6G Celicas Forums

Hi, my name is Mouse. I am now working for Dr. Tweak at Phoenix Tuning. I have always been interested in imports, but am new to the Toyota scene.

So, Dr. tweak and I have been talking about me needing another car since me and my girlfriend are new here and currently only have one. Dr tweak wants to provide me with a motivator for the work that we do and give me hands on experience with the joy of being a Toyota owner.

In the middle of the day as we are working on our wiring conversions. He turns to me and says, "Do you want a Celica?". Then tells me that he received an email about a project car that never got completed and needs to be gotten rid of by this weekend. This was on Wednesday. So the guy send us pics of the car. He tells us it is in pieces but everything is there. He originally wanted to do the motor swap to the 3SGTE and had planned on upgrading the suspension.

So on Saturday I meet Dr. Tweak here in Savannah and we go get a trailer from the local u-haul and head off to Daytona Beach, Fl.

When we arrive at Dennis's house I finally get to see what we are working with. I had assumed from the pictures he sent that the front fenders and bumper were removed as well as the engine. This is what we saw when we got there.



We have dubbed this: Project Stuart Little.
Because, as you all now know, everyone calls me Mouse, and Stuart Little drove a convertible:)

Here are the pics as we unload the parts from the car. Dennis didn't just attempt a motor swap, although I'm not sure why he stripped the car this far down, he took out all the harnesses, seats, instrument cluster, disconnected the shock on the drivers front, and removed the headlight and the transmission. The stock motor was still in the engine bay but ready to be removed.



Putting the 3SGTE in the Tundra










Dr. Tweak strapping the engine down





At this point we were unloading everything from the 6GC to load the car on the dolly. Dennis even had the AWD transmission for the 3SGTE.











So as we are unloading the part from the 6GC I begin to wonder what Dr. Tweak has really gotten me into. His eyes are as big as mine as we work together to unload the car and see just how much work there is in putting this back together.



Then its time for the top to come up. It was a lot easier than we thought it would be. There is a switch to unlock the motor for the convertible top in the trunk, so it went up fairly easily.







We were told that the stock motor ran good when Dennis decided to park it and attempt the motor swap. The stock motor never made it out of the car.



With the help of the guys that were there we got the Celica loaded and were almost ready to head back to Savannah. Note the chains dragging on the ground after the Celica and parts were Loaded. When we pushed the car on the dolly I was in it. then tried to open the door only to find that the fender wells on the trailer were too close to open it. All the windows were rolled up and the top up so I had no choice but to climb out the door.



Here is all the parts loaded in the Tundra.



The Stuart Little Project loaded and ready for transport







Dr. Tweak and I with the new 6GC project



So to begin with we are going to reinstall everything including the stock motor and manual transmission to get it back on the road for now. We are going to sort out all the parts that came with this and figure out what is missing for the 3sgte. The turbo was gone, and with all the parts strewn around god know what else. Then we are going to order the parts we need to do the 3SGTE swap.

So I will keep you posted as we decide what else we are going to do to make this a one of a kind build.

No TRD package on the Tundra Tweak? aww

Naw it's a Limited.

-Doc

update?

Engine bolted in:



Wide-angle shot:



Brackets for heat exchanger welded up and installed:



Closeup of the bracket and also one of the cushion clamps holding the silicone line from the pump to the heat exchanger. The two other lines are stainless braided (the ones that you can see )



Stainless braided -12 AN lines and fittings:



More cushion clamps for an ultra-clean look

loogs good so far

Nice work Dr. Like the V-Band from the turbo to the cooler.

Good stuff, thanks for the update doc

Thanks Also has a v-band from the intercooler to the throttle body

-Doc

Those things are gorgeous aren't they? My Trans Am's turbo hot-parts have all V-Bands on them too. My first experience with them and I'm sold.

Oh yeah, we've been using them for quite some time on our exhausts, especially on turbine outlets, but this is the first time that I've used aluminum v-bands. I will definitely use them again

-Doc

Oh wow, I didn't know they made them in aluminum. The ones on my kit are SS. I'm actually thinking about making the cold side for the T/A with V-Band for quick removal for track adjustments on the motor.

they are nice for some things, but get expensive after a while.
so when is this beast getting fired up?

X2

Be a few more weeks probably, I can only get time to work on it one day a week on the weekend and this weekend I've got something going on....

Left to do is build the cold air intake, build the exhaust, run all the lines (a/c, p/s, coolant, etc), make a new fuel line, check the fuel pump install, spring/struts, etc. Once I get it started I'll decide if I'm going to get into a wire tuck now or later.

-Doc

I'm very interested to see what happens with the wire tuck because I want to do the same to my car.

Any update?

Got the engine started yesterday! It coughed a little bit at first but it's running great now. This is how the engine sits now:



I tig-welded up a cold air intake for it. Originally I didn't have the stock BOV recirculated but we found that it was leaking a little vacuum at idle, so out the intake came for a little more modification.



This view shows the route the intake takes along with the two air ports (PCV and IACV). Also visible is the bracket holding the AFM.



Another view showing the AFM and air filter, with the stainless water lines just clearing it. Also visible is the intercooler water pump.



Air filter in a great spot to pick up some cold air. Also you can see the water pump relay that we wired up. It's triggered by the un-used fuel pump circuit on the AFM, so it runs only when the engine is actually running.



Got this a couple weeks ago



We were pretty excited with it running well. While it was warming up the first time I started filling the custom water/air intercooler setup and found a pinhole leak at one of the fittings on the heat exhanger. So after it was warmed up we shut it down to change the oil, fix that hole, and then weld up the fitting to recirculate the BOV. Fired it up the second time and it was running really good, but I noticed that I kept having to fill the intercooler up. At first I attributed it to bleeding air out of the system, but soon it became apparent that there must be another leak somewhere.

This morning I checked it and found the intercooler empty. I had Chris at SCC tear into it and he confirmed my fears, there seems to be an internal leak inside the intercooler itself. I expected that it would be near one of the modifications that I made to it but it seems to be deep inside the core somewhere. I'm going to take a look at it myself tomorrow and see if it can be repaired. With all the time I have into the intercooler I hope that it can... if not, we'll be picking up a new core and making a few changes to the setup.

-Doc

OK several people arond here said I couldn't use a vband for an intercooler piping seam - guess they were wrong. This is exactly what I need for those hard to seal areas
Doc - Pm me some details please? Oh and that coating is awesome!

This post has been edited by DEATH: Jul 17, 2009 - 3:24 PM

those look to be aluminum vbands, with orings for sealing.
great for stuff that dont move at all matt, not somthing you wanna use for a FMIC.
burns stainless carrys em.

I like the new plate! Great job so far. I always love seeing your projects. One of these days I will be bringing a car up to you.