Going back NA

This is just a thread to vent my fustrations over the years with my car, read at your own discretion, not to be used as a guide.

So some of you might be wondering what happened to me over the past few weeks...stop posting, nobody could get a hold of me threw normal channels, etc, etc...

Well about 2 weeks ago I went out of town on a business trip (400kms) and decided to take the Celica against my better judgement. Well I made it there but as soon as I got off the freeway smoke started to bellow out from under my hood. Got it over to the side of the road and popped the hood only to find that I dumped about 2 quarts of oil on the ground. I had a feeling I knew exactly where the leak was coming from. Spent most of the next day taking my engine apart only to confirm my speculation - broken turbo oil feed line.

That did it for me. I ended up getting stuck out there for about a week and half longer than I had planned. Couldnt fix the problem after several attempts, couldnt find the part I needed locally and getting it ship out there was going to take to long only after I source one firstly. So after a few days of having u-haul give me the run around I got it loaded onto the trailer and headed back home.

In the past 4 years I have owned this car I have replaced the engine - twice, repaired a broken midpipe - twice, replaced a rad, replaced the thermostate - twice, replaced the headgasket - twice, replaced the turbo, replaced the turbo oil feed line - twice, replaced the engine harness - twice, and clutch - twice and that is only the drivetrain.

Mind you that is still far better than most halftrac's out there but Im getting tired of having to spend every other weekend working on her and at least 2 weeks every summer doing something major.

So I decided Im getting out of the FI game and going back NA for the reliability. The price of gas plus maintaning the turbo engine is not cost effective enough for me to keep it. The halftrac is my daily so it sees mostly inner city driving. I'll keep the FI for the AllTrac where its more reliable and the power can be put to all four tires instead of only 2 at the most.

Im swapping to the GEN3 3SGE I had up for sale that didnt sell so 170-180HP should be more than enough for around town. Will I miss the thrill of 60-100 in 3.3secs? Maybe. Will I miss the 100-240 blasts in 9.9secs? Absolutely. Will I lose any sleep over knowing my car wont be as fast as it once was? Not at all - although on ramps will never be the same again