Bronco 2.8L into early Corolla

[Beanscoot]

I have had this Bronco II engine sitting in my basement for years now, and was thinking about putting it into a 1970 Corolla to replace the 1100 in there now. It should physically fit, but does it make more sense to find a bigger V6, i.e. the 4000? Or perhaps the 2800 would be plenty for this little car. The 2800 engine also has a cast iron timing cover and brackets which seem rather unnecessarily heavy. Are there later model parts which could substitute? I will use a carburetor, so is it possible to adapt components of the 2800 (heads and intake) onto a 4000? Or is it just impractical to put either engine in, and perhaps I should use something else? Again, I plan on using carburetion. Thanks for any advice, pro and con.

[TigerDan]

You might be able to swap some 2.9 aluminum brackets, but I don't think the T-cover will work (I think it's cast iron anyway.)

As far as swapping heads from either 2.9 or 4.0, there are several reasons why this won't work. Chief among them is that the valves and ports are in a different arrangement on the later heads, which would mean swapping the cam as well. But that won't work because the 2.8 cam is gear driven and rotates opposite crank rotation while the 2.9/4.0 cams are chain driven and rotate in the same direction as the crank.

It's frustrating because the 2.9 is tantalizingly similar to the 2.8, but there's not a lot there that will work (at least that would provide any performance upgrade.)