RWD conversion opinion Options

[CentralMarylandA...]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this group so let me introduce myself. My name is Arthur and I own and operate Central Maryland Automotive in Westminster, MD. You can also visit my Facebook page "Central Maryland Automotive" as well.

Anyway I just bought a 1994 Celica ST 5-speed the other day and was curious in the direction I should go with the car.

I have the option to fix the car back to stock requiring replacing the engine and sell it outright or modifying it to a rear wheel drive and selling it.

So my question is this...do people have the money that buy and modify these cars to spend $10k-$15k for a custom and vey rare rear wheel drive version of these cars?

Now before I start a **** storm of people saying "don't do it, oh it's too hard, save your money" blah blah blah....I am a very skilled mechanic and fabricator. Converting into a RWD version will be challenging but can be done none the less and I have no problem putting the time and money into it. I've been doing this like this for 16+ years so I am well aware of the cost and time in it. So I do not need opinions on what it will take because I know exactly what I'm doing and how to do it.

So what I'm looking for is this...are there people that buy these cars who would be "willing and able" to fork out $10k-15k for a rarely done RWD conversion with a 600hp+ built KA24DE-T engine? I already have the race engine done from a previous build for one of our drifters that we never used and was considering putting it into something. However if people do not have the money to buy the Celica for what I need to then I won't even bother. I'll just drop another 1.8L into it and sell it as-is.

Lastly I'm sure some people will be like WTF...Nissan in a Toyota? And my reply is yes. I don't really want comments on that either. I just need straight forward answers in dealing with the question at hand. I do not normally interact in forums due to time and me running a business (not to mention the drama and trolling that seems to occur frequently) but with this being a niche type of car I figured I would go directly to this who have these and are involved in the scene to give me a better insight to which direction I should go in.

Lastly I am not building the car to keep. This is primarily a sell to make profit deal.

Thank you guys for your time.

[richee3]

The short answer is no, there isn't much market for a heavily modified 6gc. Even cars with a fair amount of work that are listed for like $7-8k have a hard time selling. That being said, someone may eventually buy it but you'd probably be sitting on it for a while.

[cheela]

^what he said.

as much as I would want to see you go through with it and do a RWD set up.
since you're trying to build and sell for profit, it wouldn't make too much sense for you.

now if you were building it for yourself, I'd say go all out and do it, throw that nissan engine and make it RWD.

[njccmd2002]

I cannot even sell a pair of calipers in this forum for 300 bucks. Let alone spend that money. If you still want to doit just import a gt4 celica rear end.

dont waste your money if you think you will sell the car. If you do it be prepared to take a loss. Or better just keep it and have fun!!

[CentralMarylandA...]

Thanks for the wisdom guys. I really appreciate it. That helps me choose my coarse of direction. God bless.

[CentralMarylandA...]

Out of curiously though...what does a stock 1994 Celica ST manual transmission with 120k sell for?

[Tigawoods]

itd be cheaper and easier to sell if its
1. stock with a new 1.8
2. awd swap with a 3S. (if you are itching to do some work to it)

[Jmk91]

Out of curiously though...what does a stock 1994 Celica ST manual transmission with 120k sell for?

I got a 1994 celica gt stock with no rust or anything, paint is perfect has 2 small dents in fenders wth 107kish 5 speed new clutch for 1900 or 2k i forget. I sold it for 2700 if i recall correctly and bought it back for 2250 5k miles later lol.
But it depends on where you live and how bad someone wants a celica. I paid 2900 for a black 95 gt 5 speed perfect interior and body ect with 160k. I put 3600$+ into the car worth of upgrades rims ect and only managed to get 4k out of it. Biggest regret was selling it. That's why i,bought my 94 but it's silver... doesn't look half as good as a black celica.

[Box]

Yup, any kind of extensive conversion should only be done if you love the car and want to keep it for yourself. What you might consider is replace the engine with another 7A and then do some suspension work to it and then you'll have a fun daily that gets upper 30's on regular fuel.

[Bitter]

Being a 94 you can pop on an ebay header and kick the timing up to 15deg btdc, run mid grade gas (or premium), and get about 35 highway out of it with a corolla 5th gear swap. Not to mention the header and advanced timing make that 1.8 haul some ass, comparatively to stock.