Tier 3 Engine Swaps: A Whole Different Skill Set and Toolset Required

When it comes to engine swaps, there are different tiers of complexity, each requiring a unique set of skills and tools. Tier 3 swaps fall into this category, and while they can be very cool, the outcome is not always guaranteed without proper planning and execution.

Can You Swap an Engine Without a Kit?

While it's technically possible to swap an engine into a car that it doesn't belong in, it will require a significant amount of work. The process involves fabricating custom bracketry, mounts, intake piping, and other components to ensure a smooth and reliable installation.

Tier 4 Swaps: The Sema Swap

Tier 4 swaps are considered the most extreme engine swaps, where nothing is off-the-shelf or pre-built. This tier is reserved for the craziest custom swaps out there. An example of this can be seen in the FD RX-7 engine swap, which involves fabricating custom tubular suspension, transmission mounts, diff mount, radiator, intercooler, and dual oil coolers.

The FD RX-7: A Great Candidate for Engine Swaps

The FD RX-7 is a great candidate for engine swaps due to its large engine bay size. However, the swap requires extensive fabrication work, including custom bracketry, mounts, intake piping, and other components.

Skills and Tools Required for Tier 4 Swaps

For tier 4 swaps, you'll need advanced skills and tools, including a mig and tig welder, pipe bender, and other specialized equipment. This can be a significant investment, with costs ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 or more.

Half Shafts: A Critical Component in Engine Swaps

When moving the engine forward to clear a crossmember or avoid hitting the firewall, it's essential to maintain level and even half shafts. This ensures that the u-joints and axles don't work extra hard, which can reduce their lifespan.

Cost and Time Requirements for Tier 4 Swaps

Tier 4 swaps can be extremely costly, with prices ranging from $10,000 to $1 million or more. They also require a significant amount of time, effort, and dedication, often taking years to complete.

Why Tier 4 Swaps are the Hardest and Most Time-Consuming

While tier 4 swaps may be the coolest, they're also the hardest and most time-consuming. The process involves extensive fabrication work, which can take months or even years to complete.

Rebuilding an RB25: A More Manageable Project

For those who want to experience a successful engine swap without the stress of tier 4 swaps, rebuilding an RB25 in an S14 is a more manageable project.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmy s14 blew its motor all right that's enough that's enough i could just rebuild my current engine or i could do an engine swap but is an engine swap something you can do at home should you diy or should you don't last night i had a dream i was on this ranch there are horses everywhere not just regular horses big beautiful sturdy buff horses that place it's called buff horse ranch now unfortunately that was just a dream but these shirts we made are 100 real and 100 cotton available now at donutmedia.com so if you don't already know this nissan 240sx is mine and he used to have a sweet rb25 det straight six turbo engine and well now it doesn't it's in pieces on a shelf over there i've been planning on rebuilding the rb25 and sticking it back in but since this old girl's been sitting so long well i've gotten to thinking about what other engines i could possibly put in here some swaps could be easy like an sr20 some could be really hard like a ferrari swap and if you're thinking of doing a swap it might be tough to tell which engines are gonna be harder than others to get into your car so today i'm gonna break down engine swaps into four tiers four levels of difficulty so you know which tier fits in your budget time frame and most important skill set now before we go talking about what makes engine swaps different we've got to talk about what makes them the same what they have in common for every engine swap you're gonna be pulling an engine out and putting an engine in which means the first thing you're gonna want is an engine crane like so engines are heavy most engines lift out via the hood so getting it out without damaging anything like your back isn't just a matter of lifting with your knees okay oh god don't be a hero use a crane obviously you're gonna need a jack jack stands you're also gonna be dealing with a lot of fluids oil coolant transmission fluid tears probably it's okay it's just an engine so you'll need stuff for catching and cleaning all that stuff the things i've mentioned so far gonna cost you probably easily 500 bucks and we haven't even talked about buying an engine yet so let's talk about what kind of swap you might be doing tier one the easiest tier this is what we like to call the same swap this is when you're taking out an old engine and just replacing it with one that's exactly like it so either your engine is thrashed or just isn't worth rebuilding or like with some classic muscle cars somebody just makes a crate motor that's a direct replacement that you can get for cheaply enough to make it worthwhile in general i would say that swapping a motor is actually way easier than doing an engine rebuild you don't have to have as many specific tools you don't have to do as many little fiddly things that can ruin the whole job you just gotta get the big thing out and put the big thing back in everything should match up exactly with what you took out you can move all your accessories over to the new engine from your old engine and then just put it back in the only hard part about this swap is finding the exact engine you need and i mean the exact engine you need our writer joe weber you may know him from the pass gas podcast hey joe hey man well he recently had a shop get a new block for his 3vz powered 4runner and it turned out the 3vz block they ordered had different mounting points they called me up and told me the engine mounts don't line up they had accidentally put the 3vz short block from a camry oh my god so the same engine but it doesn't fit unless you fab up some brackets what a pain so for time i'd say this tier takes a week at max even for a beginner and for tools fluids maintenance and the actual engine you're likely to be about i don't know two to three thousand dollars out of pocket but as far as effort this is as easy as swaps get it really couldn't be easier that's tier one now on to tier two tier two is full of what i like to call the similar swaps the cousin swaps these are where you swap an engine in that's really close to what came in your car and so you only need a few things to make it work either it's an engine that came in your car in a different market or it's a newer version of the same engine when we swapped james's corolla that was a tier 2 swap the 20 valve 4a ge never came in the 86 but the block is almost identical and has all the same mounting points as the 16 valve so fit really easy a lot of jdm swaps fit into that category this is brian this is his sc300 and it's got a 2j under the hood this would have originally had the non-turbo 2j right that's correct 2jz gte was the most logical choice for this chassis it's a direct drop in everything from a superb drops right in radiator transmission how much time did it take just the motor with the stock twins everything running i think it took about a month and a half give or take if the engines are so similar then what makes tier two swaps different from tier one well it's not so much the engines and more the everything else things like intake piping exhaust piping vacuum lines placement of stuff might need to be rerouted or reimagined to match your new engine now your battery's in the wrong place being obstructed by the alternator and you got to put the battery somewhere else one issue i had originally was power steering i had to rewire some of it just make sure that evo unit on the power steering actually works properly if your swap is really a tier 2 though it's almost guaranteed that someone makes a bracket or a piece or has the info you need to solve the specific problem you're dealing with what would you say the hardest part of this whole swap was waiting for parts to arrive totally understand the struggle of waiting on parts but if that's the hardest time that you had with this then i think you did all right i'm sure this thing rips it looks like you track it a lot which is also very cool to see you think we could hear it yeah sure now for tier two swaps the cost is going to be pretty similar to tier one swaps often a little bit more though because with tier two swaps you're going after a better engine but your mileage may vary there's so many platforms so many engines out there that these can go either way relatively cheap or pretty dang expensive so tier two can be pretty cool while definitely still being doable at home but what happens if we step it up to tier three tier three is reserved for the kit swaps these are the engine swaps that were once crazy once unthinkable even but enough people have done them now that there are kits and a whole catalog of aftermarket parts to help you finish your build in the 90s putting a v8 in a miata was a pipe dream reserved for the most skilled fabricators but now there's companies that sell pre-made subframes oil pans cooling systems that all fit onto a v8 to go into a miata it's awesome well what the heck is this uh it started as an s14 yeah it looks sort of familiar i think it classifies as a tier three swap this is adam our shop manager you've seen him before on the channel and this is his freaking drift car man and it's sick it actually started with just a basic ls2 but as the time progressed we started putting a supercharger on it more power means more power going to the rear wheels through the drivetrain the power is going to find the weak point and it's going to start tearing you're going to break it if you're looking at a swap at this level chances are you're talking about making more power than the car was designed to handle which means that the parts that you aren't swapping are going to be much more stressed so actually we have to beef up every single suspension part and rubber bushing we've got solid motor mounts transmission mount differential and the subframe itself you get any vibrations just good vibrations tier three is a very cool tier in my opinion it opens a lot of doors for a lot of cool engines and a lot of chassis they don't belong in but it can also be tricky because i think it's easy to look and see oh they've got a swap kit for my car but kits at this level assume a certain degree of skill and ability probably need to do some welding some cutting maybe a little bit of clearancing or frame notching and there's a lot more to making the car run and run reliably than bolting it in place you know you've got to still figure out ecu wiring and all sorts of little odds and ends that add up very quickly so with the cost of the engine transmission and the swap kit you're probably easily already five thousand dollars in the hole and then you're gonna find out that you gotta spend another two three four five thousand dollars on odds and ends and accessories to get the thing running like you want it to this is definitely a little bit more time-consuming of a swap depending on how much planning you do these can go very smoothly but if it's your first time you'll probably run into a few hiccups so i would say this could take anywhere from two weeks to two months realistically but it is something i think can be done at home these will take a little bit more effort certainly from your brain but in terms of the actual work very similar to a tier two swap but you may find yourself needing to do some fabrication on tier 3 which is a whole other skill set and also requires tools that you may or may not have but like i said tier 3 is a very cool swap tier so the outcome in my opinion for a tier 3 swap can be very cool let's say you don't have a kit could you still swap an engine into a car that it doesn't belong in well yeah but it's going to be a lot of work tier 4 is what we call the sema swap this is reserved for the craziest custom swaps out there nothing in this category is off the shelf or pre-built all right here we've got will who brought in his fdrx7 to help us show off an example of a tier 4 engine swap now the fd is a great candidate for engine swaps it's got a pretty big engine bay and they're gorgeous cars basically the swap is a 1j the creation and then the fabrication all this started maybe four years ago custom tubular suffering the transmission mounts custom the diff mouse custom the radar the intercooler the dual oil coolers it's awesome yeah and it looks like you did a really nice job and it looks like a reliable swap the motor everything the trans is great i've blown everything around it the turbo's already dying again but yeah there's another one that's over here tomorrow nice i guess that's playing the game exactly so first off for a tier four swap you're gonna need the skills and tools to fabricate bracketry mounts intake piping all sorts of odds and ends that you run into along the way that means you're gonna need a mig and probably a tig welder a pipe bender i mean you could very easily spend five to ten thousand dollars just on tools and not even have spent any money on the engine yet for front wheel drive cars the half shafts should come off the transmission into the wheel bearings as level and even as possible if you move the engine forward to clear a cross member or to not hit the firewall that means the u-joints and the axles are going to be working extra hard and they're going to live a lot less long and if other parts or just the engine bay itself is in the way they're gonna need to move all right well as much as i love you know talking about cars and engine swaps and stuff uh i'd kind of like to hear this thing now tier four swaps are inarguably some of the coolest swaps in the world but good lord are they hard i've never done a tier four swap and i don't know when i will it's a lot of work any way you look at it for cost on a tier four swap it can be anywhere from ten thousand dollars to a million dollars you can literally spend as much as you want on a tier four swap you're probably gonna have to pay a divorce lawyer and if you don't have a prenup uh half your money's gone anyway so honestly these can get hard time consuming and life-consuming really or they end up just sitting in a corner in your garage for the rest of your life on time there's no end there's literally no end to how much time they can take tier 4 swaps are probably some of the most abandoned swaps out there so while tier 4 swaps may be the coolest they're also the hardest far and away the hardest and most time consuming now for me and this here s14 i think i'm gonna stick to rebuilding the rb25 it's i've always wanted an s14 with an rb in it and dang it i had one for a minute till it blew up but i think i can rebuild the engine and i think it'll be a good challenge and might make for some good content but all this engine swap talk has me thinking maybe we should swap the engine on another car of ours or maybe two of them thank you guys so much for watching this episode i hope you had a good time i hope you learned a thing or two follow all the guys that came through on their instagrams that we mentioned earlier they'll be on the screen here too follow me on instagram zackjob follow donut donutmedia but before you go don't forget to like this video and subscribe to the channel and we'll see you guys later youmy s14 blew its motor all right that's enough that's enough i could just rebuild my current engine or i could do an engine swap but is an engine swap something you can do at home should you diy or should you don't last night i had a dream i was on this ranch there are horses everywhere not just regular horses big beautiful sturdy buff horses that place it's called buff horse ranch now unfortunately that was just a dream but these shirts we made are 100 real and 100 cotton available now at donutmedia.com so if you don't already know this nissan 240sx is mine and he used to have a sweet rb25 det straight six turbo engine and well now it doesn't it's in pieces on a shelf over there i've been planning on rebuilding the rb25 and sticking it back in but since this old girl's been sitting so long well i've gotten to thinking about what other engines i could possibly put in here some swaps could be easy like an sr20 some could be really hard like a ferrari swap and if you're thinking of doing a swap it might be tough to tell which engines are gonna be harder than others to get into your car so today i'm gonna break down engine swaps into four tiers four levels of difficulty so you know which tier fits in your budget time frame and most important skill set now before we go talking about what makes engine swaps different we've got to talk about what makes them the same what they have in common for every engine swap you're gonna be pulling an engine out and putting an engine in which means the first thing you're gonna want is an engine crane like so engines are heavy most engines lift out via the hood so getting it out without damaging anything like your back isn't just a matter of lifting with your knees okay oh god don't be a hero use a crane obviously you're gonna need a jack jack stands you're also gonna be dealing with a lot of fluids oil coolant transmission fluid tears probably it's okay it's just an engine so you'll need stuff for catching and cleaning all that stuff the things i've mentioned so far gonna cost you probably easily 500 bucks and we haven't even talked about buying an engine yet so let's talk about what kind of swap you might be doing tier one the easiest tier this is what we like to call the same swap this is when you're taking out an old engine and just replacing it with one that's exactly like it so either your engine is thrashed or just isn't worth rebuilding or like with some classic muscle cars somebody just makes a crate motor that's a direct replacement that you can get for cheaply enough to make it worthwhile in general i would say that swapping a motor is actually way easier than doing an engine rebuild you don't have to have as many specific tools you don't have to do as many little fiddly things that can ruin the whole job you just gotta get the big thing out and put the big thing back in everything should match up exactly with what you took out you can move all your accessories over to the new engine from your old engine and then just put it back in the only hard part about this swap is finding the exact engine you need and i mean the exact engine you need our writer joe weber you may know him from the pass gas podcast hey joe hey man well he recently had a shop get a new block for his 3vz powered 4runner and it turned out the 3vz block they ordered had different mounting points they called me up and told me the engine mounts don't line up they had accidentally put the 3vz short block from a camry oh my god so the same engine but it doesn't fit unless you fab up some brackets what a pain so for time i'd say this tier takes a week at max even for a beginner and for tools fluids maintenance and the actual engine you're likely to be about i don't know two to three thousand dollars out of pocket but as far as effort this is as easy as swaps get it really couldn't be easier that's tier one now on to tier two tier two is full of what i like to call the similar swaps the cousin swaps these are where you swap an engine in that's really close to what came in your car and so you only need a few things to make it work either it's an engine that came in your car in a different market or it's a newer version of the same engine when we swapped james's corolla that was a tier 2 swap the 20 valve 4a ge never came in the 86 but the block is almost identical and has all the same mounting points as the 16 valve so fit really easy a lot of jdm swaps fit into that category this is brian this is his sc300 and it's got a 2j under the hood this would have originally had the non-turbo 2j right that's correct 2jz gte was the most logical choice for this chassis it's a direct drop in everything from a superb drops right in radiator transmission how much time did it take just the motor with the stock twins everything running i think it took about a month and a half give or take if the engines are so similar then what makes tier two swaps different from tier one well it's not so much the engines and more the everything else things like intake piping exhaust piping vacuum lines placement of stuff might need to be rerouted or reimagined to match your new engine now your battery's in the wrong place being obstructed by the alternator and you got to put the battery somewhere else one issue i had originally was power steering i had to rewire some of it just make sure that evo unit on the power steering actually works properly if your swap is really a tier 2 though it's almost guaranteed that someone makes a bracket or a piece or has the info you need to solve the specific problem you're dealing with what would you say the hardest part of this whole swap was waiting for parts to arrive totally understand the struggle of waiting on parts but if that's the hardest time that you had with this then i think you did all right i'm sure this thing rips it looks like you track it a lot which is also very cool to see you think we could hear it yeah sure now for tier two swaps the cost is going to be pretty similar to tier one swaps often a little bit more though because with tier two swaps you're going after a better engine but your mileage may vary there's so many platforms so many engines out there that these can go either way relatively cheap or pretty dang expensive so tier two can be pretty cool while definitely still being doable at home but what happens if we step it up to tier three tier three is reserved for the kit swaps these are the engine swaps that were once crazy once unthinkable even but enough people have done them now that there are kits and a whole catalog of aftermarket parts to help you finish your build in the 90s putting a v8 in a miata was a pipe dream reserved for the most skilled fabricators but now there's companies that sell pre-made subframes oil pans cooling systems that all fit onto a v8 to go into a miata it's awesome well what the heck is this uh it started as an s14 yeah it looks sort of familiar i think it classifies as a tier three swap this is adam our shop manager you've seen him before on the channel and this is his freaking drift car man and it's sick it actually started with just a basic ls2 but as the time progressed we started putting a supercharger on it more power means more power going to the rear wheels through the drivetrain the power is going to find the weak point and it's going to start tearing you're going to break it if you're looking at a swap at this level chances are you're talking about making more power than the car was designed to handle which means that the parts that you aren't swapping are going to be much more stressed so actually we have to beef up every single suspension part and rubber bushing we've got solid motor mounts transmission mount differential and the subframe itself you get any vibrations just good vibrations tier three is a very cool tier in my opinion it opens a lot of doors for a lot of cool engines and a lot of chassis they don't belong in but it can also be tricky because i think it's easy to look and see oh they've got a swap kit for my car but kits at this level assume a certain degree of skill and ability probably need to do some welding some cutting maybe a little bit of clearancing or frame notching and there's a lot more to making the car run and run reliably than bolting it in place you know you've got to still figure out ecu wiring and all sorts of little odds and ends that add up very quickly so with the cost of the engine transmission and the swap kit you're probably easily already five thousand dollars in the hole and then you're gonna find out that you gotta spend another two three four five thousand dollars on odds and ends and accessories to get the thing running like you want it to this is definitely a little bit more time-consuming of a swap depending on how much planning you do these can go very smoothly but if it's your first time you'll probably run into a few hiccups so i would say this could take anywhere from two weeks to two months realistically but it is something i think can be done at home these will take a little bit more effort certainly from your brain but in terms of the actual work very similar to a tier two swap but you may find yourself needing to do some fabrication on tier 3 which is a whole other skill set and also requires tools that you may or may not have but like i said tier 3 is a very cool swap tier so the outcome in my opinion for a tier 3 swap can be very cool let's say you don't have a kit could you still swap an engine into a car that it doesn't belong in well yeah but it's going to be a lot of work tier 4 is what we call the sema swap this is reserved for the craziest custom swaps out there nothing in this category is off the shelf or pre-built all right here we've got will who brought in his fdrx7 to help us show off an example of a tier 4 engine swap now the fd is a great candidate for engine swaps it's got a pretty big engine bay and they're gorgeous cars basically the swap is a 1j the creation and then the fabrication all this started maybe four years ago custom tubular suffering the transmission mounts custom the diff mouse custom the radar the intercooler the dual oil coolers it's awesome yeah and it looks like you did a really nice job and it looks like a reliable swap the motor everything the trans is great i've blown everything around it the turbo's already dying again but yeah there's another one that's over here tomorrow nice i guess that's playing the game exactly so first off for a tier four swap you're gonna need the skills and tools to fabricate bracketry mounts intake piping all sorts of odds and ends that you run into along the way that means you're gonna need a mig and probably a tig welder a pipe bender i mean you could very easily spend five to ten thousand dollars just on tools and not even have spent any money on the engine yet for front wheel drive cars the half shafts should come off the transmission into the wheel bearings as level and even as possible if you move the engine forward to clear a cross member or to not hit the firewall that means the u-joints and the axles are going to be working extra hard and they're going to live a lot less long and if other parts or just the engine bay itself is in the way they're gonna need to move all right well as much as i love you know talking about cars and engine swaps and stuff uh i'd kind of like to hear this thing now tier four swaps are inarguably some of the coolest swaps in the world but good lord are they hard i've never done a tier four swap and i don't know when i will it's a lot of work any way you look at it for cost on a tier four swap it can be anywhere from ten thousand dollars to a million dollars you can literally spend as much as you want on a tier four swap you're probably gonna have to pay a divorce lawyer and if you don't have a prenup uh half your money's gone anyway so honestly these can get hard time consuming and life-consuming really or they end up just sitting in a corner in your garage for the rest of your life on time there's no end there's literally no end to how much time they can take tier 4 swaps are probably some of the most abandoned swaps out there so while tier 4 swaps may be the coolest they're also the hardest far and away the hardest and most time consuming now for me and this here s14 i think i'm gonna stick to rebuilding the rb25 it's i've always wanted an s14 with an rb in it and dang it i had one for a minute till it blew up but i think i can rebuild the engine and i think it'll be a good challenge and might make for some good content but all this engine swap talk has me thinking maybe we should swap the engine on another car of ours or maybe two of them thank you guys so much for watching this episode i hope you had a good time i hope you learned a thing or two follow all the guys that came through on their instagrams that we mentioned earlier they'll be on the screen here too follow me on instagram zackjob follow donut donutmedia but before you go don't forget to like this video and subscribe to the channel and we'll see you guys later you