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

[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.