Ok, I am going to start this by saying I am not very mechanically minded (prefer bicycles). but late last year, my 1996 Camry Vienta decided to give up the ghost (engine basically cooked itself, no warning lights, just overheated and died). So I decided that I would replace the engine as opposed to getting the head rebuilt (AUD$500 Vs AUD $2500). Only major problem we are having, besides the engine being from a newer Camry (1998 1MZ-FE as oppsed to 1996 3VZ-FE), is the guy I brought the engine off (after he advised me that "yeah mate, plug and go, everything should work fine") that instead of removing the wiring harness like most NORMAL people do, he decided just to cut the harness where it goes through the firewall ( but had the common decency to unbolt the ECU for me???) because it would be much easier than undoing the whole lot. Now the part he cut out, he neglected to give me that, so now my neighbour and I are left with this total headache in my garage, because while we have got the lights working (left indicator stays on though) but we cannot much else due to the fact we have no wiring diagrams for this conversion and we are having MAJOR trouble tracking down the body plug for the ECU. has anyone here ever done, or heard of someone doing, a similar conversion? I was hoping to have the car finished by the time I went away for work for 4 months, but seeing as though I leave on the 29th, I doubt this is going to happen now. Would it be worth the heart ache (and $$$$$) to continue, or should I just cut my losses and be rid of the car as is? It is sending me absolutely insane because just as we THINK we have things sorted, we find something else that is causing dramas.
If anyone can offer assistance, diagrams or advice, would be much appreciated (if not a Molotov Cocktail is going to find its way through my cars windscreen out of sheer frustration!!! TIC)

 

Vienta equals Aussie Camry with V6 engine?

The cars original engine was a 3VZ-FE which was replaced by a 1MZ-FE?

What engine model do you want to replace the current engine with?

If the person swapped engine models he must have swapped engine computers.

May have US wiring diagrams for the 1MZ-FE but in the US the 3VZ-FE was dropped around 1993 and even then was only used for a few years and only in very few models.

Have you tried the Australian Camry forum?

Aussie Car Forum • Portal

Conversion have been done but typically the doer is motivated as it can be a pain to swap these kinds of items.

If the current engine is a 1MZ-FE and the original was 3VZ-FE suggest a google search on "replacing 3VZ-FE with 1MZ-FE." You will find a number of hits such as the ones below:

assui - Google Search

Toyotanation is also a good site to ask at.

Not sure if the Haynes has a Austrian manual with wiring diagram.