Member name: Jay
Market: USDM
Year: 95
Model: GT
Frame & Type: ST204 convertible
Engine: factory --> swapped. 5S-FE --> Gen III 3sgte
transmission: stock

Update: Just installed an Innovate Motorsports dual gauge, pressure/temp gauge with two 3-way switches, one for selecting between coolant and oil pressure and one for selecting between coolant and oil temp. (Jan 2015)

Video of the car running here! and a time lapse video of the GTFour front end install here

(recent pic Jan 2016)


installed 7th gen steering wheel from a shiftronic model Celica!! Found in junkyard for cheap. Using the buttons for I/C sprayers.


I figure it's about time for me to start my old thread again. I bought a 3sgte that had been parted out, got it for a good deal, but I needed a lot of hard to find parts. I would start a thread when I was on a roll then I hit a stopping point because of a lack of certain key parts. Spent a long time trying to find everything, and now I have all of the engine parts and I'm not too far from completion.



Significant other mods:
Engine block basics:
45k miles
.20 overbore, JN pistons, eagle rods (compression raised to 9.0:1)
stock head gasket
knife-edged crankshaft (with custom crank scraper to block oil from being kicked up inside the engine and keep it in the pan)
ARP main studs (with the little section shaved out of the oil pan for them to fit)

Engine head:
non-turbo 3sge head WITH turbo cams/springs and 3sgTe powder coated valve cover
HKS cam adjustable cam gears (currently set at 0)
ARP head studs

Accessories:
4th gen alternator, direct bolt in (and higher output)
4th gen compressor, direct bolt in
stock power steering pump (new though)

Electrical:
Autronic SM4 EMS
4 wire o2 sensor upgrade (currently not in use)
Haltech Dual Channel Wideband controller (one sensor), output to ecu.
Innovate Motorsports dual series pressure/temperature gauge
Two 3-way switches to select between oil/coolant pressure and oil/coolant temp in dual gauge
3-way switch triggering secondary relays to turn the fans on. (switch off = relay off, system works as if stock...switch on pos1 = relays triggered on and fans are always on...switch on pos2 = relay is triggered on when the EMS is set to trigger it on.

Turbo:
stock CT20b
FMIC air/air for Nissan S14/S15(removed/replaced)
Mishimoto FMIC mounted to crashbar
HKS SSQV BOV
MAP sensor is built in to the Autronic
K&N filter (with blue rim) conical 4 inch inlet
stock VSV controlled by Autronic

Trans:
stock st204 5sfe trans
Aisin clutch with TRD pads riveted in place
Fizanda flywheel

Fuel:
stock genIII injectors, upgraded fuel pump (walbro, gss342 for mazda mx3)

Coolant sys:
Mishimoto radiator
Silicone hoses (blue )
3-way switch controlling two 5-pin relays breaking the connection for the stock fans (on/off/on = relay-on.always-ground/relay-off.factory-controlled-fans/relay-on.SM4-controlled)

Ignition system:
Audi 1.8t individual coils
distributor is stock and the pickup inside is only used to give the Autronic the engine time. (set at 0 degrees instead of normal advance, timing is advanced in the ECU)
NGK iridium IK24 spark plugs(killed by strong Audi ign coils)
BKR6E plugs (have to change every 10k miles)

Exhaust:
aftermarket downpipe (3inch)
3 inch mandrel bent piping into 3 inch magnaflow catalytic into 2.5 inch reducer (interchangeable resonator if I unbolt the cat)
2.5 inch piping into Borla universal turbo muffler

Other:
cheap ebay breather filter for crank vent.
custom air filter heat shield
custom battery tray mounted above trans mount
custom fuse box for SM4 and extra components
modified washer fluid reservoir to mount around FMIC piping

Wiring was a little bit of a mess at this stage because I was in the middle of building the new harness...

A 3s swapped vert would be an amazing summer car hood luck

and some old pictures..

FMIC from s14/s15 hyrbid


just the head


Making the arp main studs fit..

The most recent video update

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWvn3Lzv5Jg

This is gonna a quick one Hawaii Cars FTW!!!

I'm still working on wiring, so it's still a little bit of a mess until everything is done.

intake and some intercooler routing, waiting on some silicone tubing to squeeze between the intake pipe and I havanother 90 bend to aim it down off of the turbo.

individual coils from jetta 1.8t

4th gen alt..and trying to figure out how to route the other half of the intake

intercooler

And here's some pics of my injector wire-in, I'm actually going to post a pinout for each of the 3sgte connectors on the harness and how to connect an autronic to them for distributorless or distributed setups. I'll probably start the thread over in "forced induction" later on tonight or tomorrow (if I have time)

Did a little plastic fabricating the other day..I had a busted timing belt cover that someone gave me which was the result of a snapped belt. I cut out a window and put off-brand cheap Plexiglas on the inside with 4 LEDs wired in series so they can run on approximately 13 - 14 volts. (each LED is 3.2 - 3.5 volts).

The wiring was done outside of the cover away from the belt for obvious reasons. The only wire on the inside of the cover is running across the bottom in one of the pictures. I drilled tiny holes that are spaced as far apart as the LED +/- legs are, so that the legs stuck out of the cover and only the light was inside, bent the legs so they wouldn't let the LED slip through and soldered them together. Covered it all with black RTV and put a thick coat of truckbed liner over the outside of the cover so it covered the wires and RTV. You can barely tell.

Just finished making a heatshield airbox today. The plastic that I used is from the undercarriage of a mustang and an Evo. I save them and make things from time to time if someone is throwing it away. I mocked up the fit with cardboard first so I could get the spacing under the hood right. Then I cut the pieces out from the shape of the cardboard and put some extra vacuum line around the top to make it look nice. You can't tell from this picture but the two pieces of plastic are riveted together. There is a 1 inch 90 degree lip on the piece parallel with the front of the car that I used to rivet into the other piece that is parallel to the side of the car.

In front of the fuse panel there is a hole that leads to behind the bumper that was used for the factory air intake setup. It fed into the upper airbox. I've taken it out for now. Since the heat from the engine is now kept away from the air intake cool air should be sucked in from the hole in front of the fuse panel and the other hole behind the fender that is also in front of the fuse panel.

nice work so far.... lotta blue hose haha

I know, it was such a tight bend I had to go with the blue hose so I could connect a coupler to the turbo and bend it immediately. As it is right now it barely touches the hood. And I had to use a long coupler to run beside the starter positive and not arc.

nice build man! i hope those bulps are in there good, wouldnt want them to come out and get caught up in the cam gear =/

Those LED's in the cam cover are awesome. Really digging the car.

Thanks..and it's not possible for the bulbs to come loose..I made sure of that. The two legs on the bulbs are sticking through to the outside of the cover and they are bent around and soldered on that side then covered with black silicone.

A close-up of the LEDs in the timing cover and why they won't come loose...since I'm sure people are wondering how I safely did it.

Each LED has two legs coming off of the back side of it, so I drilled two tiny holes in the cover that are wide enough for both legs to stick through. Then I folded each leg in a different direction so that the negative leg of one LED would face the positive leg of the other LED. Each of the LEDs are wired from the outside of the cover and they are all bent so that they don't come loose, and they were positioned so they could be easily wired in series so that they share the 13-14 volts that the alt puts out. As I said earlier, black RTV gasket maker is covering the wires and then it was painted over with truck-bed liner to give it a nice textured look that didn't look like cheesy flat black paint.

The only way I would imagine that they would come loose was if the belt snapped, in which case it won't matter if they get hung in anything.

A picture is worth 1000 words.

Here is the side view of my little air filter heat shield. Also, I found a battery that is the right size so I didn't have to work on a trunk mount battery setup. The battery posts are recessed in the top a little, which I like so I don't have to worry about it arcing on the hood. It is made for a german car, I don't remember which one. I will be making a mount for the bottom of the battery now, and I'm going to put a little fuse box beside the battery that will hold fuses for the new computer, walbro fuelpump, and other little lights around the car. I might even make the fuse panel like a little door with some kill switches underneath.

the newest video (also updated in first post)..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e74ZLAIMW3o

finished all wiring except for connecting power to the coils and to the SM4. Not worrying about the o2 sensor just yet, that's the only wiring that remains other than power and ground.

Connected the walbro fuel pump (walbro gss342 for an mx3)

routed most of the piping to and from the intercooler, used mostly 45 degree bends where I could. Only 3 short 90 degree bends and two long mandrel 90 degree bends.

I had to remove the passenger side radiator fan to make room for the intake tubing, I might put a ton of smaller fans on it later on.

beautiful thus far

U need a fabricator!

1 weld = cheaper than 1 silicone and 2 T bolt clamps

welders aren't cheap in hawaii dude..I wish I could have done it that way. I would rather have it welded and not worry about couplers coming loose. And I can weld a little bit, but I wouldn't trust myself on aluminum, and on that note I wouldn't trust any back-yard welders to weld aluminum and make it air tight.

not to mention it was a lot of tight spaces, and paying a welder to figure out how to route the tubing would have costed a lot

what I have been thinking about though is selling the tubing as a FMIC kit for the celica on ebay for like $100, even though I paid around $150 for the stuff. Prior to the sell I could have a welder copy the bends that I made to route it around everything.

blue tubing makes it have a "go fast" look about it lol

thanks! I've always liked blue things.

and more pictures! For the fuel pump I drilled two small holes in the electrical connector that were nearly the same size as the wire from the fuel pump kit. They were where the two wires for the stock fuel pump connected originally. Later on I will take heatshrink tubing and melt it around the wire casing then pull the wires through so it seals to the hole while it's hot. I should add that it's pretty hard to get the pump into the housing. The outlet on the top of the fuel pump is 1/4 inch taller than the stock celica pump, making the fitment into the housing very very tight, but it does fit. And there is also a pic of my SM4 beneath these two.

Finished rewire of engine harness....finally...and tons of soldering later.....

got a small fuse box that holds 6 fuses.
put a main relay in front of it (80A)
put a secondary relay behind the fuse box for the ECU (30A)
put a secondary relay behind the fuse box for the Jetta 1.8t coil-over-plugs (20A) two coils on one relay, two relays
put an LED and a 1/2 watt resistor coming off of the relay so I will know if it loses power
powered the injectors with their own fuse and LED w/ 1/2 watt resistor
used the old injector wire as a signal to trip the relays closed and power everything.
I'll post a pic later on when I turn the key and the lights come on
I still have to connect the grounds to the relays and new ECU

also wired in walbro fuel pump with new power and ground wire 10AWG, fuel pump relay is hidden in a different place for safety, so if someone tries to pop my hood and rewire everything to start the car they will have no fuel pressure even though all of the lights will be on under the hood

Got the car running for the first time today, I'm pretty excited. It has been waiting a long time to roar.

Video of the car running here!

Nice job! Once everything is buttoned up, it should be an awesome summer car that should surprise a few people hehe

Thanks. I'm in Hawaii though. And it's always summer here , except for the rainy season

So jealous right now, I'm waiting on snow to melt still lol. I'd rather have rain than snow, although it has its moments of fun as well....

Congrats on getting it running.

Did two things today to it.
1) customized my windshield washer bottle to be FMIC friendly
2) made a battery tray since my battery is mounted in a different location

washer fluid reservoir...I cut out a big section of it and also cut a muscle milk contained in quarter sections (long ways to make a plastic quarter-round). Used one of the quarter sections to seal against the reservoir so it would wrap around the intercooler piping.


finally made a battery tray out of aluminum I riveted together and used the old plastic base that the battery used to sit on in the 5sfe.

hahaha but seriously, that's a damn good idea for the washer reservoir!

lol @ picture.

At first I was trying to shove it out of the way, but it kept shifting and would push my plastic wheel-well guard thing into the tire when I turned. I just used black RTV silicone to hold the plastic pieces together. I noticed a while ago that black lasts longer in the tube before drying out, so I can keep it around for longer.

more blue!

I found some little blue anodized 1/8 NPT plugs to put in the intake manifold instead of the ugly brass hex-head ones I had. I just had to tap the intake manifold deeper since it only went in one turn.

..and of course my temperature gauge doesn't work. I put a new sensor in the car a year ago, tested the resistance and decided to buy a new sensor any since it's only $23. Not the problem. Gauge still pegs the top when the engine is cold. THEN I put in my cheap aftermarket gauge that has been new in the box in my closet for 5 years, it has its own sensor and it doesn't work either. ugh..I want to drive the car around safely without worrying if I am overheating the engine.

DO THAT ^^ When I first bought my RS, both the factory and aftermarket temp gauge weren't working. I wasn't anywhere near my shop or tools so I drove it around like that..Needless to say, it was overheating. So I did a full STi swap

Sounds silly, but make sure the coolant is topped off

And, if all else fails, I have a brand new Autometer water temp gauge that I don't need. #5732

well..my laptop has 3 hour battery life. I can plug it into the Autronic ecu and drive around anywhere and look at the laptop screen to see if it's overheating, BUT I would rather have a water temp gauge. We have safety inspections here, and I'm pretty sure I would need to have a working temperature gauge (not laptop). Temporarily I think I'm going to wire in a resistor in line with the sensor since the resistance of the sensor drops as the temperature rises. I tried a 470 ohm resistor and the gauge registers just above cold. I hate radioshack's overpriced junk, two resistors through them is the cost of 100 on ebay, but I need it now...so I'll have to resort to ripping apart broken electronics to find the right resistor, unfortunately I have nothing broken but laptops with very tiny resistors.

For safety, the Autronic has an overheating shut off feature, so it kills the engine when it goes over a certain temp. Decreases the boost when it goes over 105 C. And I can do other things with it's "limp home" feature. The autronic was the only choice (in my mind) because of it's overheating protection safety nets. I can easily justify spending the money on it if it saves my engine from a potential meltdown.

wired in a 470 ohm resistor to an old water temp sensor that I think goes to a camry. The gauge now reads nothing at a cold start and 1/4 at normal temp. Somehow the gauge calibration is off. Anyone have some bad gauges and can you mail the temp part of the cluster to me for a small fee? I'm pretty sure it's just the little motor thing, so that's all I would need. The convertible top was falling apart a year ago from sitting, and moisture/mildew got in the car, I'm thinking it messed with the connections on the temp gauge.

***I should add..this is IN NO WAY a fix to any gauge issue like the one I mentioned above. The temperature sending unit is a thermistor (thermal resistor) known as an NTC sensor, or negative temperature coefficient sensor, meaning that as the temperature goes up, the resistance from the sensor will go down. I believe the range on the sensor is 600 ohms (resistance measure) to 40 ohms, but I'm not sure. All I have done in adding this resistor is trick my gauge into showing a lower temp which makes my max value on the gauge display 1/4 up the gauge (so I can pass the safety inspection by showing the inspector a working gauge until I get the issue fixed). Since the sensor range is 600 - 40 ohms, now it will start out at 1070 (600 + my 470 resistor) to 510 (40ish plus 470). So if the normal operating temperature's resistance is 220, then it is now 690. My faulty gauge shows that at 1/4. I'm only explaining this so no one else does it. It's tricking the gauge into never showing an overheating temp (again, so I can pass safety).

someone hit my car overnight it's not bad..I had to paint that fender anyway..but really? I've been living at this place for 5 years, and no one has ever hit any of my vehicles in my parking stall, then I have my car running for a couple days and someone hits it?

I have a female friend that works at a graphics design place locally, she hooked me up with these. My own design , I couldn't find anything like them online, so i drew it up and had it made. I'm not a huge fan of racing stripes, but I think these are cool and unique. I'll probably wait until I have decided on a new front bumper before putting them on. They are black, not gray.

You should have put the QR code for 6gc in that stripe hahaha

oh man, that would have been a great idea. I thought about doing the one for my youtube channel (avatar pic), but I didn't want anyone that I pass to pull out their smart phone, look at my channel, watch the video on the car, and then decide to steal my car for the engine/autronic ecu. So I opted out of that idea.

110 miles on the new engine and I have successfully killed my IK24 iridium spark plugs. They are clean, and the gap is still correct, but they run horribly. From what I've been looking up, these Audi 1.8t individual coils deliver too hot of a spark for iridium plugs. Iridium and platinum plugs have great longevity but can't handle heat very well. I pulled them out and sanded the tips with 400 grit sandpaper since I paid $11 a piece for them. The general consensus on the audi forums is that the copper ones perform better but have to be changed every 10k miles, copper ones wear away faster but deliver a hotter spark. I put in some ngk bkr6e for $1.50 a piece and it is running great for now..haha..I guess we'll see how long they last.

Rewired my little fuse box area for the coils, ecu, and gauges today. The old fuse box that I was using had a loose fuse holder, and a loose relay connection. So it died on me a couple times or wouldn't start. This one is from an 05 mercedes. I opened up the fusebox and drew out a map of the internal wiring. The sucky thing is that one relay uses a ground switched signal to trip the relay, the other two use positive switched signals. So I had to be creative in order to use that relay and the three fuses it was powering. Good luck to whoever buys my car in the future if they want to figure out the wiring..haha. I drew up a wire diagram, but everyone loses manuals and wire diagrams, so good luck again! I believe the fusebox in the mercedes is for the fuel pump (among other things). Three 60 amp bosch-style relays came with it (the euro ones that are $20 a piece). According to the ebay listing, the fusebox can be found on w215, w220, s55, s550, clk500, and I think all of the other 2005 mercedes models from what it looks like. This one was only $15 after shipping with relays! If any of you guys want to buy one on ebay or pull one from a junkyard, let me know and I'll send you the wire schematic that I drew up on it.

I still have to tape up the wires into a bundle so it looks more clean instead of wires everywhere!

Haltech wideband controller came in the mail today!!! YAY! I just finished mounting it, I'll have to wire it in tomorrow. Took forever to find a good mounting place for it where my wires will reach (unfortunately I couldn't use the firewall ). Now I just have to pull out that crappy AEM wideband (tomorrow as well).

1 year update! (almost)

in short: Put in prebent mandrel tubing with couplers to replace the intake piping, rewired the fusebox, put in a mishimoto radiator, and used some 3-way switces to combine the signals from my oil/water temp sensors and oil/water pressure sensors so I now have 2 gauges where 4 were, along with some other small mods.

Car is still running strong, I'm planning on making a new youtube video. Had some issues with the factory radiator fans two weeks ago. The 100 amp alternator fuse had a bad connection and just shut off. After looking over the fuses and seeing none blown, taking off the relay covers so I could manually move the relays when the Ign was on I realized the 100 amp fuse problem. Pull out the fuse, and realized I cant clean the connections as thoroughly as I would like, so I put in another fuse and it worked great will a few days ago when it did the same thing. SO I'm now putting in backup 5 pin relays in line with the rad fans. One on each pos fan wire using a 5 pin relay with the normally closed connection on the relay connecting the wire as normal, and the normally open pin connected to the backup power source. Positive conected to the battery and the negative connected to a 3-way switch that would be wired as always-ground/off/EMS-ground-trigger. I'm waiting on the 5-pin relays. After I receive them I will put an update here to revive my build project. Basically when it's done I'll have a fully functioning stock electrical system that can be switched off by my EMS if it is on one setting of the 3-way switch, or fans that are always on if I flip the switch the other way, or I could just leave the switch in the off position for the system to work like it is supposed to.

Unfortunately when my fans cut out I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, temp shot up, as did the radiator pressure, resulting in a crack in my radiator 6 inches wide and 2 inches tall forcing a large amount of coolant on my engine and a mushroom cloud of steam. Of course that means me getting an all aluminum radiator! I paid for a Megan Racing radiator and they said they were out, so the sent me a Mishimoto radiator, which I'm happy with.

I put in a water pressure sensor 6 months ago through a 3-way switch, and also ran my oil and water temps into a 3 way switch that goes out to one gauge. So the wiring for both water/oil pressure and water/oil temp are wired as oil/off/water, so I can switch between them at will!

I upgraded my fuse box not long after I got the car running last year, and I'm going to have to make some more changes to wure in the turbotimer and the Jetta power distribution box I got.

I plasti-dipped a GTFour hood that I got in the mail because it was all black and dinged up a lot (how resistent are these hoods to rocks and things that might hit it while on a freeway??? since they are in fact aluminum and lightweight)

Just switched to 5w-20 full synthetic last week, developed a small oil leak that is getting my oil filter wet but nothing else above it, so I'm hoping it's just the oil filter seal. And before that, my cheap chinese oil pressure sensor that I bought blew a seal, so I plugged the hole with one of my 1/8NPT plugs and ordered another cheap chinese oil pressure sensor/gauge .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU9khGeS4Go

I started my rewire today, since the ground at the fan is always grounded I decided to run a 5-pin relay off of each of the fan positive wires. This allows me to control the fans from the autronic or choose to leave them on all the time from a 3-way switch I'm installing. Or I can leave my switch in the off position and it functions as normal.

Just like this

Good video, I learned something.

I am using my relays for my stereo so it doesn't loose power when you start the engine. I love relays.

The most creative thing I've used them for is swapping a positive switched signal for a negative switched one. The positive signal trips the coil in the relay and there is only a ground connection going through pins 30 and 87. So the result is a positive on/off signal that is now negative on/off. They are very useful indeed

GTFour front end bolt on video
(note: both my fenders were dented, that's why I got different ones and had them painted[non convertible fenders on a convertible are a pain])

and I added this guy to replace my other one since I couldn't pass safety inspection without a crash bar


This is from a few months ago. I'm trying to revive my build thread. I've been getting a stolen/recovered s2000 running again lately so I've been neglecting my celly.

Had interior accent pieces painted professionally by a friend who owed me some favors.