motor

racer_f50 · 03-10-2004, 12:24 AM

Hey guys, finally got another car today

it's a white 1991 Toyota Celica GT liftback w/ 5 speed manual.

picked it up for $3000 U.S., which is about 1300 dollars under retail book price. that'll be made up for with the repairs i have to do though....

tomorrow i've gotta have the clutch replaced and get some oil leaks in the engine taken care of. there's also a leak in the power steering hose (not cheap...), the Airbag light is on (gonna have the Toyota dealership look at that tomorrow for $40), and tehre was a couple new noises that just showed up when i turned it on about 30minutes ago. ideally i can get all this done for under $2000.

the body itself is in beautiful shape though, and both pop-up headlights work.
the hub caps will be replaced by rims when i can afford some, tasteful of course, not gonna rice this out.
the ski rack has to go too, i do'nt ski and it looks ugly. the only problem is i don't have the key for the damn thing, so i've gotta figure something out to remove it.

i drove the thing pretty much all day despire the worn clutch, and i must say the performance from this 2.2L 4 cylinder is quite nice. once you get above 3000 rpms this thing just pulls like crazy and the exhaust note is nice and deep.

here's some pics for you guys to look at for now. i'll take more once i get the car back from repairs and can remove the ski rack.

**JW CUSTOM SHOT ADDED**

TT · 03-10-2004, 06:13 AM

Even if there is some work to do on it, 3000 USD seems a bargain!! How many km or miles on it?

And congrats!

oldsnail · 03-10-2004, 06:23 AM

i like

racer_f50 · 03-10-2004, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by TT

Even if there is some work to do on it, 3000 USD seems a bargain!! How many km or miles on it?

And congrats!

thanks man

ya, its definitley a bargain to me. i just wanna get it all fixed up and treat it well, you know, give the car what it deserves

it's got a little over 126,000 miles on it right now, so a bit of fixing is expected (especially replacing a clutch).

i just dropped it off today at the mechanic shop, so hopefully they'll be able to figure out those 2 noises that appeared last night. one of them i think is from the power steering, just sounds like it doesn't have fluid, but the other is a sort of whining noise from the engine bay.
unfortunately i have to leave the car there for a couple days so they can have time to do some of the stuff

racer_f50 · 03-12-2004, 10:29 PM

WOHOO! i got my car back today and the repair bill was only $1069 U.S.
quite a deal still, and the car is purring happily again.
the new clutch is kinda hard to get used to (stalled the engine like 3 times while out driving today

ops: ), but i'm getting it i guess.
my next task is getting the damn ski rack off of it, so maybe i'll post more pics once that's done.

Erdmann · 03-13-2004, 08:53 AM

Nice Price for a repair bill.

But I like your car, the old old toyotaÂ´s are cool. My friends has an old Corolla, I donÂ´t know how many hp ( something about 150 hp I think) but I like it. I hope the car wonÂ´t cost much more money.

SPEEDKILLAR · 03-13-2004, 09:14 AM

Congrats on the new ride, I just know you're going to have a blast with it, It's a nice ride(even like the colour). Can't wait to see those pics without those ski rack and with the new rims.

coombsie66 · 03-13-2004, 12:21 PM

Looks good, IMO you should as you said put some 17's on it and lower it 35ish mm. That would just make it sit nicely, so it looks like the GT-4, and it wouldnt look like rice.

As for the ski rack, if its barrel lock just get a drill and drill it out. That should get it off. Otherwise its a hacksaw job!!
You could sell it off to a ricer as a new roof top spoiler if you wack some stainless sheet on it!! lol
To go wiv the boot top, mid hatch, and however many other fuckin spolilers they wanna put on those cars!!!!!!

racer_f50 · 03-13-2004, 07:20 PM

thanks for suggestions and compliments guys. i've taken some more pics and put them up on my site. you can check them out here:

http://sio.midco.net/mmonhoia/photo/index.html

not sure what size of rims i wanna put on it, 17s would look great, i know, but i think my fuel economy would go down. i'll worry about that when i've actually got the money, though.

*oh, and on that link you'll also find pics of my grandpa's Pontiac minivan that i was borrowing from him.*

PATo355 · 03-14-2004, 04:01 AM

Plus fuel is very economic in the usa , like half a dollar per litre right ? With 17" you will have a nice look , and i dont think the fuel economy is that much , get a pair of OZ Superleggera anthracite wheels , the car will look astonishing

VerderameJ · 03-31-2004, 10:52 PM

I must say very nice indeed. As for the airbag...did they do anything to it? They are usually too expensive to replace but so far the chemicals seem to be holding up. Volvo tests some of their old ones every year, and so far all have deployed...
Rims...well that is all personal...OZ are nice, so are BBS and MOMO, even some less expensive Montegi would do the job very nicely. just dont push too big. always good to have a little sidewall. Austin Martin pushed some of theirs up to 18 on the DB7 as I recall and then backed them down to 17 because the handleing was better...

racer_f50 · 06-01-2004, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by VerderameJ

As for the airbag...did they do anything to it?

i had the Toyota dealership look at it, and they just reset the sensor and all is well. something must've triggered it for no reason.

well, guys, i've done a few things to the car since last posting in this topic.
I've removed the ski rack and those ugly mud guard things behind the wheels.
And I just received some 17" rims i ordered

RVM S-1 17x7 wheels.
got all 4 off eBay for $312 including shipping, so thats a hell of a deal for some nice looking 10-spoke glossy silver rims.
here's some pics of one of the wheels for now (without the center cap), once i have them on my car i'll post pics of the whole setup

sentra_dude · 06-03-2004, 08:43 PM

DAMN! I can't believe I missed this topic back in March racer_f50...my car is almost identical to yours, but I have a 1992, and only 110K miles.

Great car man, and it definitely pulls nicely above 3000rpm, and it has pretty good torque. I made an intake for mine, with 3" pipe and it has a really nice & deep sound (for a 4 cylinder) and it gets nice and loud above 4500rpm. I think it improves throttle response, and maybe gives 1hp

but I haven't driven it with the stock intake in almost a year...and I only drove about 25 miles with the stock one on, so I don't know. I definitely recommend an intake, but I've heard a few with exhaust and they sound gay...

Nice looking wheels, how is the car running?

When I got mine the only problem was the idle was rough with the a/c on and the 1st and 2nd gear syncros are pretty worn.

Only thing that sucks is its pretty hard to find aftermarket parts

, but I guess you're probably figured that out by now.

This is a nice site for 5th gen 5SFE Celicas http://www.henryvo.com/

racer_f50 · 06-28-2004, 10:21 PM

well, after having a rim mix-up and having to wait for the exchange (took like 3 weeks), i've finally got the rims/tires put on.
I bought some Yokohama AVID H4s tires ($95/tire), which are 205/40R17.

I'm really happy with how they look on the car, and i suppose someday i'll have to buy some lowering springs (probly Eibach, i dont' wanna cheap out on it), but for now i think it looks ready to pounce

@Sentra_dude: the car is running really well. the idle goes pretty low once the engine is warmed up, but it hasn't stalled itself yet so i'll let it slide. the transmission is in great shape as far as i can tell, and the engine revs like it's new. mine already has a nice sound, so i might just leave the intake as it is. its cool how the sound transforms above 4000 rpm and just goes loud and deep

Ziploc · 06-28-2004, 11:04 PM

car looks like its on stilts...