New from Canada Eh! Options

[OnAllFours]

Hello all! My name is Dan, I'm an apprentice mechanic in southern Ontario and last fall I got my hands on the car of my dreams! I hope to learn as much as I can from everyone here and in turn I'm planning on creating my own guides for performing general maintenance and mechanical repairs as a way to contribute back to the community.

Let me first tell you what my history is with Celicas, when I was about 5 or 6 I was at my aunt/uncle's house in So-Cal and they had a tape of the Monte Carlo Rally 1995 on TV and I immediately adored the stand out looks and loud growl from the TTE Celicas. I was always into cars as a kid even though none of my close relatives were, and I just basically went and learned as much as I could with nobody to keep me grounded to a certain style/genre of cars. In high school I didn't plan on doing anything car related as a career, I found it much more of a hobby as other kids who grew up around cars seemed miles ahead of me in shop class. The big turning point was stumbling on a Japanese export site while slacking off in computers class. I'd seen Skylines, FDs, and such in the Fast and Furious movies, but spending hours going over the export listings really caught me on to the Japanese sports cars. Then back to rallying I learned that my cousin was going to be competing in some of the Rally America races down in Cali, so I got into that as well. Then I got offered a job and apprenticeship through some other connections and even though I was so green to wrenching I couldn't pass it up. After my first year of work I started looking for a car and bought a high mileage 5spd '92 Accord, but while I was searching online for cars I stumbled upon a fantastic 5th Gen GT-Four which was out of my price range but still a fantastic deal. When I was tired of the Accord I wanted to go to the next step and since I'd been working my butt off I wanted a nice JDM import, and lo-and-behold the listing for the 5th Gen was still up (this was the next spring)! I pounced on it, and despite a snow storm the night before I drove up to Toronto to pick it up. I dug it out of the snow drift, boosted it and in my excitement tried to drive out with the e-brake still on . Unfortunately for me the previous owner had managed to hide a transmission issue and by that summer it came apparent that I would need to either replace the tranny ($$$) or give up on my baby. I started pricing out a full ST205 engine/tranny swap and realized that the 6th Gens being 15 yrs/o I would be better off to simply get the full step up instead. I found a fantastic importer who found me a great car and fast forward a couple months and a bank loan later and the car of my dreams arrived at my doorstep !








So, what I'm thinking is, everytime I do something on my car (oil change, brakes, timing belt, w/e) I'll take pics and give a step by step guide for doing it, a long with a difficulty rating so less experienced people don't get in over their heads. My reason for this is that because these cars were never sold here, those who have them may not be able to find people to work on them or may not be able to find repair manuals/part listings. I will figure this stuff out on my own and with my friends at work and then pass on my findings to the rest of us .

Let me know what you think!

[dabazied]

Welcome, nice find on the car.

[easternpiro1]

now thats what i like! a roookie with a purpose!!! welcome aboard! and look oWt... i know somebody that would want your mudflaps!

[OnAllFours]

now thats what i like! a roookie with a purpose!!! welcome aboard! and look oWt... i know somebody that would want your mudflaps!

Lol! I totally lucked out on this one. It came with everything I could hope to start with. Planning on a boost gauge and controller this spring, and maybe a computer and tune by fall, but we'll see. I've got a very tempting offer from one of the mechanics at work who has 3 Porsche 944s and is looking to get rid of two and replace the tranny on his other one. Thing is he wants to get both of them gone at the same time, he said he'd let me have both for $4000, but I don't have the space for 3 cars, so I'm gonna check with some of my friends if they want to split the deal... in which case I'd be putting the money into that instead of the Celica. I'm happy with it the way it is, I just want to tinker with it that's all.

Thanks guys!

[Artega]

awesome!
Welcome to 6gc
so many st205 in Canada now! w00t!

[cheela]

awesome! looking good. welcome to the site

[salv]

Very nice WRC! Do you visit Burlington or the KW Area? If you do we should meet up!
Definitely plan on hosting a Celica meeting sometime this spring! Would love for you to come

I'm a WRC owner as well. White with red mudflaps

[OnAllFours]

Very nice WRC! Do you visit Burlington or the KW Area? If you do we should meet up!
Definitely plan on hosting a Celica meeting sometime this spring! Would love for you to come

I'm a WRC owner as well. White with red mudflaps

Thanks! I'm occasionally in Burlington, and I frequent Cayuga during the summer. I'm game for some weekend meets for sure!

[texasnick]

Nice WRC!

I'm new here too. There are a lot of these starting to pop up around Canada.

Out of curiosity, where is that WRC plaque mounted? My car doesn't have one I think.

[azian_advanced]

it's on his rear license plate bezel.

[easternpiro1]

oh noez! ya gotta tinker with the four!!! nevermind the porche!!!!! lol that is a decent deal though!


oh and btw... GO USA HOCKEY EH? heh heh heh....

[SwissFerdi]

Weird that you have the rear splitters, but not the fronts (unless I'm missing them?). Beautiful car though, that's pretty much the look I'd go for. I'm pretty sure I saw this one before on an importer's website, I recognize the steering wheel. Great pickup man.

[DGAF]

Welcome aboard buddy.

[schmooot]

nicely done. I look forward to seeing some writeups once you get inside the beast

[Bigstring]

Nice motor, so many Celica's seem to be looking like trash at the moment, keep her looking good

[Valo666]

Welcome from an Ex-6GCer. I actually had the same kinda thing with my celica, but I actually bought the celica i drooled over for so many years. Good to see there are more and more 6Gen guys poping up. Back when I had my car, there was maybe 5 or 6 guys in the GTA. If you ever need anything (parts wise), I work at Performance Improvements in Hamilton. I'm here alll the damn time. We are just off the Linc and Upperjames.


BTW: Who did you use to import the car??

This post has been edited by Valo666: Feb 25, 2010 - 4:55 PM

[richee3]

Nice looking WRC. JDM power folding mirrors, I see? Nice. You'll get hooked on that car in no time, but 944's are nice too

[OnAllFours]

Welcome from an Ex-6GCer. I actually had the same kinda thing with my celica, but I actually bought the celica i drooled over for so many years. Good to see there are more and more 6Gen guys poping up. Back when I had my car, there was maybe 5 or 6 guys in the GTA. If you ever need anything (parts wise), I work at Performance Improvements in Hamilton. I'm here alll the damn time. We are just off the Linc and Upperjames.


BTW: Who did you use to import the car??

Awesome! What kind of stuff do you guys deal? A/M, OE? I imported through Mike Kent @ Right Drive in Vaughn, it's a really nice little outfit they have there. They are very community oriented and do a lot of meets and cruises in the summer.

Thanks again for the warm welcome! I'd really like to get cracking on this little project of mine, but unfortunately I changed my oil a month ago and Toyota built such a solid car that nothing needs fixing ATM. I'm going to get a boost gauge soon though, if anyone has any suggestions for a good unit that would be awesome!

[pipes]

how far are any of you guys from brampton?

[toyocelic]

nice cARRRRR,,,,,,WELCOME