My Daily, Thread for my DD Celica Options

[stephen_lee]

So this is for the daily. Plain, boring 95 ST auto. I bought it with 150k miles or so... now 3 years later it sits at about 260k miles. I use it for work and i drive A LOT of miles. (but get reimbursed for every mile i drive ) So anyway at one point of owning it, i managed to suck up some water into the engine. I pulled the spark plugs and cranked it to get the water out... fast forward a year. I did a compression test and found cyl one to have low compression (160-185-190-190) and a cap of oil did not increase it.. valves right? so i pulled the head to replace it with one of my spares, and found that piston 1 came about 1 mm lower than the rest... i bent a rod..

so now comes the decision of what to do. the chassis is in great shape, most new suspension stuff(replaced cxause i wanted it to be tight ) and decent body.
replace car(most likely with an Lexus ES, or LS) or replace engine. Now this car has been through hell w/ me and i love the celica... so its pretty obvious replace the engine.

So comes the choice what engine? rebuild the 7a spare i have for about 1k or beams swap for about 2k.

7a: easier and cheaper. same 30~ mpg. still SLOW
beams: about 2x cost, not terribly difficult for a redtop, 35~ mpg, quicker.

so i want to go beams on the daily... but keep it auto cause houston traffic and the miles i drive in it will SUCK with a stick... plus i have the V6 when i really wanna play lol

[SupraKid]

You guys are not factoring in that the beams requires premium fuel. I would take a v6 over a beams ANY day. Way more power and torque down low and overall, more readily available parts, the ability to make a lot of power if you ever wanted to, can run 87....Yes please.

This post has been edited by SupraKid: May 15, 2012 - 5:36 PM

[richee3]

You guys are not factoring in that the beams requires premium fuel. I would take a v6 over a beams ANY day. Way more power and torque down low and overall, more readily available parts, can run 87....Yes please.

Big picture, Andrew. Big picture. He HAS a V6 Celica already. BEAMS has more power than the 1MZ and 3VZ, though admittedly less torque. Besides, which do YOU want? A BEAMS in your Celica or another 7A?

[SupraKid]

You guys are not factoring in that the beams requires premium fuel. I would take a v6 over a beams ANY day. Way more power and torque down low and overall, more readily available parts, can run 87....Yes please.

Big picture, Andrew. Big picture. He HAS a V6 Celica already. BEAMS has more power than the 1MZ and 3VZ, though admittedly less torque. Besides, which do YOU want? A BEAMS in your Celica or another 7A?

At 99,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999rpm for half a second it does, but the v6s are making their power throughout the power band, so it would feel MUCH more powerful(until higher RPM of course).And yes you can run the beams on 87 but you will lose MPG, making it just as expensive as 91(in CA). And I'm sure as Mr. Richee knows all too well, parts for a rare engine like the beams add up REAL fast.

Beams are unique, but not the smartest option for a DD by any means. (In my opinion of course)

EDIT: Just went and found some graphs:
A/T stock 1mz:

Modified beams with an AEM EMS:


This post has been edited by SupraKid: May 15, 2012 - 5:47 PM