T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

It decided to snow about 50cm on Saturday and then sit at -20C for the weekend so progress on my car was slowed. With having 2 kids now I'm limited to working on the cars about 2 hrs a day on the weekend while the little ones sleep.

I ended up purchasing some new gutter guard called "Leaf It". Same design as the one from Canadian Tire but a couple $ more and it is s thicker plastic. In re did the front grill but this time in 2 separate pieced converging in the center which lead for a much stronger and flat grill. I also drilled holes and did the bottom mouth of the grill. I am actually pretty happy with the final product and like the look over the stock look.

I got around to deleting my a/c system - well, everything except for the evaporator. I'll get to that when I remove the dash this spring. I probably got rid of about 18lbs. Not much, but there is now much more space in front of the alternator which makes removal much easier as well as a wider radiator possible. I am a huge fan of uncluttered engine bays and so far mine is moving in the correct direction. I will end up selling my compressor down the road if anyone is interested just let me know. I ordered a Dayco belt from my local supplier, they don't stock non a/c belt for Corolla's so they had to order it in. I'll post up the part number when I take pictures later this week when it warms up. I was surprised how much the a/c hoses cluttered up the passenger side crash beam and all that space there.

with the bumper off and the a/c system out I noticed that there is an 8" wide gaping space behind the bumper that is normally just covered with a plastic piece to block it off. Essentially this is 8" of extra space to fit a much wider radiator as the stock one is very small. Oddly enough my 1st gen Vibe's radiator which also uses a 1.8L engine (1zz) has a 6-8" wider radiator from the factory. I will be taking some measurements tonight but it appears that the rad should fit fine with a bunch of cutting of the upper rad support. The Vibe's rad sits in front of the rad support on brackets whereas the Yaris' rad sits underneath the rad support beam.

It makes more sense to go wider with a rad than just thicker as you achieve more virgin surface area and improve cooling ability better than by going thicker. This is due to the second row receiving already used air that is warmer than ambient temps. The measurements are very close (Vibe rad about an inch shorter in height) so with some drilling of new hole in the support and the Vibe's upper and lower hoses it appears to be a good fit. The upper hose from the vibe actually appears to have better clearance with my CAI than the 1st gen rad. There are also cheap ebay dual core rads for almost the same amount of $ as the 1st gens.

I'll post back when I have more info as this would be good to know for those that want to upgrade their radiator down the road but so far everything seems like it would work. I'll post pictures in a couple days, it is just too darn cold right now to bother