After many years and several celicas baby is home, xat swapped 3rd gen 3sgte with ems Options

[yarik83]

after groing through several celicas over the years I was finally able to proceed with a swap on a 2nd celica that i have.

its a 1994 toyota celica GT COUPE.. yes a coupe originally 5sfe now equipped with xat racing

Stage 2 Celica 3rd gen 3SGTE swap into US FWD Toyota Celica: includes 3rd gen JDM Celica 3S-GTE motor-set,
2nd gen MR2 tranny and jack-shafts, custom Front mount intercooler piping with Spearco core, Walbro Fuel pump, Greddy Profec B -II Boost controller, turbo back custom exhaust (photos show a different mufler which was later changed to megan n1 turbo), all fluids, belts, hoses, plugs, install, tuning, and 30 day warranty.... $6500

XAT Racing Stand Alone Engine Management installed into your 3S-GTE swapped US Celica -
$1400 installed and dyno tuned

EMS is made by a company called Spectre and model is called pro-ems

Final price including tax etc came out to $8542.88

Completed in about 1.5 months. Was supposed to be 2 weeks but series of mishaps such as first engine arriving with a crack and sent back and second one being held up at customs and brackets breaking and ada yada.

After spending a few days on dyno and playing around with EMS they tuned it to 262.07hp. I was told that car could go 310 easy with a few minor changes/upgrades.

car status: driven and tested by me in the dark cause its not registered yet. drives like a beast. Shifts craptastically because im still breaking in that clutch master cylinder thing that I changed over the weekend. Basically I think i should bleed the thing again and make it a bit looser or something.

While driving I unfortunately almost got pulled over by 2 police cars in an hour that I drove the car. Once around 7 11 he was giving me the eye while i was filling up and second time I just smoked integra and a civic and decelerated back to normal speed (on highway of course) and in under a minute I see a cop passing me and again giving me the eye. I did have a licence plate on it swapped from my daily driver celi.. so not sure if that stopped him from checking me out or he was too tired or something.

car still needs bodywork and air suspension installed.

following are a few teaser pics.

Edit: just noticed that date on photos does not match. I thought I took out the date completely. All shots were taken in past week.


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-27


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-27


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-27


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-19


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-19


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-19


By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-11-19

This post has been edited by yarik83: Nov 27, 2007 - 9:43 PM

[celicast3sgte]

cool dude, im jealous. my car is still sitting out in my shop in pieces....

[playr158]

very nice yarik.

glad to see you have her home again

[CelicaSTX02]

Nice dude, I need to hurry up with mine's. I like how you ran the piping for your FMIC.

[yarik83]

Everything associated with swap was done at xat. I have, however been asked to check and retighten all couplings in 100 miles or so. I am registering my car tommorow with florida dot and will take her out for a little something something at a place of my work. We have miles and miles of absolutely straight roads with 0 traffic and other than ocasionally crossing turtles and gators there is nothing to really interrupt me. I will test it at speeds up to 80 then park it, make sure nothing is loose etc etc, basically I will be breaking it in over next couple of weeks.

[95CelicaST]

The valve cover and the heat shield look like crap.

You should try to source cleaner, less corroded ones.

Overall it looks good. Does it have LSD?

[supra12big]

hey can u take pics of the passenger side motor mount

[Punch]

what part of fla you in ???

[frosty]

Very nice, just get the bodywork done and everything registered and start shooting some vids!

One concern I have though is how close the ic pipe is to the exhaust. I know there is the heat shield, but I would wrap the manifold as well. Every little bit counts!

This post has been edited by frosty: Nov 30, 2007 - 6:53 PM

[phattyduck]

Interesting... MR2 water neck, MR2 ignition wires, no AWIC bracket, no throttle cable brackets on the manifold, no plastic wire holder for front accessories... This is probably an MR2 motor with Celica accessory brackets. Still should work just fine though!

-Charlie

[yarik83]

to answer some of the questions.

I am not sure if this has lsd as I never asked, however from what I have been told they were converting it from 4wd.

Can I take a photo of engine mount? absolutely. I just need to figure out my intercooler piping. The pipe coming from FMIC to engine keeps falling off and its pissing me the heck off. Taking it to xat tommorow for a little chit chat. They are to fix my upside down steering anyways.

Why does the engine look like crap? I dont know and at this very moment I have little time to take care of it. I am tied up at work and other things so it will be detailed sometime.

Where do I live? I moved to Brandon, FL from new jersey.

how fast does it run and what does it do?

it is dynoed at 262 horsies at 12 lbs boost. I am not a professional when it comes to tellin how fast the car goes but it goes faster than my old one by at least 3 times. Tonight I took it out for a spit on my work's roads (miles and miles of mining facility closed ex (highways/freeways/stateroutes etc) Every time I hit 80 my intercooler pipe would fall off with a big bang.. like as if air pressure was released. I am having xat have a look at it tommorow cause its agonizingly annoying. I stopped and fixed it like 12 times today.

Paint/bodywork.

After some nitty gritty I have discovered that rear bumper is totally messed up. I bought it from a member here and it was supposedly made by vis. I bought 4 vis invader kits before and rear bumper was never shorter in width and never shorter in length. Now its missing about 5 inches in length and about 2 inches in width. I might end up buying a replacement rear bumper if maaco determines that its not fixable. I actually had to saw the rear in half just to attach it somehow. Why maaco? I do intend to paint it professionally but spending 6 grand on a fancy paintjob is out of the question at the moment. So for a year or so maaco paint will do just fine.

[Kadett]

The valve cover and the heat shield look like crap.

You should try to source cleaner, less corroded ones.

A little bit of sand paper en heat resistant spray cans do the trick just fine! Did that to my Heat shield and next year I will do the valve cover too.

@OP:
Nice job on the project dude!

[lagos]

I have to say, they got the motor in there, and it runs, but its its along the lines of what I like to call a "quick and dirty" swap. For the money you paid, I would have expected more effort on their end.

As for the IC piping, tell them to put on longer silicone couplers and some t-bolt clamps.

[purepunishment]

how long did it take for them to do the swap? i heard there is a waiting list for them.

[yarik83]

photos of modified passenger mount

By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-12-01

By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-12-01

By yarik83, shot with KODAK DX7630 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2007-12-01


If I had to give a recommendation to a 6gc er in regards to xat racing my advice would be... I duno.

In my experience there is not too much to chose from and in either case its either driving across half the continent and or paying through the roof localy.

I have been quoted anything in vicinity of 6-12 grand locally and 6500 at xat. Factor in the tax etc and it comes up to what I payed. Swap would have been cheaper if I did not buy the EMS.

Is xat racing a right way to go?
Sure if you have like 9 years and an extra car. In my case there was severe lack of communication and almost agonizing series of events that sound undoubtfully plausible but almost improbable. Engine swap dragged from 2 weeks to almost 2 months. Let me explain something.. I do not mind waiting but when someone promises u a deadline and fails all 18 deadlines I was given, you start getting really really upset. For so much money I have expected more communication, more involvement, more professionalism in terms of outcome. Upon my car was done I realized that things that wernt broken before were now malfunctioning and they made it so clearly obvious that it was not their job to fix it. Example would be clutch master cylinder being all of a sudden broken, steering wheel being upside down and steering fluid leaking out of the wazoo and engine looking like crap. I would like to have found my car in drivable condition upon pickup and engine looking like what they show in all 15 or so car tuning tv programs. nice shiney and sparkling. Instead I got a car covered in more oils than u can poke a stick at all of which are tolerable but it all adds in the end to reduce your appreciation of overall experience.

Xat appears a godsend on many websites and maybe it is as almost all cars that they service are nissan and there are no other decent performance shops in area. What xat lacks is a list that could be stretched across 10 single spaced pages but again I am not sure whether its my emotions and or I am saying it because thats how it is. They lack client communication and nobody seems to know anything about anyone at any time. You are given deadlines that are not met and their overall attitude on the subject is very relaxed as if they were the only shop in the world and had unrestricted time to get to some cars sometime maybe at some point. Upon my several trips to the shop I was pleasantly surprised at amount of cars there, most of which were nissans, but yet every time I went there I would memorize location of stuff (well thats what I do nevermind my fetishes) and in 2 months most cars were not moved an inch. That could possibly explain one of 2 things. Either they have lots of work to complete and thats why cars were parked there and or their productivity is slow as a ... and that could possibly explain inability to meet deadlines.

WOuld I go back to xat. I guess I would providing I dont sell my other car. I expect any work they do to be performed satisfactory but there will be no cherry on top as it is not really their priority.

I do realize that an xat person may and will stumble upon this very thread at some point. So here is my message to them. Casey, the owner is a soft spoken guy who almost looks like he does not belong there. He basically books engine swaps, however it almost seems as he is not on same page with whats going on in the shop. Mechanics do not want to talk to you but when they do there is always a tone of voice they have which basically calms you down and makes you go along with what they are saying. Then there is other guy who always answers the phone who modifies original deadlines and then never calls you back and when you do something is horribly wrong and it will be yet another week in the shop. I am upset with my xat experience just as much as I am happy. I am happy because I finally get to drive a super celica I am sad because I made plans for each of deadlines, I made phonecalls, I made arrangements for future car plans.. and Im not even including how many days of my personal time were kinda ruined because I cancelled all my plans for those days.

Neverless my car is here. I think there is still a mile to be done to the car both cosmetically and mechanically. Unfortunately its not like you walk into a shop and get your car next day.

[yarik83]

Tonights update:
I was able to beat a guy driving a mercedes. It was a 2 seater model. I am not a mercedes guru but it was one of later models. Tinted windows, rims.. guy revving his engine all the way through town taunting me. Red light... last red light of the town and road heading off into far away of nothingness. I had the guy at third gear and my wheels spun in between shifts. Car pulling quite a bit of torque. One other thing I have discovered is that my steering fluid is leaking faster than I can replentish it. I am going to park the car till monday to go back to xat. I was gonna drop by today but they were busy and could not service my car today.

Another thing my windshield wipers cant stop working. I dont know how to turn them off. Its late now to fix anything but i guess thats another thing added to xat must fix list. I hope there will be no more surprises

[lagos]

thats definitely not the way that passengers side mound should have been done.

[yarik83]

I think they broke it cause I do recall one of their holdbacks being something about engine mount

[shin]

if i were to swap, it'll be me and the JDM GUY TuNING.

[yarik83]

Well here is the thing. Type up 3sgte swap into any search engine. I darn bet ya that xat pops up. Yes Yes I do realize that there are local shops, for example back in new jersey in my college area there was 2 who could do the swap but they never attempted a 3s swap before. And unfortunately nowadays when people say jdm somehow mention of toyota fades and everyone thinks its a nissan.

I would very much liked to have swap done by 6gc guys. I remember how depgeph was shining like a bride on a wedding day when he brought his carbon fiber exhaust to upstate new york meet. Swap was done shortly after then and it was as I recall 6gcers who helped him. As it was then I was still in college and with my ex spending like every dime I earned swap was on the agenda but unreachable. I moved, got a job, graduated, starting doing weird things like scuba diving and well it kind of escalated into a swap. Now I just need to work all the bugs out, paint it, install air suspension and start going to local car meets and car shows.