6G Celicas Forums

So I figured I should make a thread about my rescued '94 GT-S Celica ST204. Here goes.

I bought her in November of 2010 to replace my old child, a built 1999 Toyota Camry LE.

She was my baby for 4 years. I put tons of money into her, seeing as I got her for free from my aunt. She came in terrible condition and was not loved when I received her. I rebuilt her, put in eibach pro suspension, a full 2" SS exhaust, bored out the pistons and replaced with larger ones, ect. I absolutely loved her, as did my friends and a few shop guys that race cars that I know through work. She was killed by a guy running a red in September of 2010.


So after accepting her loss, and receiving a $5,300 insurance check... I set off for another under loved child. I don't believe in buying new cars, nor do I believe in buying anything American in relation to cars. I searched the newspaper, I searched the internet... finally I found an app on my iPod that was "Cars.com." After searching on there, I decided I really wanted either a Prelude, a Integra GS-R, a Civic Si/EX, or a Celica. All the cars I went to see were either too expensive or were not as advertised.

Finally I cam across this little white gem. The car was listed for $2,800, power everything, 6 speaker stereo, GT model and best of all, 5 speed. So I went to have a look. There I found her, in a field, next to a house and she looked like she had been sitting for at least a year. Grass was growing into her miss-matched tires, dirt covering her exterior, dust all over her inside.... she was a mess. I asked to have a seat in her and to see if she started. I opened the door and sat down, instantly falling in love with the craftsmanship, the side hugging seats, and the feel of the leather wrapped steering wheel in my hands. I turned the key and instantly (the owner hadn't started her in over 6 months) she shook to life. I was greeted by dust blowing out of the vents as she roared from the hole behind her lower cat converter. I could tell she would be a trouble maker, but still, I was intrigued. I popped the hood to have a look at the 5S-FE, an engine I learned very well in my Camry.

First off, I spotted the normal usage signs. Leaking valve cover, old plug wires, dirty, oily, hairline cracked radiator, and an acid covered 34 series battery (mind you it's not facing the right way, wrong sized battery that had no hold down and didn't sit in the pan flat). She was a tad rusty, but still cleaner than most of the Celica's in Rochester.

I told the owner that I would have to think about it, and we shut her down and closed her up. I left that day to go home and talk to my dad about what he thought of it.

I returned a day after to see that the owner had cleaned her up, vacuumed out her interior and she looked fabulous. I gave the owner an offer of $1,800 cash because I knew the amount of work I would have to put into her. The owner wouldn't have it and I left once more.

That night I had a dream about the car... I awoke in the morning, wanting to take her for a drive and went back once more to talk to the owner. This time I had $2,500 cash with me, in hand, in case I really couldn't leave without her. We opened her up and turned her on. I took off in her, feeling her torque, her bite... I fell in love. I couldn't get out of her and decided to buy her. I told the owner that I won't pay more then $2,500 for her and that I have the cash in hand. The owner agreed and signed her over to me. I then returned home without her one last time to go to the DMV and get everything processed. The next day I went back, picked her up, and drove her home.

On the way home, well thats when she started to complain. At 60 she started to shake, making a weird rattling sound in the rear. I stopped at a gas station to fill her up and inspected my tires. The tires were 3 of one size, 1 of a smaller size and they all were cracked and weathered. I figured the owner put old tires on just to get rid of the car and knew I'd have to get new tires anyway, so it didn't bother me. So I went to fill her up. Half way through filling up, she started to make a really bad smell. The fuel filler neck was cracked and rusted to hell on the bottom. Fuel was dripping out as I filled her. Oy... she started to look like a nightmare.

I had the owner fix the fuel neck, which they agreed to, and footed the $200 bill from Toyota.

This is a picture the day after I got her (pre new fuel filler neck):

Finally started to get things fixed up on her and got some more shots via cellphone:







Then winter hit. I put new tires on her, Hankook Winter iPike 195/55/R15's (best grip in snow I've ever had. This car is a wonderful winter car.) I couldn't do more than that due to the weather so it was a cold long wait until the weather broke. I did manage to get my HID's in before the storm hit, and my yellow 9005 high beams. I managed to snap a pretty cool pic during a heavy winter storm too:



Then I found some smoke Depo lenses on eBay for a good price and popped those in (while freezing my butt off) and fixed my faulty washer pump as well. (Try driving in salty Rochester during the winter with no washer pump)


Finally winter came to an end and I re-did the breaks. I knew she leaked oil, but the leak seemed to get worse after the winter. I looked around and only saw it on the valve cover, so I changed that. I had done it twice before on the Camry, so I knew it would be an easy job. Wrong. I got the cover off and saw this:


What a mess! The engine had so much sludge in it. Even my Camry with 216k miles was cleaner than this! Apparently the owner never changed the oil...
So after a little scraping, I decided I should paint it while it's off too in order to accent the lines.





I fixed the top leak, but for some reason, she still continued to drip oil. So I jacked her up and had a good luck after the winters fury. Man was she wet underneath... The back side of the engine was covered, the oil pan was leaking around the seal, and it seemed like the oil was dripping out of the timing cover too. The owner said that they changed the timing belt not too long ago... so wouldn't they have changed the seals too? Nope. We got the covers off, looked inside and it was a huge mess. Oil was everywhere. It was also gunked up on the camshaft pully, showing how long the thing had been sitting with oil dripping down on it. We then replaced all the seals, the timing belt, the components (the tensioner had the wrong spring on it and the timing belt was flopping around inside) and put her back together. FINALLY the drip stopped.

Then the weather got nicer, so I decided to have a go at resurfacing my rusty, pitted, old rims:
Before:

After:


Then a noise started coming from the rear. I jacked her up again, and it seems that the bushings in the rear adjustable arms are going. You can grab the wheel and clunk it up and down. Dealer wants $300 for the two (and thats wholesale due to my connections through work). So thats a soon to do project of mine.

I had to cut my secondary cat out because of the break. I welded her up once, but she broke again so I just had enough and cut her out and fitted in some pipe as a temporary solution while I save up for that exhaust I've been dreaming about.

Work I want to do to her in the future includes:

• Exhaust - Manifold back
• Suspension - Eibach Sportline springs, Koni struts, full energy suspension urithane bushings
• JDM Projector headlights
• JDM Front and rear splitter, sideskirts
• Decent JDM style "chunky" rims
• 3S-GE BEAMS Red Top swap
• JDM 94-95 foglights

More pictures of what I have done to date:














So far I have put in:

• Injen SRAI w/Spectre open ended filter
• NGK Wires and Iridium IX plugs
• ST205 rear strut support bar
• REAL TRD Carbon fiber shifter knob
• Carbon fiber hand break handle
• Electric Oil pressure guage by Sunpro
• Red LED lighting all over the dash
• Normal maintainence items including: Break cables, breaks, dis cap, rotor, seals, battery, starter, waterpump, timing belt, Energy Suspension rear sway bar bushings

I have a long way to go. Money is the largest issue right now.

This post has been edited by RabidTRD: Jan 19, 2013 - 7:17 PM

I was thinking this guy:
http://thmotorsports.com/mishimoto/mishimo...4/i-398479.aspx

Lifetime warranty sounds nice Plus, it's a real brand lol and Megan has never sat well with me... idk why. Plus, this is Japanese. Megan is an American copycat as far as I know.

Also, my fans kick on quite often with the OEM radiator... which tells me that my engine runs pretty hot, all the time. I feel like this will be next on my buy list after I get the clutch, and CV axles replaced.

Then comes new slotted rotors.

This post has been edited by RabidTRD: Apr 23, 2012 - 5:21 PM

OUCH!!!.. 262!!!!.. well i hope that comes with the fans... i paid $170 for the godspeed rad and 2x 12" fans.. fir price IMO.. and not that much more than an OEM replacement..

What I'd go with then. Megan products are made in Taiwan if I recall correctly.

Not really update... more of fixing her up from winter abuse.

Wiper arms got sanded down and repainted:


Becca helped me polish


After polish and before wax


Which photo looks better, you decide:

(Samsung Rogue cell phone camera)


(Kodak Easyshare POS)

After wax:

(Shiny as ****)






(I really like this shot)







(I love the lines on this car)



My lugnuts will be in soon, I've located some steel braided brake line with urithane coating on the outside in any color of my choice (HEL brand), the whole set of four $150ish to my door. Will be painting the calipers ASAP. I also think I've located the rattling in the rear passenger side wheel area. I'm thinking it's the shoes... it goes away when I pull the hand brake.

YO DAWG, I HEARD YOU LIKE MIRRORS. SO WE PUT A MIRROR, ON YO MIRROR!!!

Sorry, had to do it.

Lol I have adjustable blindspot mirrors on both sides. The driver side is for the obvious, but since the passenger side doesn't require one (because it's technically a blind spot mirror as it is) I adjust it to view curbs for parallel parking. (Big thing in NY) and I've never hit a curb in the Celica. They also help a lot while backing out of narrow driveways (which I have)

What is even more fun about that photo is the fact that my mirror is reflecting a mirror image, bouncing off my glass.

This post has been edited by RabidTRD: Apr 26, 2012 - 10:53 PM

Had to make it official.



Seriously though, great job! Looks great. Now just need to touch up that spot on the front, be good to go!

Yeah... I'm good at painting small things... I'm afraid to tackle the bumper with a rattle can lol.

Ideally, I'll be getting the whole lower half repainted and rust-repaired for $600 from a local guy that did my Camry

Not that hard to do. My brother repainted the front and rear bumpers of his Maxima with Duplicolor Perfect match. Worked great, and was around $50 for all the paint, clear, primer, etc... Looks great. The bumpers look better than the rest of the car now though. Not sure if Duplicolor has your color though. I checked for mine when I was looking at raiser blocks, didn't have the 3L2 but in touch up kits... Maybe they'll have your's in aerosol cans.

They do. I repainted the splitters with it, my gas cap with it and I even have the small scratch fix.

Lucky. Why they don't have 3L2 I don't know, they must hate me or something.

In my experience with Duplicolor and imports, they always seem to have the more uncommon colors... not the common ones. Idk why. My Camry color didn't exist, (which was on almost every camry around) but my celica color does (I don't see a lot of super white II celica's)

Duplicolor, y u must be weird?

Getting ready to finally put my exhaust on. I've disconnected the lower O2 sensor (post cat, Cali emissions) to see if the CEL comes on. So far (4 miles of driving highway and city) nothing has popped up. The header I have only has one O2 sensor bung and I'm debating running cat-less. I may slap one on, but I don't want to route the downstream sensor wires all the way under the car (because the header is too long to put a cat up front again) if I don't have to... so here goes. So far, nothing when it comes to lights and no difference in the way the engine runs. I'm wondering if it's just a stupid on/off sensor based on if the cat is clogged or not. It's only 2 wires and OBD1, so I can't imagine it being anything super special. Being that it's unplugged (now correct me if I'm wrong) it won't push the "on" circuit when not enough flow is detected? Idk... just a guess. Will leave it that way for a week to see what happens.

CEL never came on, made no difference in mileage. So, second sensor will remain unplugged for the new exhaust.

Today was a very depressing day... I watched my co-worker/friend get run into by some fresh 18yr old driver in her 09 Subaru. She pulled out infront of him in a line of traffic... he hit her and his whole car jumped the curb and rested on the sidewalk.... it was so painful to watch happen and to see the demise of such a rare beautiful VW. Goodbye Corrado.

RIP:


Re-wrapped some wire in black conduit under the hood and washed the Celica in the rain... Not really in the mood to do anything else. Radiator is starting to leak so the GodSpeed dual core aluminum tank radiator will be next on the buy list.

Picture was snapped of me sitting next to her after I washed her and after the accident... This pretty much shows my mood for the day.



I'm also going to be relocating my licence plate lower and in the grille at an angle. I hate the way it looks on the body line right now..

This post has been edited by RabidTRD: May 8, 2012 - 6:09 PM

Wow man, you've done a lot since I've been away, I love the rims you got =)

Why kids have new cars.... Sheesh... Sorry to hear that. It doesn't look too bad from the picture, can it all not be fixed?

This post has been edited by Box: May 8, 2012 - 7:32 PM

It can be fixed provided they don't give it a salvage title. If they do salvage it, you can't register it. The car will only be good for parts at that point.

Cant get a rebuilt title in ny

Do what most shady car dealers do. Move it to a state where it can be titled, then move it back. That's if they do decide to salvage it, which hopefully they don't. Seems like it'd be cheaper to repair than to replace.