?

[sergei]

From my experience (with lots of AE101/cars fitted with silver/black tops) basically almost all pre 1993 suffer from bad injectors, it is design flaw, if you compare prefacelift injectors to facelift or black top there is difference between gaps in the injector cap (spacing is different) this messes up the spray pattern thus no spraying properly it just pours fuel in. The symptoms are (usually very severe when thermostat jams open):
Running rough on idle, random stalls. Random miss fires.
black smoke under medium high load, nailing it results in smoke screen. chronic sooty bumper.
No torque in midrange.
Poor performance.
Black spark plug tips.
Oxygen sensor dead, new one dies after short while.

Only Levins/Trueno/Corollas pre 1993 suffer from this, and preface lift manifold. This flaw gives bad name to 20v. Most of the owners/mechanics are not aware with the problem. I personally rebuilt an engine because of that (bore wash) and did not know it was injectors that cause the bore wash in first place ruined that engine. When I got new engine, it was out of face lift car. When I swapped engines over I used my old manifold + injectors, which again resulted in symptoms above, to try and fix that problem I swapped many things (resulted in 2 dead oxygen sensors, which I revived later), I installed adjustable pressure regulator, when the obvious hit me:
if I increase fuel pressure by 30% it would smoke like a chimney!!! if I decrease pressure by 30% it would stop smoking but run very funny.

Then my friend which had also 20v, which recently spent over $1000 on trying to fix his bad miss fire and smoking problem hinted me that at the end he swapped a few injector sets until it rectified problem (all other ones were pre-facelift).

Since I had facelift manifold with injectors, I decided to swap them (just injectors at that stage) and see if it makes the difference... After I swapped injectors, even if I would increase the fuel pressure by 50% it would not smoke! When I took it to test drive, the car actually had torque where it never had before and it actually was more responsive. Please note I was not aware at that stage between facelift and pre-facelift difference in injectors or manifolds. I also had another manifold with injectors (facelift) and 2 sets of pre-facelift injectors (junk yard missions) again at that stage I was not aware of the difference. So I have tried all other sets and what I noticed that only 2 sets would work fine. So I pulled them out and looked at them, first thing that I have noticed is the spacing between sprayer holes was significantly different (about 1mm).
So I made mental note about that (I did not concluded that the good ones were facelift injectors - again I was not aware of the difference at that time). Then my other mate buys AE101 (this was in 2000 when 20v was cool) and he has exactly same problem, while my mate on marino doesn't.
I would concluded that Marino injectors are good ones, if not for my good set coming from a Levin. So after I did research and found that there is a difference in manifold design I concluded that there was also difference in injectors (which Warwick can confirm, unless toyota covered it up). Every single smoking one happened to be a pre-facelift 20v (AE101), so far I have swapped injectors on about 7-10 cars. To be sure I order /tell people to get black top ones, as if you don't have a sample of a dud one, there is really no way to tell unless measure gap between holes and no wrecker would do that. If I tell mechanics that it is injectors fault, (which I did for my mates levin) they laught, then when they swap every single bit of EFI (AFM, TPS, sensors, fuel pump regulator, ECU) then they order injectors, guess what injectors? OUT OF SAME YEAR!!! so they are back to square one. At that point I told my mate - I can fix this for under $200 all up (black top injectors are about $150 from wreckers, and rest for O-rings). After swapping injectors, the car runs perfectly.

[Mr Revhead]

ae101 = good car.


now, as for injectors.....
toyota list the same p/n for all ae101 4ages.
and.... all blacktops.....
injectors are made by denso, so maybe the changes are internal at denso and nothing to do with toyota.

[Mr Revhead]

oh and mine used to smoke like a mofo. untill i changed the ECU to a SARD one.

[sergei]

Maybe we should set up thread in technical area to show difference between injectors and effect of it. I can use my car to demonstrate (maybe vid?).

[RomanV]

Hey Sergei, I've got a lot of silvertop injectors here, from both facelift and non facelift manifolds.

I'll have a look when I get home, you might be on to something here!

Hi all

I am looking at a 1991 AE101 Superstrut car later today,

Get a 4.... Aaahh, as you were!

[TRD_ZERO]

SO do u have any reccomendations on what i should maybe do with mine as it idels rough and pours big black smoke from medium to heavy load. Ae111

[sergei]

Check the codes, timing, plugs etc.
Start with something simple first.

[RevolutionStarlet89]

Check the codes, timing, plugs etc.
Start with something simple first.

Yeh start simple, like an engine, four wheels etc... just drive it, take it for a hoon see if it blows any smoke, have look under the hood and see if the engine is relativly clean looking, look in the wheel well for water, when your driving listen out for funny noises. Get a vir report aswell, they're handy to have before you go to look at anything, tells you if the k's are all good if they'res money owing on it or of intrest to the police.

Dont get caught up with all the real technical sh*t or you'll be forever looking for a car that could be just as reliable as the one your going to look at.

Good luck with the car hunting

[rollaholic]

i think sergei was responding to TRD_ZERO with that comment

[RevolutionStarlet89]

ahahaha my bad, too shae good sir