Toyota 3ZZ/4ZZ Tuning

"All you need to know about performance tuning the Toyota 3ZZ/4ZZ engine!"

The Toyota 3ZZ/4ZZ are popular tuning projects and with a few sensible performance upgrades like a remap, turbo kits and camshafts you will dramatically enhance your driving pleasure.

TorqueCars will review and look at 3ZZ/4ZZ tuning and provide tips on the premier modifications.

History, Power & Specs of the Engine

3ZZ-FE

3ZZ-FE 1.6 L (1,598 cc)

• Toyota Corolla Europe & Middle East, 109 hp
• Toyota Corolla Altis (Asian, 110 hp
• Toyota Corolla RunX 160 (South African, 108 hp @ 6000 and 146 Nm @ 4400)
• Toyota Corolla XLi Brazil, 110 hp
• Toyota Avensis Europe, 109 hp (

4ZZ-FE

4ZZ-FE is a 1.3 L 1,398 cc

• Toyota Corolla
• Toyota Auris
• Toyota RunX 140

Tuning the Toyota 3ZZ/4ZZ and best 3ZZ/4ZZ performance parts.

Best 3ZZ/4ZZ mods

When talking about the best greatest for your 3ZZ/4ZZ engine, we are going to concentrate on the parts that give the best power gain for you money.

Altering your 3ZZ/4ZZ cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the bhp accordingly.

Fast road cams tend to push up the bhp and torque across the rpm band, you could drop a little low down torque but higher rpm power will improve.

Competition cams, push up the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

In a typical daily driver must carefully try to match your bhp range to your typical driving style.

I'd be shocked if you have ever thought or claimed that a 3ZZ/4ZZ Race camshaft is a pleasure to live with when on the daily commute, because the lumpy idle will make the car prone to stall and smooth driving at low rpm becomes impossible. If you are developing a track car this doesn't matter as you are in the high end of your RPM range anyway and that is where you want the power to be.

Some 3ZZ/4ZZ engines respond better to more aggressive cam durations so view each engine as unique.

The engine timing and fuelling also will make differences on the torque gains you'll make.

Extending exhaust or intake durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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Best Engine Mods for your car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: drilled & smoothed airbox, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Fast road camshaft, Intake manifolds, Panel air filters, Sports exhaust header/manifold.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: high flow fuel injectors, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Fast road cam, induction kit.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Twin charging conversions, Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Competition cam, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

ECU mapping helps release the full potential of all the tuning mods you've fitted to your 3ZZ/4ZZ.

(In some cases, as the factory ECU is locked flashing is not an option, so an aftermarket ECU is the route to take, and many of these will outperform factory ECU's but make sure it has knock protection and that you get it setup properly.)

It will usually give you around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but the end result often vary depending on the tuning mods you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

Pulling air and fuel into the 3ZZ/4ZZ engine is the main goal to any engine upgrade project.

The intake plenum flow the air from the filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

Design and rate of flow of the Intake manifolds can make a large effect on to fuel atomisation on the 3ZZ/4ZZ.

I usually find intake manifold are in dire need of motorsport parts, although a few manufacturers provide reasonably well designed intake manifold.

Larger 3ZZ/4ZZ valves, carrying out 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase bhp and torque, & importantly will allow you to get raising the bhp and torque increase on other mods.

Turbo upgrades

NA (naturally aspirated) engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your 3ZZ/4ZZ

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If your motor is fitted with a turbocharger parts are giving better power gains and we find turbo engines are made using uprated components.

There are weak spots for every engine, with some being incredibly solid and some only able to handle stock power

We recommend you find these limitations and install better pistons and crank to cope with the power.

It's not unheard of people spending a fortune on turbo charger upgrades on the 3ZZ/4ZZ only to have the engine explode when it's used in anger.

Big turbo units often experience low end lag, and smaller turbo units spool up really quickly but don't have the top end engines power gains.

Thanks to progress the selection of turbo chargers is always moving on and we now see variable vane turbo chargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and push these at differently profiled vanes in the turbocharger. They also boost the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is common that there is a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAF on the 3ZZ/4ZZ when considerably more air is being drawn into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped performance at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although more challenging to install. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

Don't forget to boost the fuel system when you are increasing the bhp - it makes the car more thirsty. It is important to over specify your injectors flow rate.

The accepted safe increase is to add another 20% when specifying an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and allows a bit of spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

All the following flywheel power targets will assume an injector duty cycle of 80% and a base of 58psi of fuel pressure at idle.

4 Cylinder turbocharged engines

• 58 PSI 340cc/min 200hp
• 58 PSI 511cc/min 300hp

4 Cylinder NA (naturally aspirated) engines

• 58 PSI 285cc/min 200hp
• 58 PSI 426cc/min 300hp

4 Cylinder supercharged engines

• 58 PSI 312cc/min 200hp
• 58 PSI 468cc/min 300hp

Exhaust

You only need to improve your exhaust if the existing exhaust is creating a flow problem.

On most factory exhausts you'll see your flow rate is good even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts equal out the flow of air through the engine.

But if your exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of your flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Usual exhaust restrictions are traced to the catalyst installed, so adding a better flowing performance catalyst removes the restriction. We note that performance cats perform similarly to decats and have the added benefit of keeping your car street legal, as decats or catalyst removal is illegal in most territories for road going cars.

Weak spots, Issues & problem areas on the 3ZZ/4ZZ

The 3ZZ/4ZZ engines are generally reliable and solid units, as long as you follow the manufacturers service schedules, and use a good quality oil to ensure longevity. Few problems should happen as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will sap power or create flat spots, this is a larger issue on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon build up.

Some of our members have had issues with flat spots or glitches after applying mods and upgrades or tuning, this is not usually related to this engines design, so instead see our article on diagnosing flat spots and problems after tuning which should help you get the bottom of this issue.

Regular oil changes are vital on the 3ZZ/4ZZ, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your 3ZZ/4ZZ engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our 3ZZ/4ZZ owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which tuning parts work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these 3ZZ/4ZZ tuning guides which get regular updates and revisions.

This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Toyota. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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