I Think its Time to Swap., 3SGTE owners, input please Options

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

So lately I've been thinking seriously about what direction to go performance-wise after kicking around ideas for quite some time now. This led me to a conclusion of what i want out of it-

1.) MORE POWER dammit!
2.) Reliability, since I drive back and forth to college every day.
3.) Upgradability, which the 3SGTE has in spades.

This led me to thinking about HOW I would do it. I'm not exactly in the position to do it myself, since I dont have nearly the mechanical skill that I wish I had to swap in an engine. And sure, I know theres guys in my area (Lagos, DG, Supersprynt) who know how, but I wouldnt expect you guys to undertake anything like that or walk me through it.
However, I read of a shop in Sport Compact Car that swapped a full WRX powertrain into an Impreza 2.5RS in south Jersey. So, I contacted them to see what they thought about performing the swap on a 6th generation Celica.

I said-

[lagos]

its cool to see that there is a shop lilke theirs that seems fairly inteligent and somewhat honest. just hope they are cheap too.....where are they located and do u have a website or contact info for them?

you mentioned that me, sprint and DG, have enought skill to do these swaps, but what i think you are forgetting is that none of us knew a thing about our cars before doing the swap. you lean while doing it. so if you are at least hard working, motivated, and good with your hands, you too can do a swap!


1st thing you should do is make sure you buy a clip and not try to get a deal on just the engine. with the clip, you will have the ignitor, coil, resistor pack, ecu, harness, and all the little stuff that come in handy.

2nd thing, is to make sure this shop can do harness work. basically, you have to take the 3sgte harness make it work with the 6th gen. this means that you have to fully rewire the main engine bay fuse box, rewire the 3rd ecu plug, rewire 3 "interrior" plugs that sit right above the ecu, and add in your own fuel pump relay.

installing the 3sgte is basically the same as installing a 5sfe. the only thing to rememeber, is that you might want to grind down your passengers side motor mount a little, cause it touches the timing belt cover.

if you have a 5sfe tranny thats in good condition, you can shure as hell use that. and mr2 trubo tranny is the best solution, but its hard to find and cost more money. i went with a 5s tranny, because i would rather have one i know is in good shape, then to buy a junk yard one and pray its good.

This post has been edited by lagos: Sep 1, 2004 - 6:41 PM