Toyota Engine Codes

I found this information. It may help non-techies to understand what the gurus talk about when they refer to engines by codes. I hope it's not a repost.


Toyota Motor Corporation has produced a wide variety of automobile engines. The company follows a simple naming system for their modern engines:

1. The first numeric characters specify the engine block's generation
2. The next one or two letters specify the engine family
3. The suffix (separated by a dash) specifies the features of the engine:

Suffix Feature
A Valvetronic variable lift intake head
B Twin SU-style side-draft carburetors
C Carburated / California Emissions Controlled
D Twin Downdraft carburetors
E Electronic Fuel injection
F Economy narrow-angle DOHC
G Performance wide-angle DOHC
H High compression like 9.8:1 (example: 5E-FHE)
High pressure charged (example: 2L-THE)
I Single-point fuel injection
J Autochoke (Early models) or unknown pollution control
L Transverse
M Philippines' market (meaning unknown)
N CNG fuel
P LPG fuel
R Low Compression (For 87 and below octane fuel)
S Swirl intake (1980s)
SE Direct injection (1990s)
T Turbocharged
U With Catalytic converter Japan-spec emissions
V Common Rail Diesel Injection (D-4D)
X Atkinson cycle (typically also indicates a Hybrid engine, as Toyota only uses the Atkinson cycle with hybrids)
Z Supercharged


For Example

* 4A-GE

4 - 4th Generation Engine In The A Engine Family
A - The Engine Family it is in
G - Wide-angle dual camshaft
E - Electronically Fuel Injected

* 22R-TEC

22 - 22nd Generation Engine In The R Engine Family
R - The Engine Family it is in
T - Turbocharged
E - Electronically Fuel Injected
C - California Emission Controlled

* Note: Toyota, in 1987, 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. Eg. 1uzfe - This is not a supercharged, narrow angle, fuel injected U-series engine, but a narrow angle, fuel injected UZ-series engine.