My BEAMS baby

Hi there!

I've been on this forum several times, but for some reason got lost over and over again.
Now I indent to stay and try to be part of the community.

Short story:
My brother had two ST162s while I was too young to drive, and I always liked the looks of it, the feeling of sitting in it next to my brother, the high revving japanese engine and all those electrical stuff in a late 80's car.
I've bought my car in february, 2005. It's a '87 GT (in Europe GT means 3SGE). The car was in quite good condition, but I had to repair several things, and as you all know, there is always something to do with a car at this age.
After all the necessary services, I began to realize my plans in making the car satisfying for me in every piece.
My first silly idea was a self-designed winyl on the hood and along the sides. The car than looked like this:



These last for 2 years, then I kinda grow out of it, and didn't like it anymore.
To make the interior more sporty but not too showy, I bought a set of momo stuff (wheel, gear knob, pedals, legrest) and designed and made a set of gauge plates:




I wanted some more power too, and I was thinking on three options:
- gen3 3SGE
- gen2 3SGTE
- gen4 3SGE
I told a guy from our Toyota Sports Club who deals with importing good stuff, to look out for any possible BEAMS ads on the japanese web-market, just for fun.
One day he called me that there is a quite good priced engine on the net, and I said yes right away. The price doubled along with the shipping from Japan to Europe, but still a good deal.
I didn't want turbo because I wanted a reliable daily driver, altough it's much bigger potential, and this engine is more exclusive than a 3.gen.



The engine originally came from an MR2, so we have a couple of issues because of the different layout of stuff, but nothing serious. I have to say that before sending the engine the japs took really good care of all the holes and plugs, they even fill the engine up with fresh oil!
Once the engine was in, I faced a huge disappointment. The engine pulled better as the old one, but just slightly. There was some problem, and my 2 year misery began.
I tried and measured and looked after all the possible things one after the other, but everything turned to be perfectly operational. Finally, this spring I started to be suspicious around my catalityc converter (it was almost new when the engine was installed, and it didn't made any noise that refers to it's broken). It turned out that it do is broken, and that was the thing that pulled the engine back. It was changed to another one, and now I'm happy at last

 

Since the car had the stock painting on, I wanted to respay it for a while now. This year I managed to do that as well.
There was some troubling areas on the car as well, some bad rusty parts that needed to be taken care of.
So the car got a beautiful red pearl color (3R3).

Here are some pics from the process:

 

Thanks
No, sadly there are very few dynos in my country (it's a small country) so I cannot easily manage to get to one.
My other choice is to go for a drag day to a track close to me, so I can see something from a quarter mile time.
I'm not the street drag type of driver even, so I can't say which other cars I've beaten I reckon the time somewhere below 15 sec (with street tyres)

I have stock but new KYB GR2 struts, many other new parts, no lowering.

 

Thanks
All I know is that this kit was optional extra in germany. I bought the car there and the kit was already on.

 

Sorry I forgot to answer this:

The RedTop BEAMS redline is at 7250RPM (BlackTop is 7500), so it's not revving much more, but this is the beauty in it. While the Honda engines rev over 8000RPM for 200HP, this one achieves it already at 7000, and it has more torque all over the range as well.



Future plans:

- ST185 complete brake kit change (front and rear)
- 7th gen Celica stock 16" wheels
- Koni sport adjustable struts (AFAIK Koni is the only one from the big brands that makes struts for T16's)

 

Ok, to avoid confusion because of the other topic:

I got rid of the FK seats, they are too big for this car and I missed my adjustable waist part on the stock seat (my back is not perfectly healthy).

I said here that I have no lowering, and I've said there that I have the Eibach pro kit. I didn't want the car to be lowered, so I installed only the front ones for now, with the spring holding part welded an inch higher. I don't have any solution for the rear part yet, so I'm using stock springs at the back.

Sorry again for making another topic, I'm not so egoist, just didn't find the old one

 

Thanks for the welcome. I'm happy with the engine now, it runs nice and steady, and pulls nice as well.
Once the brakes and suspension are ready, I'm going to try it on some trackday as well, but that will be on next year earliest.

 

Oh, you are right, I forgot about the AGX. But as I saw on eBay, there is only a front pair for T16 (??)

 

First brake goodie arrived

 

Interesting idea, I haven't thought on that
Did you done this conversion?