Hello all,

Well I want to start this thread so i can ask some questions and chart my prgress as I build this project. This car will be a dule purpose car, run around and weekend worrier doing autocross.

here's what I'm starting with... '94 ST 1.8L





So I'm thinking I'm going to need the following:

new nose: got one on order.
coilovers: here I'm thinking about using the Megan Racing Street Series Coilovers for 94-99 Toyota Celica GT/ST FWD
Would the BC be a better choice? if so where do I find them.
Wheels: Voxx MG3 17x7
Tires: Yokohama S.drive 215/40R-17 87W XL B
header & exhaust any subjections????

Best,

Roger

if you ever decide to get rid of the wing let me know

Will do John. I was looking at spoilers too so who knows maybe

sounds good

I am not an autox pro or anything but I think 17 inch rims would be a bad choice. You could go for a lightweight 15 inch rim and have alot less weight compared to 17's

you could.
and it would if the rims are 15x8or9

Well baby got new shoes today.....



I went with Voxx MG3 16x7 with Dunlop Direzza DZ101.

Thanks for suggesting I double check my selection guys I really appreciate that.

Best,

Roger

hey i'm also auto crossing my celica. a couple of my friends are more experienced then me so i asked them what brakes i should go with and they all of said that if i'm on a budget i should go with hawk HP Plus Race brake pads if i plan to auto cross the whole season. but if not for the whole season i should get hawk HPS Street brake pads. good luck out there on the track here's to ya.

Well I went to a AutoX event last weekend. I couldn't run in it because I lost the radiator the day before. Damn plastic tanks..... but I still wanted to go and check it out. looks like a blast! Next time i got i have to remember the sun block! yeaouch.... And I have some more stuff on order so when it comes in I add to the little beast. I got a feeling I'm going to be looking for more HP out of this pup though. Short of a engine swap what can be done to the 7a for more HP????

I've been doing a lot of playing in my local parking lots (after hours of course) trying to get the feel of this car, and I'll tell adding those tires was a huge improvement over the 15" Goodyear's that were on it when i got it.

This is a AT200 so it's got the drums in the rear but I'm looking to change it over to the disks that should help the stopping some. Lenny, I'll check out those pads your talking about for sure.

Also I'm going to be starting on the body work here soon. She's got a lot of little dings and a couple of spots that are going to need some real attention to get her flat and ready for paint. Like re-aligning the driver side tail light and the guardrail brush on the pass side rear...... UGH

Roger

yeah sunscreen is a must at the events. lol it's either raining pretty bad or hotter than hell. lol

getting power out of the 7a and 5s is haaaard so you should focus on the other spectrum. grip. make it light. make it low. and make it stiff

Well thats what I was thinking Mike, make the time up in the corners, from what I saw it's all about keeping the momentum and being smooth. just hope I'm right, because the guys who where really smooth look alwful slow but their time where really quite fast!!

I'm going to try and make the next one at English Town on the 10th have ya been there yet?

Roger

havent been down there yet. its quite a trip i hated the idea of driving it. beating on it then having to drive it back lol

i might be going to the next philly auto-x the end of july.

Yeah I'm about 3 1/2 hours from englishtown so not so bad for me. But I hear you on the beating on it and then having tio drive it home. Where do they have the one in Philly?

And what class would you think I would be running in? I'll have the CAI & a header, and who know maybe I'll even have my coilovers by then............

warminster.
you should still be in F stock

Warminster....... thats better then running all the way to jersey for sure.

I was looking at one site and they said the celica ran in GS? Guess I'll just have to ask what class I should be running when I get there.......... Can't wait to get this going and see how bad I can screw up!

Roger

lol its fun and youll get the hang of it fast. these cars a nimble...well mine atleast. i hardly remember what it used to be like before hand.

I've been playing around with mine as she is right now and it's not bad, I know it can be a lot better though. The sticker skins made a huge improvement. Just waiting for the coil-overs to get here........... grrrrrrrrrrr

I did get my new nose in today. But I'm going to play around with modifying that a little before I paint it and stick it on the beast. And I'm sure I'll eat a few cones on my first few runs no doubt so I'll leave the old beat up one on there for now. Hmmmmm I better take a look at reinforcing that new nose a little too, just incase I eat some more cones later

Ok Ran my fist AutoX today down at Hersey..... what a blast!!!! I ran in heat #3 so the morning was a little slow watching everybody running the course. But I got a lot of walking time on the track waiting for my runs. which helped me once i got out there. No DNF's or cone got killed on my runs whew............

First two runs where interestingly SLOW It felt like those cone where coming out of nowhere, but in the last to runs I kind of got the hang of it a little better. Not sure where I finished overall just yet, I'm going to have to wait till they post the final results. They stuck me in ST class because of the damn CAI. The car is bone stock UGH!!!! But my times where

#1- 58.927
#2 - 58.991
#3 - 56.852
#4 - 54.261

Wish I could have done 4 more to see where I could have gotten too. With the new tires on there she stuck pretty well, I kept dropping tire pressure trying to get a little more bite, the first run she couldn't decide if she wanted to plow of overstear......... down on the front and rear pressure almost same on run two... but the back was still twitchy, and she was still plowing down some more. The last two runs I went down a little more on the rears and she finally stop trying to come around on me and just delt with the plowing with the throttle. started to plow lift a little....

The fastest time I saw today was put down but a little CRX with a national champion driving it. 44.4 whew that was a fast run.

I didn't have my camera so I didn't get any snaps but I had a blast and I can't wait to get to the next one!!!

Roger

congrats! i just ran my first autox race last week, nice to see more people taking the sport up. good job!

It's amazing what you can do with a parking lot I'll tell ya. Never got out of second gear through the whole course, but I'll tell ya it was a blast. There where some really nice cars there too......... I was kind of embarrassed by my celicas appearance sitting between a nice shinny S2000 and a '07 Vette........... that ride of mine needs some paint BAD.

I've been thinking about the whole engine swap thing, my 7A is sooooooooooo slooooooooow..............

anyway as I'm setting my car up for AutoX, so I'm thinking that the 250+ hp out of the 3S-GTE might be too much....... so maybe a beams around 190 would be just the ticket? Any thoughts out of the guys who have the 3S and or beams? I'm really looking for the low end power here as we mostly in 2nd gear anyway.

Roger

the CT26 on the 3S is a pretty quick spooling turbo. so lag isnt too much of an issue.
i personally would go with a 3SGE. I like instant power.

Well I've driven other cars of this size/weight with about 200hp and the response is good and about right. not anything like a 350hp but I think in the parking lots running around in second gear theres going to be a lot of torque steer with out little cellie. so I'm a little worried about that. I drove the Dodge Daytona when it came out and christ that had some really bad torque steer and I really did like that. Now these little 7A don't torque steer at all and I like to keep it that way. Drivability over HP wins as far as I'm concerned so, maybe someone who's driven both a Beams and the 3SGTE might chime in and possibly tell me how bad the torque steer is with these two engines??????

Hello All,

Well went to another AutoX this past weekend in Frackville. Won my class but that was not tuff. Went aganst a compleat rookie (my nieces). I did suffered a bad case of cone confusion on my first three runs. Didn't kill any cones but I think got 2 DNF's for beaing off course DOH! (I haven't seen the full results yet) but i got a bad feeling And my times where in the mid 50's...... Well after lunch and walking the course again three more times, my last three runs where all clean and my fastest was 46.573... whew

I asked my nieces boyfriend to take a few shots while I was running...... I can't wait till i get those coilovers and maybe a new set of sway bars too. I can feel the understrear..... but the amount of body roll was a real surprise!!!! This was a fairly slow tight left hander

Mike, putting on those coilovers will bump me up to STS won't it?

congrats! i was just a a two day divisional race sat. and sun. in milwaukee, i got 9th in my class which isnt to bad for running street tires.

Is that the TRD Curren Wing?

hey Vince. and yes sir thats the wing

Dude, pls help to take some close up pics if u free

Vince I'll be glad to take some pics of that wing, I just rattle canned a color on there so it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in grey primer. But I will try to get it painted better and then I'll shoot some shots for you.

I'm sowly putting this car together and getting it ready for a full paint job.

hey man,
Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn that spoiler looks sweet on there!


i wanted to go either two post or spoilerless but now your making me want to go that route...

looks awesome on the car.




keep up all the good work!

it would.
you can only do basic shock and spring replacement i believe to stay in stock

Well thats cool I'll run with the STS guys then. Going to have to see what else that class will allow me to do then. I do want to try and stay out of SM for now.

Hey Guys,

Well I'm going to change gears here a little bit. I found a deal I couldn't refuse and I had to take it up........



So I guess I'm going to be moving my cellie........... I can't keep them both the wif drew the line one's go to go. grumph!
I've got a couple of folks looking at it now so we will see what happneds with that.
And Mike I'll be running this pup in the AutoX's for sure. just moving up the CS for now.

Roger

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grab some Kuhmo XS tires on that thing and your set for auto-x. I've been around auto-x for going on about 2 years now and love it to death. I also started competing in rallycross this year and will be doing winter auto-x for the first time this coming winter. My first experience with auto-x was in my 2003 Elantra GT and I fell instantly in love with it. I sold my Elantra and picked up a brand new 2009 Cobalt SS Turbo and started competing as often as I could. I only managed to make 3 competitions before my accident but gained lots of valuable experience during that time. Since the Cobalt accident I have made it to 1 auto-x competition in my 93 civic si hatch and 3 rallycross competitions. I hate to say it but I REALLY LOVE loose gravel and I already know I LOVE snow/ice, sliding is just too much fun

shame, but those mrs are go karts.!!!

THANK YOU!!!!! I wanted to say MR-S but I wasn't sure. And cmon lol can't be any better than a hatchback civic or miata stripped down and prepped for auto-x

Mike, have ya ever driven one of these things????? The first time I drove one was when I went to look at her. And I'll tell ya the little test drive I did, I was bit bad by the sypder. And if you haven't well I'll be glad to let you take a few runs in it at one of these AutoX's we cross paths on. It's like njccms2002 said this MRS is like a cart and it's bone stock I can't wait till i get some mods on this thing. WOW!

Rocky, I know what ya mean about loose gravel it's a blast. Hang the ass out and punch it! I used to play on gravel when I first started driving, way back when, when I had my bugs and my '84 Corolla SR-5 hatchback. That AE86 had no guts but it was a blast to drive. Originally thats what I got the Cellie for. The 1/8 mile dirt tracks around here run a class called 4 cly. And it's all FWD 4 bangers, but she was in too nice of shape to turn into a dirt car. So I got into AutoX and well, as they say one thing led into another. And I'm pretty sure I'll be able to give those Miata's a run for there money with this pup. The Civic's well thats a whole different game those things are insane.

And yes she's a 2001 MR2 Spyder.

lol I'm basically always on the gas the entire rallycross course, with some left foot braking 90% of the time as well. I've learned that you CANNOT left of the gas in a FWD on loose terrain while rounding corners or you loose the back end, I've gotten pretty good at left foot brake and practice every opportunity I get. I'm excited to get better with left foot braking and be able to put down some top 5 times in my civic. It is my goal to take FTD and 1st place sometime within the next 2 years of autocross and rallycross.