2016 engine swap - need advice

Got a 2016 with a bad valve - it's the v6 engine with a manual transmission

I bought a engine from car-parts.com They showed engines that had a vacuum pump and ones that do not have the pump. My engine does not have the pump.

I ordered a engine without the pump, but what came is a engine that has the vacuum pump.

I have two questions from anyone that has been down this road.

1- can I use this engine and just plug off the vacuum Pump? How does this pump work. I only see a pipe coming out of the pump, Can I just plug this off? Where does this pump get the air from? I assume the nipple on the pump is the vacuum outlet. Where does the suction for the pump come from.

2- The replacement engine has a flexplate for a automatic transmission with a pick up wheel behind the flexplate, Does the manual flywheel have this pickup wheel built into it?

This forum seems very knowledgeable. Im hoping someone can help with these questions

Thank You

 

1. I don’t know for sure if you can just plug the vacuum pump but I probably wouldn’t do that if it was me. The pump creates vacuum suction and applies it to the vacuum booster on normal trucks which pulls in fresh air from the cab through a filter at the pedal pushrod, or at least that’s how the vast majority of boosters work. Plugging the pump wouldn’t be normal operation for it and I’m not sure if it would cause trouble or eventually crack the plug. The pump itself created the suction from the rotation of the cam.

The proper fix would be to buy and install the factory sealing ball and remove the cam from the new engine to install the ball into the cam. And then cover the hole in the cam tower with your factory block off plate moved over from your engine.

2. there is a pick up wheel behind the manual transmission flywheel, I’m not sure if it’s the same behind the manual vs auto but I believe it’s the same. To be safe, I’d take the one from your engine and install it on the new engine. Make sure to pay attention to the alignment nub. A lot of people don’t seem to realize that matters.

Just curious for science, which cylinder is the bad valve on?

 

Exhaust camshaft w/o vacuum pump has a ball pressed to deleted oil passage to the pump.
You need to swap that cam, etc

 

It’s on the intake cam but yep.

 

It was the #2 cylinder - had 30 psi cranking compression

Thanks!

 

So weird….it is some sort of weird coincidence or something to do with how the engine runs when paired to a manual transmission. Almost every single manual transmission truck that’s burned a valve has happened on cylinder 2. Cylinders 1 & 3 are common on the automatic trucks (hear far more about them) but I really don’t understand how the transmission is a common predictor of what cylinder is affected. Super strange.

 

that's interesting - the toyota tech indicated he usually sees a bad valve on the #1 or 3. Never on #2. He also said it was a 2016 and 2017 problem not on the later engines. still confused what to do to use the vacuum pump engine in a non vacuum application. If I take the pump off, is there a oil passage in the cam that needs plugged? Or could I just plus the vacuum port?

Thanks for your reply

 

Yes

 

Usually it’s on #1 or #3 because that’s what usually happens on the automatic trucks and there are many more of them than manuals. I just think it’s weird/interesting that the manual is almost always #2 while the autos are almost always #1 or #3. No idea why.

I outlined what to do - remove the vacuum pump, install the factory sealing ball in the back of the cam and then seal the cam tower with your block off plate from your original engine. You will need to remove the cam from the engine to do this. Unfortunately it’s a lot simpler to buy the correct engine and car-part is really bad about shooting it straight on what engine they are actually selling. I see them mixed up constantly on there.

and you can also just move parts around between the engines as stated below.

 

But you have 2 engines. You could swap the cam tower or just the cam.
and reseal the timing chain cover

 

what is the deal with these vacuum pumps? I have read on other threads that there is a maintenance interval on them where they need some parts replace in them - can anyone share some insite on this?

 

The pumps eventually wear out and make a bunch of racket.

You have no use for a vacuum pump if your truck doesn’t have a vacuum brake booster. Delete the pump properly and install the engine or sell that engine and find one without the pump. There is really nothing else to think about or make a decision over. You don’t want to install a pump equipped engine if your truck doesn’t use the pump.

 

I agree with doing it right - it's frustrating when you order what you need and the engine arrives wrong. you need to decide the easiest way to solve the issue.
I'm used to working on big lock chevys and early Hemi's and don't know a lot about newer engine design and good practices - so I have one more question.

Can the cam be swapped without worrying about causing problems with the different cam surface riding on the lifter? I know on a traditional pushrod engine this is a issue using a new cam on old lifters. Is this a problem with these overhead camshaft engines?

thanks for helping out someone not familiar with this type of engine

 

As long as your old cam is in good shape then it’ll be perfectly fine. The cam lobes are only riding on the rollers of the roller rockers anyways. Same for the cam bearings, as long as the cams and bearings and caps are in good shape on both engines, moving them around will be fine.

 

Why not get them to send you the correct engine instead of doing all that? You ordered the correct one, they sent the wrong one, should be on them to make it right.

 

This seems likes the solution, OP shouldn’t be on the hook for S&H, but of course will be out the time, but shouldn’t take any longer than the modification to the wrong engine.

 

I’d agree first step or option is asking the seller to fix their mistake. If they won’t you need at least $500 off to cover your time and supplies swapping cams. That’s not an easy swap due to the damn timing chain etc.