Left: This is my 1994 Toyota Celica ST202 2.0 GT Purchased in June 2006, I have since found out that it is a type SS-II, originally imported to the UK in 2002. As is common with imports the milage is unknown (This is because when the km/h to mph conversion was done, the km reading wasn't recorded). Below: This is the day I bought it. Lookin a bit rough around the edges, but I only paid £475! Despite the bodykit looking tatty, I liked the overall style and once it had a desent wash & wax it was looking pretty respectable. Note the dent in the passenger door & quarter pannel area and the damaged front bumper lip.
Below Left & Right: Replacing the damaged door. Luckily, the previous owner was nice enough to suppy me with a spare door! The shiny new door. Fitting the door was the easy part. aligning the frameless window proved to be a little more tricky.
Above: Cosmetic mods - Cracked front Lip-Spoiler has been removed. Much better. Tiny 17" Alloys are binned in favour of set of 18" Lenso Stage-One's.
Below Left & Right: The damaged sideskirt (See pictures: 11, 19 & 20) being repaired.
Left: The previous owner had fitted an Induction kit & although the original Air-Box cold air feed remains, future plans include possibly re-locating the filter closer to one of the Front Bumper vents & fabricating a heat-shield. NGK Iridium Plugs with Magnecor Leads give the engine a new lease of life. While doing basic upgade maintenence, I replace the Alternator Belt. (This was, apparently something which had not been done. Ever!).
Left: Close-up of the filter - Will need to be replaced soon, it's starting to rust! Stainless my ass!!! You can also see (and in the picture above), you can see the battery being held down with cable-ties. As that is unsafe & looks crap, I made myself a temporary Tie-down bar from a strip of spare Aluminium.
Left: Chassis mods are limited to lowering springs (-40mm) & an additional Strut-Brace. This combined with the original angled bar replicates the TRD version at a fraction of the cost. Also shown, all vacuum pipes have been replaced with blue silicon versions to match the brake calipers.
Right: As the original Exhaust was badly corroded, it was time for a new one and a custom stainless steel Cat-back system would do the trick nicely! Throw in a high-flow sports-Cat & now things are sounding as good as they look!
Above Left & Right: Unsurprisingly for a car of this age, the brakes needed a bit of an overhaul. New OE front Disks & Pads are fitted, and front & rear Calipers are re-laquered blue. While the wheels are off, I decide to paint the Hubs & Caliper-Carriers black so that they match the new alloys (also helps to accentuate the blue calipers).
Below Right & Left: 10mm Front & 25mm Rear spacers have finally got her sitting right.
Above: The previous owner had painted the centre console & Electric window switch pannels High-Gloss white, which didn't exactly fit with overall theme. After removing all the offending trim pannels (along with a few extra ones, such as the heater-vent surrounds & the ash-tray cover), I began removing the Inch-thick layer of white paint! Briefly deluding myself that I could achieve a professional finish using Chrome-effect paint (and susequently realising that I couldn't!), I decided to spray the trim pannels BMW Arctic Silver (much easier to work with!). Having re-installed the Centre Console, I fitted a new Gear-Gaiter (the old one was looking a little moth-eaten, & topped it off with a TRD leather Gear-knob. When one of the dash bulbs blew, I decided to replace them all with blue LED's.
Above: I knew I wanted to replace the dustbin-lid-sized toyota badge on the front bumper, and happened to come accross a bonnet badge from a 1970's Celica on Ebay. £2.50(ish) later, my front-end's looking just that little bit classier...
Left & Below: Latest styling mod is a second-hand GT4 front bumper and some random shots of the SS-II, my bro's Z32 and his friend's AE-86.
Just when things are going smoothly, something always comes along to burst your bubble, doesn't it?!
Allow me to explain...
I had just shelled out £150 on a new wheel baring when my car failed it's MOT test!
Completely unexpected, but it mainly failed on under bodykit rust. Not good.
My emmissions had been a bit high too, though this could just be a faulty Lambda sensor. We'll see.
Right, so i guess I can sell the car as salvage or I can sell as spares, either way I'm gonna lose a lot of money.
So I decide to have a look round for doner cars with blown engines. Mainly looking for celicas, but saw one or two second Gen MR2's that nearly had me reaching for my wallet.
Above: Found a bit of a gem! A friend of my ex-girlfriend couldn't be bothered to top up his oil, resulting in said engine launching a con-rod through the engine casing! £200 later and I've got the car sitting on my driveway (and with 5 months tax too!).The doner car is to be a 10 year old 1.8 ST (AT200), with a 7A-FE engine. it has a few tiny dents & a smashed window (where someone tried to steal it - AFTER the engine gave up. Looks like they'd have had to push it away!), the interior looks to be in as-new condition too. Above on the right you can see the hole the con-rod made when it made its bid for freedom and to the left is the new window (before I cleaned up the marks the duct-tape had made when it had been covered).
Below Left: Work begins on the ST - Airbox, Battery, Radiator & Wiring-Loom removed.
Above Middle & Right: 3S-GE being removed from old car. The engine has already been lowered to have the gearbox removed.
Below Left: Gearbox removed from 3S-GE.
Below Right: The 7A-FE engine being removed.
Below: Spot the difference? This engine swap may be a lot of work, but the ST shell is 4 years newer, is way cleaner & hasn't got a spot of rust on it!
Above: The wiring loom from the new (1.8) car is removed & compared to the 2.0 GT loom going in. Alarm & Immobiliser are removed to be spliced into new car.
Below Left & Right: Yamaha Developed 3S-GE Engine - Current mods are the induction kit, Stainless cat-back exhaust and Sports cat - Should be making about 190Bhp. When my HKS manifold and Custom 2-branch downpipe are installed, along with an ECU re-flash, I'm hoping for around 200-210Bhp.
While the engine is apart I'm planning on the following:
- Cylinder Head reconditioning.
- Gearbox Reconditioning.
- Uprated Clutch.
- TRD Engine mounts.
- Custom Plenum Chamber mods.
- Custom sealed air-box. To contain new induction kit & Foam filter.
Below Left: Some parts of the strip-down were easier than others - I had to borrow this heavy duty axle-puller from a friend at my local garage. I later found out that the pressure created by this hydraulic puller (Around 10 tonnes!) had been sufficient to distort the thread on the axle-stub. Not too much of a problem, and once the thread had been re-cut the nut went back on fine.
Above Right. The brakes from my GT are slightly bigger (because of the heavier engine with more power) so they were swapped over with no problems. I will be upgrading to better pads and braided steel lines as soon as the more expensive jobs have been done. The anti-roll bars will also need to be upgraded, so I might as well go for performance set rather than just going with GT-spec bars.
Below: The rear bumper is swapped (the old one is missing some paint), along with the Jap-Spec rear lights and number-plate surround which are just about visable in the left-hand photo ( the Celica furthest away).
Below: Removal of Timing belt, Camshaft gears & Tensioner.
Below: Inspection of Camshafts & Block.
Below: Clutch basket & Friction plate. Note excessive wear to friction material - I will be uprating the flywheel & friction plate but retaining the standard Basket.
Below: Oil filter, Sump, Bottom casing & Baffle plate are removed revealing oil pick-up & crankshaft.
Seems like it's been ages since my last update!
As things stand, my car is still sat on my driveway with no engine in it!
I've had my gearbox rebuilt, which finally sorted the worn syncro on 3rd. No more crunching gears!
At the moment my Cylinder head is with a local engineering company having the following work done:
-Vapour Cleaning.
-Skimming (just a basic skim, although I could take it further to increase the compression ratio).
-Multi-angle valve-seat grinding.
-Powder-coating (Blue, naturally).
After strip down, my mechanic reported that even after around 100,000 miles of merciless thrashing, all of the valves, springs & related components are still in perfect condition!
I'll be visiting the workshop soon, and posting some pictures of my cylinder head spread accross (several) tables!
The freshly cleaned head & cam-cover.
Below: Dissassembly of the block continues. Pistons, Shell bearings, Con-rods are removed, along with the Oil pump (Middle), Rear Oil-seal & Retainer (Right).
Below: Oil pump is removed (Left) and Crankshaft & Pistons are removed for inspection.
Note (In right-hand picture): Toyota designed this engine with oil-squirters below each piston to help keep them cool. they can clearly be seen at the top (which is actualy the bottom) of each Cylinder.
Below: The Pistons, amazingly still in one piece!
Above Right: The crankshaft is being inspected for wear and/or deformation.
Once I have my new Flywheel and pistons finalised, they will be installed on the Crank prior to balancing.
The OE Throttle body.
Rebuild pics coming soon!
I hope!!
Please rate my ride if you like it. I'm always adding new stuff so I appreciate suggestions & ideas, so please leave a comment. They're always welcome!
