3vzfe Tuning

Authored by: flyingbrick

Author: toysrme

Toysrme’s N/A 3vz-fe Tuning Guide (Applies to all N/A v6’s)

My 3vz-fe tuning guide & Ramblings!
(When I say US, or OUR referring to owners, I mean Transverse - ES/Windom/Camry)

The redline is 6850rpm, the fuel cut is 7100rpm (stock tachs are slow I have logged mine doing 7400rpm on my SMT6 while it was driving the ignition coil directly) USE IT!!! We are out of the powerband by 6850rpm, but you shift back into the meat of it.

Intake’s make no power. This CAN NOT be said enough. I have tested multiple versions, filtered & filterless of EVERY possible intake style. Stock, Stock + K&N, Stock - ISR, Stock + cheesehole, CAI’s, Dual CAI’s, Ram air, Dual Ram air, open air, AFM only, 3" pipe AFM open.
Even the uberest intake of them all. The AFM bypass. (That’s where you cut a 2" hole in front of the throttlebody to introduce a massive vacuum leak then tune it to run with a piggyback. As rpm rise, exponentially more air bypasses the AFM)
You can’t make, or loose 5hp at the flywheel off any intake. You will, however, sound like the biggest, PISSED OFF Porche ever made over 5000rpm. It’s incredible over 6000.

If you’re not pushing over 400bhp, you have NO REASON to go to the trouble of doing a MAP swap.
FYI Our big AFM is less restrictive than the same size denso MAF & 20x more reliable! (Common 1mz-fe problem - clean the MAF, common 3vz-fe AFM problem - none)

The ACIS (Accousticly Controlled Induction System) system, explained. (This applies to all car v6’s, and v8’s)
This is the Intake Manfiold

This is the Upper Intake Air Chamber (UIAC)

The thing to the side is the ACIS flap.
If you mean the top, say UIAC, if you mean the bottom, say the Intake Manfiold. Anyone mixing the two up is going to be SEVERELY owned by me if I see it. (I’m writing these so I don’t have to baby sit you guys & have to read)

The mixture has velocity going into the chamber, the valve suddenly closes, the mixture hits the valve. A pressure wave bounces back up the intake. If you time the pressure wave right, you can have a wave help push some mixture in as the intake valve opens. (I could fill a post about it, but that’s all you will ever need to know.)
The valve is open normally. Now Toyota says to “promote low end torque”. This is a load of crap & anyone supporting it has never dynoed back to back. it is left open to DECREASE power & DECREASE fuel consumption!!!

The valve closes for more high end horsepower. The ECU does this when:
the car is moving 6mph+, = or > 4000rpm, = or > than 50% Throttle sensor signal.
This is the more aggressive intake tone & power bump you feel between 4100 & 4400rpm.

Immediately after the throttlebody plate, the UIAC

In reality there are three things you can do:

Delete the vacuum canister, VSV, and hook the ACIS to the ports on top of the throttlebody. Technically, the port marked P opens it at any throttle above around 1000rpm, but some other 3vz-fe owners tell me theirs is sporadic. neither mine, nor Seans has had a problem.
OR
You can also hook the ACIS valve straight to the vacuum canister. As soon as the canister has vacuum -> flap opens & stays open!
JB weld, or braze the flap shut.
Cut the runners off your intake & weld an aluminum box + throttle body standoff on the runners. (Or JB weld. JB weld works well with aluminum. They expand at the same rate! You can fix engine heads with this after bad porting…)
The great Tony Leung’s work (Tony the Tiger - hugest 1mz-fe)

The best option #3, but that’s not feasible for most of us. if you are going to do it you have to have the throttlebody stoof off at a 28-33* angle & you have to have the chamber extend past the last runner an 1", 1.5" to ensure even flow.

Cat-back exhausts make NOTHING for US. They won’t make ANYTHING for you.
DO NOT run a 3vz-fe without a pre-muffler/resonator!!!
You will go from a stunningly beautiful engine sound, to a piece of raspy _____. It has been proven. Don’t try, I will hurt you.
Perosnally, nothing sounds better than a Borla pro XS, with a spiral flow resonator, no cat, + open intake. Combine the hardcore porsche intake sound with a hardcore porche (borla’s their OEM) exhaust. That & Borla is the best. I say so - it’s the law! I’ve heard about everything. That’s it.

A y-pipe makes us 10-15bhp, killing a good condition cat is worth 5bhp (& ours are a good size). They’ll make you the same stuff! This is the ONLY Intake/Exhaust mod you can make that will DO ANYTHING!!!

Skip headers. A SOHC 3vz-e is dyno proven to make 7whp with headers + intake. A DOHC 3vz-fe is going to make 10bhp off $1200 headers. For god’s sake skip headers…

Cams! Gotta love them!!! - NOT! The only dyno + camed mr2 made 220bhp off $1200 worth of custom cams, or regrind+shims. We make that with a y-pipe, free tuning + port & polish, at less than 50% the cost.

Why is this important? If you own a 3vz-fe yuo have to DIG the 3vz-fe… We’ve got attitude. We’ve got style. We’re not afraid of anything. We’re the badasses of the bunch. We’re above everyone else stock, but we back it all up. We’re the smallest niche, but the tightest group. We are the low rpm power kings. Nothing touches us, the other 3.0L’s don’t even get in the ballpark. To touch our stock 92-93 powerbands under 3000, you have to step up to '04 with a 3mz-fe & vvt-i. God forbid you do some modding. We dyno 100whp stock at 2000rpm! 95% peak torque at 2000rpm, 100% peak torque at 2500rpm! We DOUBLE MZ-FE’s power output most of the time under 3000rpm.
What 3vz-fe’s need is high end help. >5200rpm Porting+Polishing & y-pipe & free tuning ALL accomplish this while helping low/midrange somewhat.

Free tuning! Awwww, we don’t have coil-on plug, or wasted spark! Screw that. We have this nifty old-school thing called a distributor we can adjust base timing with! 3vz-fe’s are so highly resistant to detonation, you can run insane timings off 87. Enough timing to actually NOTE the DECREASE in power without pinging at high timings. Stock timing is the Toyota universal 10*btdc (Be sure to be in diagnostic mode I, short E1 & TE! in the diagnostic port) We find the best timings under FI between stock 10*btdc & 7*btdc. N/A 17*btdc. On 87 octane, with the light leaning described below. If you have a pinging problem try 14*btdc.
(Use a timing light, don’t be a dumbass. I did it one time without one & wondered why I was pinging slightly under a load. When checked with a light it was way far off the scale, around 40* base timing)

We also have the large body Air-Flow Meter housing! Like I said above, the air flow meter is good for well over 400bhp with a piggyback (actually you cuold use it for an indefinate amount of power). Dream about swapping it out when you’re afraid you’re going to break the crankshaft.
Our air-flow meter is less restrictive than the equivilant MAF, and about the same if the MAF has been stripped out - all while being less trouble & more reliable!
AFM’s have this neat trick! They have an internal bypass that controls A/F ratio at idle, and the flap has a spring on it to keep it closed & provide resistance. The spring has a cog to set resistance. by changing the spring tension, you change the output slightly during transistions, a lot during midrange, and some during high rpm/high load.
Here’s the AFM top silicon sliced & top pryed off.

AFM cog

How the cog works

Now Most people are thinking, Yes! I’ll add fuel!!! THIS IS SO INCORRECT BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN YOUR SLEEP.

The stock engine was setup very rich so that it wouldn’t get to the 1jz-ge, or 2jz-ge power range. it would be embarrasing for a Yamaha re-designed engine costing around $400 to make, in the “cheap” camry, or “Entry” ES 300 to be in the league of the Supra/Expencive Lexi. All 3vz-fe’s are identicle (Non north american market has no EGR) The diference in 185/189 and 200/204 is ECU tuning.
If you are N/A, and have NOT ported & polished the engine & asured yourself you’re pushing 220bhp - YOU SHOULD NOT ADD FUEL. You can’t support it.

Stock, most run llow 13’s, a few have been caught into the 12’s… That’s far too rich N/A without a reason to run that rich (part of the reason for our insane amount of detonation resistance, but not all of it)

warning* MARK THE G-DAMNED STARTING POINT. I AM TIRED of people whining about letting the cog slip & spin who knows how many times. Something sharp, or a sharpie. Just mark the damned thing so the only whining about it is me saying to do it!

Idle bypas screw *warning* ADJUST AT RISK. They are highly sensative. Poke a hole after the AFM the size of a BB, idle is terrible. That’s effectively what you’re doing. The bypass scre wis under an aluminum plug that can be drilled out. I was in a hurry just to demonstrate the screw on a forum & pushed too hard on my bit. Drilled a tiny bit of the screw head out. So don’t be in a hurry!

Bypass front (Bottom right, Intake Air Temperature is the thing hanging down)

Bypass rear (left)

An interesting note about the AFM. I was dared to blow through an AFM with a turbo & see if it worked. Yes… It works acceptably. You CAN NOT inject a fluid BEFORE the AFM. It will short out - causing a CEL (no limp mode) until the IAT drys out.

You should be able to bring a stock 92-93’s 185/189 up to around 195/200 from free timing+AFM.

warning* The 3vz-fe AFM is NOT a normal part that can easily be swapped out!!!

1) Our AFM works on a backwards scale! Nothing prduces about 4.5v, idling 4-4.2v, from there it drops to about 1, to 1.5v stock.
That means you can’t swap to a MAF, or other AFM without completely remapping via a piggyback - which is a pain in the butt.
2) You swap, you get to rip out the IAT sensor if you want that functionality. it’s been done but good luck!
3) Notice the little arm of the AFM… That turns the fuel pump on in an ES300/Camry

A neat thing about AFM’s… Fuel system is a joke to test. Turn the key to ON, push the flap open. The fuel pump kicks on & the injectors start squiring - even tho the engine is not turning!

Piggybacks! The best thing out are SMT’s from perfect power. SMT-6 owns e-manage, SMT-7 schools an emanage gold. They come ready to go - no crap to buy separate, everything is ready. They require a little more finesse, but are capable of billionzes of better things.

Porting & Polishing. This is the single biggest mod you can do N/A. 25-30bhp is the norm. Major spots to tell your porter to hit:
short side radious
bowl
unshroud valves
good valve job 3 angle, or better
Port matching is dumb (Doesn’t do anything but look good)

Lastly, to close out porting - nobody cares how many CFM, or the velocity you have on your port job. It doesn’t mean anything. The machines to check it work in a completely way than your engine does, while half the time working backwards.
(No… I’m not debating it, I’m saying it. Before you start to debate it, stop typing. You not only can’t win, but unless you’ve actually used the flow machine, you wouldn’t *actually* know would you!?)

In conclusion:
Free Tuning = should always be done.
Intake = nothing but sound + bling
Exhaust = nothing but sound + bling, but muffler only sounds like ***
Y-pipe/Merge = very important to mid/peak power
Cat = good thing to get rid of
Headers = Useless & horribly expensive
Cams = Useless to fundamental 3vz-fe philosphy & horribly expensive
Advanced Piggyback = great investment
Porting & Polishing = a bar none must have at some point for *any* setup

That’s it N/A. There’s no reason to change the rods, or go high compression pistons when you can turbo a 3vz-fe for under $500 & make more power in a better powerband with less hassle.
I know, my first setup (Not counting the cheap wire feed welder) was a round about cost of $250.(turbo on y-pipe, oil return from spare fuel pump) (I installed my smt a year earlier)
You guys, having room, have no reason not to go turbo, which will be discussed later.

Where this doesn’t apply:
2vz-fe headers give huge gains. Their y-pipe is also very funny - a crossover pipe that could easily be turboed in theory. A y-pipe would also give a great gain
3vz-e’s are weaker parts (1mz-fe levels at most) , and can be prone to pinging. They have huge gains from porting & polishing. Low maximum rpm range - around 5500rpm. Valve springs are needed for higher rpm use, cams are helpful.
Timing on 1mz-fe’s is not easily controlled. The cam sensor is notoriously hard to pick-up.
5vz-fe’s get good gains from headers, y-pipe, advanced tuning, but have low rpm ranges - around 5500rpm. Valve springs are needed for higher rpm use cams are helpful.