Toyota has produced a wide variety of automobile engines, including three-cylinder, four-cylinder, V6 and V8 engines. The company follows a naming system for their engines:
The first numeric characters specify the engine block's model (usually differed by displacement)
The next one or two letters specify the engine family
The suffix (separated by a dash) specifies the features of the engine:
Other manufacturers may modify the engine after it has left the Toyota factory but the engine still keeps the original Toyota designation. For example, Lotus added a supercharger to the 2ZZ-GE in some versions of the Lotus Elise and Exige but it is still labelled 2ZZ-GE, not 2ZZ-GZE.
The use of "G" to denote twin cam engines was decided on in 1971, with the renaming of the 10R into 8R-G. Before that, twin cams had received separate numerical codes.[1]
In 1987, Toyota began assigning dual letter engine codes to some of the "engine family" categories in some engine lines, particularly six-cylinder models. This can create potential confusion. E.g. 1MZ-FE – This is not a supercharged, narrow angle, fuel injected M-series engine, but a narrow angle, fuel injected MZ-series engine. Confusion is easiest to avoid when using the dash to separate between the engine series and its own characteristics: for instance, 1MZ-FE rather than 1M-ZFE.
Starting in 2015, the designations after the dash have a maximum combination of three letters, even though there are more suffixes applicable. This is particular when newer engine technologies are introduced. Case in point, both the 2GR-FKS and 8AR-FTS engines have an electronic multi-point fuel injection, but the "E" suffix is not included in the code.
Dynamic Force engine seriesedit
The Dynamic Force engine series introduced in 2017 uses a slightly different naming scheme. For instance, the two numbers between the first and second letters denotes the displacement of the engine. The rest of the naming scheme (such as the suffix) remains the same as with prior engines.
Examples:
M20A-FKS
M20A is a 2.0-liter engine, as denoted by the "20" in "M20A"
F – Normal cylinder head DOHC
K – On-demand Atkinson cycle in non-hybrid engines
S – D4-S Gasoline direct injection
T24A-FTS
T24A is a 2.4-liter engine, as denoted by the "24" in "T24A"
F – Normal cylinder head DOHC
T – Turbocharged
S – D4-S Gasoline direct injection
Some engines don’t share the same displacement as with the one found in the engine code. The V35A-FTS is a good example of this, where despite the model code designation and marketing materials, the actual displacement of the engine is 3.4 liters, not 3.5.
There are some engines that used the naming scheme of the Dynamic Force family of engines but are not actually part of them; a good example of this would be the F33A-FTV engine as despite it not belonging to the Dynamic Force family of engines, it still used the naming scheme normally used for the aforementioned engines. This also applies to the G16E-GTS engine as well.
Starting in 1957 until 1988, Toyota established a separate dealership in Japan dedicated to cars and trucks installed with diesel engines, called Toyota Diesel Store. When the dealership was disbanded, diesel products are now available at all locations, with commercial products exclusive to Toyota Store and Toyopet Store locations.
^All About the Toyota Twin Cam, 2nd ed., Tokyo, Japan: Toyota Motor Company, 1984, p. 27
^"Eagle 987 Champ Car | Dan Gurney's All American Racers".
^"2002 Toyota RV8F CART engine". Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed.
^"HAIL TO THE KING | the Super GT 2009 GT300 Champion is a Lexus IS350?!". 26 August 2015.
^"Toyota Model DA Truck". 75 Years of Toyota. Toyota. 2012.
^"Toyota Model DA115C Truck". 75 Years of Toyota. Toyota. 2012.
Toyota has not published an explanation of the codes used for engine features. Matti Kalalahti derived a list of engine feature codes and published them on his "Engine codes explained" web page in Oct 1999.
External linksedit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Toyota engines.
Toyota Twincam Forums Discussion forum on four cylinder Toyota engines
Toyota engines Matti Kalalahti's list of Toyota engines.
Toyota engines and gearboxes Similar to Matti Kalalahti's pages but with extensions by Stepho.
4AGE.net Information on 4AGE and 4AGZE Toyota engines [dead link]