Hi, new here and definitely registered to get this specific question answerred lol. I'm working on my 2012 scion tc, it has the 2ar-fe engine. I was having someone idle issues along with a pretty bad nose dive in gas mileage and a bit of a rattle in the engine, no cel light though. I had heard that the vvt solonoids fail on these around my mileage (150000) and it's an easy diy job. I did it (not a mechanical person by any stretch) but kinda worried about maybe something stupid but also maybe not. I put the old one back in because the part I got (dorman 917235) appears to be the intake vvt, but apparently I put it in the exhaust vvt location (near the spark plugs).

I changed it back even though there was no light, it was a dumb thing to assume I was changing the correct location. After doing reading It seems either I destroyed the engine(it's running fine), that it's impossible to switch because the clips are different, or that on this engine their both the same so it doesn't matter.

So I guess the question is are they the same to where it doesn't matter, or should it not have clipped if I switched them accidentally or what.