6G Celicas Forums

I think you should keep the firebird and just get another car, maybe a hot sedan or hot hatch for practicality. There's still some Nissan Sentra SE-R's running around to be bought that would have enough giddyup to be fun and can be made to handle nicely and has 4 doors and trunk and stuff so you can like...do stuff.

Agreed, I think no matter what you get you won't be happy unless you become a multimillionaire and build the Boxmobile.

The Firebird is plenty practical being a liftback and having the storage area in the back in addition to the fold down rear seat, plus people can fit in the back seat if they have to. Even my brother that's over 6 foot fits with some headroom to spare, legroom isn't in abundance but behind me and a shorter passenger it's bearable.


Probably, I'm so OCD and nitpicky I really need something mostly custom tailored. I think a LS swapped FD RX-7 would be about as close to perfection with mostly off the shelf stuff.

You're going to have to learn to be happy with no matter what you got mang, every car has faults.

Well at this point I think I rather deal with the fault of low power than the fault of meh handling. That and I've never been able to get 100% comfortable driving the Firebird, it's just too big and you can't see anything beyond the edge of the dashboard. I don't know if it's because I'm short, but I can't see anything unless the headlights are up. Maybe if I cared less about handling and actually used the power that's there I'd be happier, but I don't use the power and I care about handling more than I thought I did. Honestly knowing what I know now I rather have the Celica(with a 1MZ).

I had to rewire the ground, the head unit didn't drop the settings I had set when I did that, I'm confused but whatever I don't have to re-do. HOLY HECK those audio shaping controls are great. The rear "sub" sounds way better now, it really humps! It's in but the trims and stuff aren't, eh I'll snap em in on lunch and hook up the physical aux line then. The BT is still paired to the Ipod for Pandora, need to go through and disable iheart radio as a source so there's less to cycle through. Doesn't feel or look as nice as the old unit but it sounds WAY better so I think I'm happy.

I think sound might be the most important aspect there, so I say it's a win.

I'm going to put the Firebird back up for sale, I just can't be happy with it when I was happier with the Celica that cost half as much and had a third of the power.

Were you or do you just think you were? Don't me to be jerky just asking.

As a whole I think so, the only issue with the Celica was it being slow(and bright red) and that wasn't too terrible(the red really was that terrible). Oddly enough the Miata was just(or felt) that much quicker that I was entirely fine with it. I'm just not happy with the Firebird's handling and according to Sam Strano and others I won't be happy unless I spend a small fortune on suspension, I think even if I had the money I'd have a hard time convincing myself and justifying it. It'll always have a solid axle and weigh 1,000 pounds more than a Celica or Miata etc... so it'll always be at a disadvantage in that regard. Sure the Celica had the Tein lowering springs but it also had 14x6 wrapped in cheap all seasons and it handled way better and that's with 17x9.5 wrapped in BFG Sport COMP-2 on the Firebird, I'd hate to know how much better the Celica would've been with 16x7-8 and summer tires.

It gets WAY better with sticky summer tires.

See exactly. It was a lot better on skinny and crappy cheap all seasons.

Just changed the oil on both the 47 and 49. Finished up replacing the trunk pan in the 49. Now time to clean, sand and paint the frame from rust. Surprisingly they are both clean for the age.

Grab some Meguiars M7 glaze and massage it into the paint on the one after a good waterless wash. That'll make that paint really nice and 'warm' looking with a rich depth to it despite not being a gloss paint.

started making student loan payments today wohoo!

Wooo, paying for stuff!

So I had a dream about my old Celica, which is weird since I've stopped dreaming and not dreamed in ages. Though of all the things to dream about. Hmmm, maybe this is one of those subconscious sending a message type of deals.

Gotta pay that debt down to get my Tacoma haha
Today I went to cars and coffee, some "interesting" stuff showed up I guess but nothing really exites me anymore that's not different. There was my co workers skyline, a lovely 61 belvedere and my favorite a e28 M5.

^Exactly, it's part of why I stopped going to shows. Usually it's the same 75% every time and most everything is run of the mill and you've seen it a hundred times already.

So was looking around last night and apparently Toyota terribly under-tuned the 2ZZ-GE for the Celica GT-S, since an aftermarket computer gains 40 hp with no other mods which is insane for a high strung naturally aspirated four cylinder. With 220 hp it'd be close to the power/weight ratio of the Firebird. I think a Celica GT-S or Integra GS-R could be fun despite being FWD, good mix of quickness and handling. That and would still be usable as a car unlike a Miata or MR2, though the MR2 isn't as bad having the trunk and under-hood storage.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about trying the "hose mod" on the Firebird which drops the rear of the car by 0.5-0.75" by removing the really tall rubber spring isolators and instead wrapping the top of the spring in heater hose to stop noise. Right now from ground to center of the wheel opening is 26.75" in the front and 28.25" in the rear, so the amount of rake from the factory is stupid. So if could get it down to 27.5" in the rear that'd be great, I think it'd help handling some since having the rear higher induces over-steer. That and maybe it'll help with keeping from scraping the radiator scoop all the time...

Yep, a bit of power left on the table from Toyota, 200whp isn't hard to do with an intake and tune, add piper stage 2 cams and matching valve train bits and you'll see over 200whp no problems on 91 octane pump gas and daily drivable tune.

Which poking around the Tein site they're showing FlexZ coil-overs again for the 7th gen, but out of stock. Then again could always do Tein springs with KYB AGX struts I suppose, use the saved money over coil-overs to get Whiteline sways. Hmm...

I think between suspension mods, some 17x8 wrapped in summer tires, as well as some bolt-ons and a tune I'd be fairly happy with a 7th gen GT-S 6-speed.