6G Celicas Forums

Hello. I have a 1996 Celica ST (7A-FE). It's a bit of a mess at the moment. It had been in a front-end accident. I tore the hood off, and drove it home. It ran fine, but defnitely overheated (radiator was cracked). Not sure 'how' bad, but it got up there. Seemed to run fine after, too. I moved it to the backyard, and let it sit without a hood for about two months (I was just done with the project at that point, given up). Now when I try to start it, if I haven't touched it in about a week it'll start fine. If I shut it off after about half a minute, it'll start on maybe 2-3 cylinders. It then gets down to barely running on one.

However, if I rev it up high (~4k-5k), it'll run just fine (all 4 cylinders will start to fire normal). I tested compression, and it seems to be getting between 155-165 for all cylinders. Seems to have spark on all 4 plugs. Fuel pump is working, I can hear it and while I don't have a way to test fuel pressure I pulled the hose off the rail and it is definitely flowing. Any suggestions from here? I'd love to have not cooked the engine, but if it is what it is, well then... F*** it. Thanks for any suggestions you can provide. If it sounds more like the engine is toast, what in the engine would cause this? I actually have a spare head lying around, if that'd be likely. Could the compression test come back as that without being good, still?

With it sitting outside without a hood could be moisture in the distributor cap.

Could it still spark via a plug touched to the engine block, if that's the issue, though? I've had a hood set over it for about a month now, with no real changes. If you think it's a possibility I'll definitely look into it, just wasn't sure if it could still spark but be bad.

Is there any way I could be reading 155psi but still have something damaged from overheating? I guess I can't think of anything here.