6G Celicas Forums

As the description says I currently own a SS-III with a few performance stuff done to it but none major really only:
exhaust
intake(yea I know its a sin cause the factory one is SO much better performance wise but I bought it without the factory one in)
lowering springs
OEM lsd

In a few months time the cost of insuring a turbo car for me will be half of what it is now cause of my age.
So I was wondering if it is worth selling the SS-III for the extra 40-50hp and 4wd
if I get theGT4 I would probably plan on doing the exhaust, intake, intercooler, and a tune(with new ecu if needed I dont know anything about the ecu in these and tuning sorry)
does anyone know what kind of power gains these would make as I am looking for 315hp+ at the wheels if its short what else would be needed to get it there
or any better suggestions from someone that has done it before cause I am just going off posts online and don't know how true they are

I have heard people say that the GT4 is just so much slower and less responsive in the lower revs then the SS-III and I was wondering how true this is
Also that they are alot heavier because of the parts needed for FWD and this makes them a pain in the corners and if so what can be done to combat this and what kind of price tag am I looking at

I would be full on race tracking it but i would like it to be fun and with the potential in the future to get on the track while still being road legal.

any advice would be greatly appreciated

Here is my SS-III (and yes I do have the legit parts to match my brand stickers hahahah)

The only way to truly know is to drive one. A 3S-GTE will not build power as linearly as your NA BEAMS will. I have only been a passenger so I can't comment fully, but from the other seat a GT-Four does not feel slow, it feels rather quick. A little more so than the BEAMS. You would have to exercise more care with your throttle as the turbo comes on and off, it could theoretically be said that it does not respond in the low end quite the same. Doesn't make it less thrilling, it just depends on what your thrill is.

I would say the same in regards to drivetrain. Both have inherent understeer, as well as attainable oversteer. I would naturally gravitate toward AWD because it is more balanced, if heavier. What will you use the car for?

I forget if the SS-III has SuperStrut too...either way, I believe the figure 8 arms (and banana arms?) on the 205 wear fairly soon and are expensive (if hard?) to replace. Your power goals are fairly cheap and easy to attain.

Until you drive one and report back here, my answer is keep the SS-III and buy the Four.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: May 13, 2016 - 7:39 PM

I agree, drive one before you go to sell the SS-III. You may love how the GT-Four drives over the SS-III, but at the same time you could hate it. It's one of those things where you could get personal accounts from multiple owners or read professional reviews and you can get a general idea, but until you drive it you really don't know for sure. Though being you're wanting 300+ horsepower at the wheels if you want to do that with a Celica pretty much the GT-Four is the way to do it.

Exhaust, intake and boost controller gets a GT4 above 300 bhp. I love mine and it's AWD. A whole different thing from my FWD (given it's only a 7a-fe).

Get the GT4.
They are brutal if build properly.
I competed in Targa Tasmania last month for the first time in one and it was brilliant (#731 Early Modern competition)

mainly daily driving but I would like to eventually take it to the track as there are beginning to be a lot more events near me as time goes on. So the eventual plan is to daily and occasionally autocross/track for fun not seriously though. I also once a month go driving around the hills that are just out of the city as at night you can go pretty quick and that's hella fun

I am aiming for it to be all around good rather then just amazing in a straight line or just amazing in corners


yep, I learnt that the hard way when one of mine needed to be fixed hahahah, cause it cost so bloody much for the parts


That sounds to good and easy to be true hahaha


thanks for the advice because i plan to import one from japan as its so cheap to get it over here to NZ and there is a much bigger range over there. But i will try and get behind the seat of a stock one here and test it out to see what its like.


Thanks for the advice guys its greatly appreciated.

I'll definitely find a GT4 to have a go with. And after looking around I like the mod ability of the 3s-gte engine performance wise as i have been wanting to do things to my SS-3 performance wise but all of the stuff you can do just tends to lower performance as everything in it just relies on everything else being stock. And so i am stuck for ideas of of fun project things that i can do to it beside just visual things.

I want to say Rusty, one of our moderators, has been able to squeeze some extra power out of his BEAMS but he found a rare ECU by Tom's? The BEAMS is so highly strung from the factory so there's really not much room for improvement, but I've seen people talk about increasing the power before. Perhaps the MR2 forums will have good info on such.

Rusty has a 3rd gen 3S-GE, not a BEAMS, so he has room for upgrades. The best way to extract power out of the BEAMS is to ditch the stubborn stock ECU.

Ahh ok, for some reason was thinking his was.

Seems just a matter of whether you want n/a or turbo power or if you want more power

Also more wheels moving the car.

and also the aggressive front end.

yes, get a celica gt4 lol, ah and if you can keep the ss3 as a daily driver ? ive owned a non turbo celica aswell god i miss that car. ive currently own a gt4 have for the last few years i love it haha, but i only use mine for weekends etc more of a toy.

Have you met up with any local GT4 owners?

Either keep the GT4 as a weekend/project car, and have the SS-III or other run around as a daily