6G Celicas Forums

Wrapped up the front suspension and brakes next. Installed Avalon 2 pot calipers ( they fit on stock rotors and brackets, nice easy upgrade). ST sway bars, undercoated wheel wells etc.

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So... it's been awhile... a long while. I've let this project sit for too long and now I'm finally back at it. I've got some catching up to do on the build thread, so I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to get this thread updated and wrap things up with the car..

I know it's been 2 years.. I've got no real excuse but to say that I moved on to other things.. until now.

Ain't that the truth. I'm scared to go back and count up the money I have put into my project. But hey, if you want something pretty unique and something you're proud of... it's allll good.

I've nearly completed a gen4 swap and I've got to say $2,000 is pretty light to complete the swap the way it should be done. I'd save at least another $1,000 before taking this project on... Maybe another $2,000. Your $2k budget will basically get the motor and harness conversion... Things you either need or should do are.... fluids, intercooler and piping, exhaust, timing belt, water pump, new seals/gaskets, clutch kit, flywheel, tune up kit, probably a boost controller, boost gauge.. etc etc. $4k is a good budget to do it and do it right.

ANDDD the build continues. got some more goodies, Aluminum radiator, shroud and low profile fans installed, all new moog suspension components, front coilovers installed, braided brake lines, new brake rotors and pads, front spindles installed, etc.

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Next was to figure out the battery relocation power cable... I decided to run it with the engine bay harness, easy enough. I may end up changing this up, but for now it seems to be my best option.

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No, those stupid cheap spacers are not on there permanently. They're just there to hold the rotors on while installing the calipers... Things are looking good at this point! time to torque everything down to spec and potentially put the front end of this car on the ground for the first time in a long time!

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While torquing everything down, disaster struck. I had finished the subframe, power steering rack.... then while torquing the motor mount bolts..... SNAP. I broke a damn stud off the rear motor mount. At this point, I threw my piece of **** harbor freight torque wrench in the trash and decided I'd fork out some $ for something nice. Ordered a Proto half inch torque wrench and waited for the mailman to bring it to me. In the meantime, I tore everything down to get the motor mount out and have a mulligan. The key, I found, was to pop the steering rack off the subframe to squeeze the mount out.

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I love doing things twice, don't you? haha what can ya do.

Thank you Ted, nope it's not wet sanded and buffed yet. The paint looks great straight off the gun, but it'll go in for a wet sand and buff after it's all assembled again! I didn't paint the car myself, I have a buddy who builds and paints show bikes. He took on the paint job for me, he's good for sure!

Haha brother I don't have a lift. Jack and Jack stands... That's me laying on the ground taking that last picture. You just gotta make the time my friend! I've worked 60 hours every week for the last 3 months... BUT, while I do have a wife at home, we don't have any kids yet... Which definitely helps with being able to spend time In the garage.

Thanks everyone for the support and kind comments! I'm having a blast working on this thing, can't wait to take old Cecil for his first drive.

Alrightttt the motor and trans are in and it runs, that's a big step for sure. The rest of the hook ups were easy peasy except for the power steering pump. I wanted to use the Gen4 power steering pump with the celica rack, which proved to be a tad difficult. the feed line worked out fine, but the return was a little rough. I thought that if I swapped the inlet on the power steering pump itself, it would work.. but no luck. I had to gently bend the nipple on the return line to allow clearance for the line to fit without running into the feed line.. after that, it wall worked out fine.

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With the inlet and outlets figured out, I was set for a pretty easy assembly... rebuilt the steering rack and replaced everything in the front, new bushings in the control arms, inner and outer tie rods, end links, ball joints, motor mounts, wheel bearings and COILOVERS YAYYYYY. I went with ksport, just because I've had good luck with them in the past. I think they'll work out pretty sweet.

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Front subframe assembly was pretty easy... All moog everything.

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I threw some kirkosaurus front and rear motor mount urethane inserts in there too. They seem to be good quality and the customer service is top notch. kudos to him!

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BINGO, got everything installed loosely and ready to torque things down to spec. I'm pretty damn pumped that the underside is as clean as everything else... definitely never had a car quite like this.

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I'm originally an mr2 guy, and s54's will hold up just fine with a 3sgte and the hp numbers you're looking at.... I've done it 10 times without any trouble. Original or not, you shouldn't have any problems if your trans is in good shape. Also, you can contact southbend for that hybrid clutch disc you're talking about, or what I've done is just get an 5s disc and TOB and run it with a 3s flywheel and pressure plate. I'm not sure if there is anything different with the st202 swaps, I'm assuming they come with an s54 from the factory, same as st204's.

Thanks Cheela, Appreciate everyone's support thus far! Probably gonna throw up another post today, more good stuff coming!

Thanks man! Yeah I agree.. This was a super satisfying step of the project. I can't wait to have this thing on the road.

Alrightttt time for the motor and trans to go in, This was actually really easy.. put the car pretty high up on jack stands, drop the subframe and steering rack out of the car (the damn steering rack was the biggest pain in the ass of the whole things, but it finally popped loose).... Then put the motor and trans on a dolly and wheel it under the engine bay... then took my cherry picker and slowly lowered the car down over top of the engine until the car was sitting on stands at their lowest setting.... thennn hook the cherry picker up to the engine and lift it the rest of the way up into the engine bay. Just make sure you take your time and have a friend watching to make sure you're not scratching up the other side of the engine bay.

This thing fit like a glove, not one scratch or blemish on the new paint, got the two side mounts hooked up then began connecting the dots. shifter cables, wiring, heater hoses, fuel lines etc etc.


WOOHOO! the motor and trans are in.

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After spending some time checking and double checking that I had everything necessary to run the car hooked up... I retrofitted some grounds and decided I was ready for a test start. No dice, wouldn't turn over or anything... Luckily I had a good buddy over who recommended it was a grounding problem to the starter... DUH. I painted the face of the trans and the face of the starter that supply the ground. I removed the starter, sanded down the grounding face on the trans and starter and bingo. Old Cecil fired up and sounded sweet. Hopefully the video link works.. but click the image below for the video!

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^^ click for start up video!

Yeah man I totally get it. It's hard to know when to stop... So basically I just haven't stopped.... I literally brush coated the underside of the engine bay and front of the unibody with por15 this week... This is some majorly tedious stuff, but eye on the prize.

Thanks!

I don't feel so energetic sometimes but I'm a man determined. I want to be driving this thing by fall if I can

Score man! $500 is a steal. 5 speed, rust free and premium sound to boot. This should be a fun project... if you give up and want to make a couple hundred bucks let me know... I'll come pick it up for $700

We're getting to the good stuff soon, but here's another update on what I've done so far...

I decided to put at least a little bit of love in to the interior of this car. It came with tan leather, but the seats were really rough and I'm not a big fan of the tan anyways. I want all black. Almost unbelievably, I found a mint black cloth interior at a junk yard and pulled it on half price day... that'll never happen again, most things are trashed at the junk yards around here. Anyways, i managed to get the front and rear seats out, and the 98 convertible parts car I've got had some really nice black leather door panels and steering wheel. After I cleaned the grime off the door panels and painted the speaker mesh, they came out pretty slick. The last piece to the puzzle is the headliner... tan headliner wasn't going to fly, so I decided to try my hand at upholstering. I ordered some foam-backed black and gray camo fabric and went to down. It was actually pretty easy to do. The headliner may be a little weird for some people... but it works for me and beats the crap out of tan with an all black interior.

I also ordered all new Rockford fosgate speakers for the car, a nice benefit to the new door panels is that I can upgrade to the premium sound option.

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The next step before beginning the long, arduous process of reassembly was to mate the motor and trans. I put on a new rear main seal and got some arp flywheel bolts and a lightweight flywheel and an exedy clutch. went ahead and put the wiring harness on and a few other little odds and ends... and bingo, next post should get me to the powerplant install!

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This is the point where it really started getting exciting for me... can finally start putting things together instead of taking things apart, cleaning, painting, prepping etc. All the hours of part restoration and **** can finally begin to pay off.

definitely got bit hard.. but hey if you're gonna do something...

haha Those were my thoughts exactly... which is why I put it in from the bottom. I've made a lot more progress than what is shown so far.. I'm still catching this thread up to speed. For some reason, after I post a reply to this thread, it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 days to actually show up.. but I'll keep on chugging and update the thread as I can.

So while the car was at paint, I spent some time cleaning and prepping more parts to go back on the car. Pretty much went through everything. I cleaned up and put a new o-ring kit on the a/c system.. got a new condenser and expansion tank, took off all the brake lines and flushed them out and painted them, rebuilt a spare steering rack, put new wheel bearings in and put a coat of hi temp caliper paint on dust guards, spindles, coated the sub frame and control arms in por-15, got new bushings for the control arms.. I even got new horns for God's sake. I also sent the wiring harnesses out to WireGap. That $540 is worth every penny if you ask me. I see on this forum that a lot of guys are building their own harnesses.... You guys are the real crazy ones.

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That'd be an easy fix, hopefully that's it.

At this point, I'm going deep enough down the rabbit hole that I might as well get to the bottom..... So I get online and start looking for parts cars.. I figure if I can find a couple cheap ones, any inadequate part that I come across on my car I can replace with something better.. any broken clips, bent brackets etc. I end up buying two other cars for cheap... (if anyone needs any parts please let me know... I have a ton.)

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Then I went ahead and got to the bottom of that rabbit hole I'm talking about.... stripped out the interior, all the glass, every panel, tore the doors down, cleaned the engine bay... basically just starting from the ground up... ordered some new nut and bolt kits so I didn't even have to use the old hardware.... I've done this sort of thing with quads and tractors and stuff.. but never a car. It can be pretty intimidating after the tear down.. it's a lot of parts and pieces to remember how to put back together, but it's a learning process... and I'll be able to say I truly built this car when it's all said and done.

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My family and neighbors would stop by in the evenings to see what the hell I was working on at midnight every night and every one of them decided I was crazy.. there were nights I couldn't disagree, but at this point you just have to keep your eye on the prize... Finally the car was stripped to my satisfaction and I threw it on the trailer for paint... I decided to go with a factory dodge color called destroyer grey. I think the color will turn out pretty good.. it will still need cut and buffed after it's all assembled, but my initial impression is that I love it.. pretty cool color, and having stripped the car down like I did, I think it'll call come together quite nicely. I made some subtle changes to the body just to clean it up. I welded up the side marker lights on the fenders, welded shut the rear antenna, rear wiper and sprayer, and debadged the whole thing.... small changes, but I think it'll end up being a cleaner look.

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More soon!

So the next step for me was definitely to freshen up the motor.... new timing belt, tensioner, water pump, cam seals, front and rear main seals, vc gasket, plugs, idler pulley etc....

I decided to do a little cleaning in the top end (mostly because my OCD kicked in)... and of course i drop a Q-tip down an oil passage..... which leads to popping off the two piece oil pan and cleaning what I can get to in the bottom end... I felt like such a dumb ass for dropping that.. but is what it is..

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anddddd the cleaning took forever and was pretty unnecessary more than likely, but I did manage to get a good bit of gunk out of the engine...

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This is where I realized I had a problem and needed to quit with the cleaning nonsense.... i pulled the camshafts and soaked them in degreaser... Then almosttttt split the short block.... but reeled it in and decided that was far enough...

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Next up was to do something with the disgusting old s54 trans..... this thing shifted great and never gave me any issues.. I had to decide whether to do an e153 swap or just go with the s54... Since I don't really expect to make more power than the s54 should be able to reasonably handle... that's what I went with.. I do have an LSD e153 and the mounts necessary laying around to do that... but I decided to save that trans for the next project... 77k mile california mr2 sitting in my other garage... Anyways... the s54 needed some major cleaning..

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more coming soon!

Very cool car man, if the clunking isn't a product of the inner or outer tie rods being no bueno... then it's almost got to be the rack and pinion I guess. I just rebuilt my rack and pinion which wasn't a bad job really. hardest part is getting it out of the car. This is all assuming it's the same system as a FWD GT...

Yeah I'm a little nervous about how it's all going to come together without the ground effects... I think it'll look alright, but I may regret being so conservative on the body add-ons.. we'll see!

It's been a fun project so far, I'm hoping to be wrapped up in a couple months... I've made more progress than what's posted so far... will get caught up in the next couple days on this thread.