My red 87 GT-S Coupe *very slow project*

I've got a 1987 GT-S coupe, came with power locks, mirrors, windows, sunroof, and the factory "upgraded" stereo. Needless to say I quickly switched to a CD player, which I swear the car knew about, as the tape deck died the day the CD was getting put in. Current set-up is listed in audio thread.

Exterior is red, and has some rust on the sunroof, drivers front 1/4, and both rear 1/4's, but luckily its all bubbles still so it isn't as eays to see. Theres also bits of fading everywhere, and my brother nuked my drivers mirror with a tennis ball.

Interior is grey, and relatively minty except for a few coffee stains (removing those as I find them) so for now thats all staying in.

Current mods are very short, including keyless entry, stereo, interior neon and soon a cone filter.

Soon I hope to get all the bodywork done on it, complete my keyless entry (only unlock works so far...) and swap in a 2nd gen JDM 3S-GE. After that comes new springs (1" drop) and get new wheels and tires for it.

You want pics right? Here they are! (it;'s still dirty from the winter)

Booty shot lol


Side shot


GT-S baby!


Cluster shot




Baller rims. You can see the sideskirt gap I'm talking about.


Interior shots. Floormats are dirty from the winter still.






Woo rICE haha


I love my sunroof


Body damage . This is from sliding into a snowbank at 60.


Accidentally lowered onto a jack stand.


Leaky muffler


T-VIS FTW!!!

 

well I finally found a source! $1200 for engine/tranny/ECU 3S-GE or $1400 for a 3S-GTE. Only downside is I would have to go pick it up from Vancouver. But that's a heck of a lot better than $3,000 shipped!!!

 

JDM engine/tranny/ECU ordered! Pics should be up later today!!!

 

Alright well I had some luck getting the stereo pics over but the computers decided to be lame again partway through, HOPEFULLY tomorrow...maybe...please? lol.

Engine etc is coming from JK Japanese Engines (their Vancouver office), money is being sent tomorrow. My buddy who told me about them totalled his 240 the other day too, go figure. 3 odd months of work and he drivesit for less than 2 weeks.

As far as the old GE is concerned I'm stripping all the externals that are still good off it (alt, starter, etc.) and a buddy of mine wants the valves for his truck, if they'll fit. if anything looks any good I'll see who wants it. whatcha needing youds?

 

Oh and I'm just curious what you guys recommend changing right away once I get the new engine. I know the coolant/oil will be gone so that'll be new, new oil filter, I'll check the plugs/wires/cap/rotor and potentially switch over my Yota ones, tranny filter/fluid, anything else you guys can think of?

 

ooh yeah thermostat is a good one, I remember it was a bitch to change on my old engine, hopefully it'll be better when it's not in the car...would I be able to reuse my old one (it's only a few months old) or should I just go buy another brand new one?

I'm trying to keep the list as short as possible since buying the thing is already putting me into debt, I'm tihnking the gaskets/seals would be the most important to get done before it goes in?

 

well the engine got totally removed Thursday, and holy sludge batman! There were pretty good sized pebbles stuck in all that gunk. So tomorrow I start scrubbing to get all thet crap out, as well as prepping the new engine before I drop it in (it's in town now, getting dropped off tomorrow morning). I'm hoping to drive the car away by the end of next week, but I know at the rate thngs have been going it may take longer.

 

ok so the new engine got dropped off yesterday, it's not exactly as fantastic as I had hoped for but I'll see what I can do. The ECU is totally wrong and from a 95 3S-GE (it says 95 Celica on it in wrecker marker :roll: ) and the tranny looks like a 3S-GE one but the wrong gen as well (for some reason they took them apart). So those will be sent back while I get to work on the engine. Unfortunately from the outside it doesn't look like it should even go into my now immaculate engine bay (1.5 cans of degreaser, a pressure washer, and 2 hours later...).

The timing cover is cracked open, you can see one of the cam gears and it's got some surface rust, valve cover is scratched a bit, intake mani is scratched up, plug wires are dirty, the whole belt tensioner setup is surface rusted and the throttle body is damaged. Most of it looks like it was caused during shipping though bo I'm doing a comp test tomorrow to see if the internals seem good. I know I can swap over everything but the intake manifold from my old engine cause I'm 90% sure my TVIS is screwed.

So does anyone know how to check/repair the TVIS now that the engine is out? I want to be able to use my better-looking intake manifold but not at the cost of the TVIS.

Thanks

 

yeah the engine they had in Vancouver had a bad cylinder, so they said they had one in Toronto that was good that they were gonna ship out (no extra cost) but then they found this one in Seattle.

First thing tomorrow we're comp testing it (you can do a manual test with no oil correct?) and if the internals seem good then at least I know the damage is only from the shipping. If the internals are shitty too then I'm pretty much fucked. Though our plan is to phone them and pretend we're professional mechanics doing the swap (my moms the one that bought/paid for the engine) so we can bitch at them pretty good for sending the wrong tranny and ECU.

I'm also kinda wondering if all the parts are even in this tranny, does anyone have some pics of what it looks like right after you pull the two apart? In the event that it is actually the right one I'm curious, it has what I assume is the clutch lever thingy but it sits kinda loose...

Seriously though why would you even take the tranny off the engine? I mean they cut everything else off and even plasma cut the drivers axle in half so I know the guys pulling it were kinda lazy (they even cut stuff like the rad hoses...one weenie little clamp...)

 

well we figured out that the motor and tranny were seperate because the new engine was off an auto, so we swapped over my flywheel/clutch.

 

Ok so today we compression tested it.

Cylinder 1 - 0 PSI
Cylinder 2 - 60 PSI
Cylinder 3 - 0 PSI
Cylinder 4 - 80 PSI

So that right there pissed me the fuck off, I was half considering not bothering and just putting the new parts on and sticking it in, but I wanted to be 100% sure. Turns out to be a damn good thing I did because those idiots sent me a total POS motor. We torn the exhaust valve cover off and not only is it dirty as hell the camshaft is RUSTY and in 1 and 3 the valves are jammed open. So I popped the cover off the old motor and it's still nice and shiny and shit inside, the EGR tube prevented me from taking it completely off but it's lying down so I could see easily enough. Didn't exactly help that the only "support" I got was "AHAHA You bought a JDM piece of shit you stupid fuck."

I felt like driving down to Vancouver and burning down their damn office.

So Thursday I tear all my stuff back off of this thing and send it back, and then I'm cutting it REALLY close with the next one they send, which better be good, because I need to get my car DONE in the next 14 classes or else I'm going to end up parting it out or selling it as a shell and then buying a whole new car, which would suck because the underbody is near perfect, interior is near perfect, and the body needs just a little bit of work, but all I have once school ends is some screwdrivers and wrenches, so theres no way I can do much of anything past then. I love my Celica and don't want to just scrap it but I'm running low on options here.

 

Yeah we're cancelling the Visa payment and them paying them again once they ship another engine out. Tomorrow I'm also phoning Autoshop Cannonball in Vancouver to see how much they want for just an engine (they're doing my buddies MR2, as well as his bro's). They wanted $3000 for a "swap kit" but now I'm realising I can get away with just and engine, so I wanna compare.

 

ok so we checked with those SOB's again today. They had a container come in but it doesn't have any 3SGE's on it, and theres won't be another one for a good 2-3 weeks. My grandpa thinks a local machine shop might be able to rebuild it is the blocks good, but I'm highly doubting they'll have the parts for this thing. At any rate it's looking like either I'm going to have to pay a professional shop to finish the swap or get a new car and store the Celi til I can get access to proper tools again...and possibly start stocking up parts for a Halftrac swap. Or sell it, though it would probably get turned into scrap.

 

Yeah I have a friend getting his MR2 through them, it's been delayed due to them changing shippers and the new laws so they're giving him $1000 off, his bro's MR2 was delayed even mroe so he's getting $1000 off plus about a grand in parts. They want $3000 for a 3SGE "swap kit" and they said it would take 6-8 weeks though, at that rate I'd drop a couple extra grand and get a 91 N/A MR2 or something.

 

I found an absolutely mint post-facelift hatchback at the Toyota dealership today. I was cruising around checking lots for new cars and it was in back where they keep the older trade-ins. At first I thought it must be a customers car in for some work but it didn't have any plates. I swear this thing looks factory new! I'm going back tomorrow morning to see if it's for sale.