400+ hp daily driven? Options

[Arturio55]

Has anyone here daily driven a 3sgte swapped celi with an s54 tranny that was 400hp or more?
Swapping very soon and im gonna build it up next year...this is my only car so just want to know my limits.
Personal experiences only, not "well I read on alltrac.net ......"
although direct links to other websites about this topic will be acceptable.
im gonna have stock internals, MAYBE the street brawler turbo kit from KO in the future, if i cant reach my goal with the ct20b

[Nial]

I saw once a FWD celica with a played with 3SGTE, not sure how many BHP it had but it was more than standard, I believe it was more or less a daily driver so it has been done, what it was like to drive and live with God only knows.

It will certainly be an interesting challenge that's for sure. 400bhp in an AWD Celica is interesting enough.

If it goes bang after 200 miles, as long as you are prepared for that then so what!!!!! You will learn a valuable lesson, make changes and try again, as long as you have patience, learn from your lessons and have pretty deep pockets it will be a fun journey.....but also take advice from people who have been down this road, not many have but it may save you from spending a lot of money you may not need to. Also don't fixate on a number, the last thing you want to do is chase BHP figures as it will almost certainly end in tears one way or another. If you don't have deep pockets then I would think again, it won't be cheap and if things do go south and you can't afford to fix it, it will all be for nothing and very frustrating. Hardly anything on a 3sgte is cheap....apart from the scrap value.

Going from my experience I would do a straight swap with a standard 3sgte engine, run that for a while and see what you think, it might not be the way you want to go, but you will learn about the engine, and perhaps be able to better guide yourself as to which modifications would work best. Even just changing the ECU to a fully mappable version can make such a difference to a car. I managed to get near to 340BHP with an ECU, hybrid turbo and boost controller, & 1.3 bar , the engine was otherwise completely standard. That was more or less the limit of the injectors, managed to clock up 235,000 miles like that, over 100,000 of those at 1.1 to 1.3 bar. FWD will certainly place less strain on the engine which will help things last. Also if you have big BHP available dosnt mean you have to use it, you could have a daily setting and a weekend setting on the ECU. What ever you decide I hope it goes well.