Swapping in a Gen 4 Prius' 2ZR Engine into the Prius v

Just about wrapped up. Should have it running tomorrow, fingers crossed.

One last question. There's a black nipple on the front left of the valve cover. Haven't seen anyone address that. Do we just leave it be? Or should that be connected to something?

 

If these were for sale a week ago, I definitely would have bought one from you.

 

Might be what the ornamental plastic engine cover pushes onto?

 

I think Mendel is right again!

 

Could be! I just noticed it while cleaning up tonight and it looked like a vent of some kind. Watched the videos and Raging even had his hand on it while testing it out, so that makes sense. Crisis averted.

 

I handle the “tough” questions.

 

Well, good news very bad news. . Engine is running, but there appears to be a larger issue that might have been the actual issue this entire time.

There's a pretty violent rattling happening when the engine fires up, same as I was getting before starting this project. It's constant though and appears to be coming from the transmission area, not the engine. Crawling underneath while it's running it definitely sounds like it's way over by the drivers front wheel. With the engine running, adding any throttle in neutral almost kills the engine for a second or two before it picks up some rpms. But even then the rattle is there. Starting to think i just upgraded a working engine and never fixed what was broken, which probably requires pulling the engine. Ughh. Any thoughts?

Guess at this point I should actually create a new thread.

Last update as I don't want to create more posts in this engine replacement thread. After some additional researching, I believe my damper is bad. The noise is almost completely gone when switching to Drive. Returning to Park brings it right back. It would also explain the strange loss of power I was experiencing a few weeks back. At least this is my best theory atm. Watched a yt video where a guy demonstrates what happens as the springs wear and I think that's my issue. Just wish I looked into this as now I need to drain and pull the engine again to replace a part I actually swapped.

 

Failure of the damper between engine and transaxle? There's a plastic access panel at 6 o'clock: if you pry that out you might be able to see spring bits or whatever.

 

Yes, damper, that's what I believe it to be. Though there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of info on the internet about this, so I could be mistaken. Just don't know what else it could be. Sounds like it's definitely something in the transmission portion though, and not sure Toyota/Lexus will even look at this now with a gen 4 engine installed, so in a bit of a bind at this point. A new damper is about $700, almost what I paid for the entire engine, so have to go used. If I know that's the fix, I'll just suck it up and pull the engine again this week. Just don't want to drop $150 on a used damper, pull the engine and still be in the same position. But just popped that cover off and you can only see the back side of the flywheel. Noise is 100% tied to being in gear or in park though.

 

You don't see much, but depending on how gronkled it is, if you reach in and down you may be able to retrieve some spring bits.

 

Ah, I'll reach in and check, but considering I just swapped the damper onto the gen 4 engine, I'm not expecting to find anything as it looked fine during the swap. I didn't actually test the springs though as it just wasn't even a thought at the time.

Is there anything else I should be considering? Or is this damper my best bet?

 

Good point.

 

When the engine is misfiring badly, you will think the sound is coming from the transmission (because it is). So even if you think the sound is coming from the transmission, there's still the possibility of engine misfiring to be ruled out.

 

Totally agree and looking at all possible causes before pulling the engine. With the swap I also kept the gen4 stuff, so swapped plugs, coil packs and injectors, so really that only leaves wiring in my head. Is the easiest way to test for misfire to just pull one coil pack connector at a time and fire the engine up? The only codes that were shown were the 4 permanently stored misfire codes that were thrown by the old engine. My Carista app won't clear these for some reason, but I'm assuming it should be quite obvious if there's a change in engine performance.

 

Sounds like the same issue I had several times before. Check the fuel injector plugs - one of the wires might have been disconnected.

I believe the from age and heat the wire becomes brittle which then separates. Cylinder #1 was the cause both times

 

Ok. I think I'm going to take this to the local mechanic. I've checked every wire and had it running for about 30 minutes in the garage just now. Yes, with doors open. The violence seemed to settle down as it warmed up a little, but it's still there and a problem. What I'm now noticing though is a rough idle/surging. With a little throttle bringing up the rpms it smooths out, but is never 100% smooth. I did do a quick throttle body swap and that didn't help at all. I'm now wondering if there's a chance my cat could be bad as I'm smelling some egg smell. Could that be creating backpressure? No idea anymore, but pretty sure I didn't need to swap engines. lol

 

Oh, I think I just fixed it! Used the old school technique of throwing it in Sport mode and literally driving the crap out of it for 20 minutes as hard as possible. Right now it's purring along nice and quiet, no surging, hesitation or clanking. Going to wait 3 hours until she's back to 30 degrees and test it out cold. Can only assume something either on the fuel or egr/exhaust side needed to be forced out. What a huge relief this would be.

45 minute test drive completed and it's perfect so far. One final test in the am after a full night in freezing weather should be all that's needed.

 

I had major rattling as well. Was on this forum asking for help as I couldn’t figure it out. Car had numerous codes. Ended up taking it to a dealer after I swapped plugs, fuel injectors, coil packs and installed a Maxx volts charger. Ended up being a cut wire that was causing a misfire. Something to think about.

 

This swap has been plaguing me with issues. Fix something then something else goes wrong. Couple things are going on now. Constantly getting a temp light so I had Toyota bleed my system and it’s still coming on. Also have the yellow car with exclamation symbol coming up.

P0AA6 Hybrid Battery voltage system isolation fault
Sub Code 526


P148F Engine coolant pump over revolution
I’m guessing that could be related to air in the lines?

Cruise control isn’t working and I notice that the Energy monitor doesn’t show where the power is going but the battery symbol shows the charge going up and down depending on its state.

I could use some help guys.

 

I'm no expert, which should be painfully obvious. But here's the things I've seen mentioned regarding cooling.

Did you use the Gen 4 water pump? Gen 3 does not work properly I believe.

Did you open the thermostat housing? If so, did you place the jiggle pin at the top? If not, the system doesn't function correctly.

Did you lift the overflow tank to bleed the system? And did you keep the main line from the tank to the t-stat at a constant downward pitch? Pretty sure I saw it mentioned that that line should not go down and up.

I don't know if this helped, but i ran my hose through the oem hose clips in the front and side of my airbox, then teed off to the throttle body up at the airbox so I have a straight run down to the throttle body.

I didn't have a cooling issue during my 45 minute test drive, but still early days for me. Just a few things I can think of to chip in here. Have no help for the battery issue though.