Nihil's '97 ST slowly getting somewhere Options

[Nihil]

Hi,
this is my Toyota Celica ST, year 1997 (first i believed it's a 1998, but later realized it's a 1997...), with an 1.8 l 7A-FE engine. I bought it about 2 months ago (Edit: summer of 2012). It's current "mileage" is reading 177.000 km (approx. 110.000 miles). Entire car is completely stock, no mods were made by previous owners (supposed to be more than four owners).
Perhaps I'd rather own a GT with a 3S-GE engine, but I needed a car and no GTs were available at the time. And since I am on a student budget, ST might be more suitable for me.

Plans for the future (which I change every time I open my topic ):

Interior - very well preserved for it's age and all the owners:
- LED conversion
- Refurbishing/repainting most of the interior (plastic dash parts, plastic door panel parts, arm rest, headliner and carpet)
- Steering wheel replacement (7gen)
- Leather seats
- Shift knob, hand brake handle, pedals and such petty nonsense
- Leather shift and handbrake boots

Electronics are basic - AC, central door lock, cheap Kenwood stereo with stock speakers. So the plan is:
- Car alarm with remote lock - not keen on this alarm, I'll probably try and make my own
- Good sound system (currently got Pioneer head unit with stock speakers)
- LCD touchscreen with CarPC

As for the exterior, the car has no spoiler and no extra bodyparts. Also, very poor paint - cracked, bumped, scratched, peeled...
- bodywork repair and complete repaint (I love the idea of pearl white, perhaps dark grey might be nice too)
- either a GT4 spoiler with risers, or a DCW duckbill
- some nice wheels

Performance and handling:
- CAI
- better exhaust
- coilovers

This is all for now, here are some pics

EDIT: moved the pictures into the second post, so you don't have to scroll all the time.

This post has been edited by Nihil: Apr 8, 2014 - 11:22 AM

[richee3]

I've had three sets of Kumhos and I will gladly give a shining, positive "**** no!" The first set was removed after 15k miles, no tread left. No aggressive driving, and the tires had a 40k warranty. The second set was on my IS 300, not the Celica. I rotated the tires one day and had an immediate, bad pull to the right. Checked the air pressure, it was fine. I couldn't figure out how I messed my alignment up by simply rotating the tires. The next day, it started bouncing while I was driving. When I checked it a few days after that, I had two knots in the tire and one of them was over an inch tall. These still still hadn't reached their expected life. The third set I just recently pulled off of the Celica. These actually did meet their warranty, but one tire was repeating my second set and was pulling for no reason. Kumhos, in my experience, aren't terrible tires as long as you don't expect long life out of them. Grip was always okay, never had any real issues there. They were never the quietest tires but weren't the loudest either. I would advise against them, based on what I've seen and heard about others' experiences.