1977 Toyota Celica
I purchased this Celica in March of 2000 for $300. It had a broken auto tranny but otherwise ran good and had a clean body and interior.
At the time I was relatively new to engine swaps so I decided to work with what I had. Having ownded 2 77 Celicas before and messing around with carbs on both I decided to go that route. My first mods were a pair of sc mr2 seats, a Weber 44mm downdraft carb, Pacesetter header and TRD stage 1 cam. It ran a lot stronger but the engine was pretty old so I decided to re-build it. 22r blocks are dirt cheap and the pre85 blocks bolt right to the 20r head which flows a lot better than the 22r head. So I put together a 22r block/20r head combo. My first mistake was finding out the pistons on the 22r blocks have a little ridge around it which bent some valves when I installed the head. I replaced the valves and put it all together correctly and ran it at the track. It ran consistent 17.4's which even at 3100ft was not what I was looking for. I found a pair of Weber 40mm sidedraft carbs for $150 and installed those with a Cannon manifold. They looked really mean with the velocity stacks and sounded even better. The top end was improved but the gas mileage was pretty bad and they were hard to tune. At the track this set-up ran a 17.257@79.44mph, still pretty bad but good enough to beat my bosses 2000 Civic si by .001 seconds(and he wanted to win oh so bad). I wasn't very happy with the carbed 22r and when it came emissions time I decided to just ditch the whole motor and start with something better. My friend had just picked up a wrecked 87 Supra n/a for pretty cheap and I asked him if he would sell me the engine and harness. We agreed and I immediately went to work on putting a 7mge in my celica. I discovered with 5mge motor mounts the engine would actually bolt right into the car. To hook up the celica transmission I bought a 5mge bell housing. The engine was small enough to fit in the engine bay but not with the radiator still in car. I took out the radiator/core support/grill/and hood and dropped the engine in with the transmission attached.
Once it was bolted in I moved the battery to the drivers side (would be way better in the trunk) and had a custom radiator made for $270 that would fit in front of the core support. With an electric fan attached there was maybe an inch of clearance between the crank pulley and the electric fan. The 7mge lower radiator hose fit perfect with a little trimming and I used a remote radiator cap with 2 hoses for the upper hose. It was hard to get it to not rub on the alternator belt. Next I installed a mk3 supra fuel pump wich actually fits with minor mods in place of the original. For the fuel I bought a BMW inline fuel filter, a roll of 5/16" hard line and a pipe bender to shape it. I called over my friend who sold me the engine and he used a few relays to wire up the supra harness to the celica harness and the car was up and running. There are a few other things to do like re-wire the tach for a 6cyl, make a custom intake and throttle linkage etc. But overall it was a pretty easy swap(less than 2 weeks from idea to running car). On the first test drive it was ripping tires all over the road. It wouldn't even hook up in second till about 50mph. Now I had a 200hp Celica that couldn't even move in first gear. To fix my traction issues I used a lsd from a ae86 (4.30 gears rule!) and put on some 225/50/15 tires. The car worked better but it was still pretty bad. Next I had a 40Lb speaker box put in my hatch, purposefully made heavy to weigh down the back. At the track this set-up ran a 15.088@92.30mph, But I was having some traction issues; one run was so bad I ran a 18.9@91mph. I even tried launching in 2nd gear. I think the traction issues came from the car being nose heavy from an extra couple of cylinders. Although the 7m isn't much heavier than the 22r (it went from 2340Lbs to 2390Lbs with the new motor) it is so far forward it really affected the balance of the car. A good way to offset this would be to move the battery to the trunk. My solution was to get drag radials. The BF Goodrich drag radials I bought were awesome. The car hooked up great and they actually lasted over 10,000 miles even though I bought them used. But with 200hp in such an old car modifying the suspension was a must. Up front it had ground control coilovers/camber plates and tokiko struts. I modifed the brakes with 81 supra discs in the back with braided brake lines all around and aftermarket pads. I dyno'd the 7m with the intake and exhaust and it put down 162hp. The motor went through a lot of oil so I think the numbers were a little low. Later on I put in a low mileage 7mge and improved my 1/4 mile to 14.291@97.47mph. It ran a lot smoother but I never got around to dynoing it. The celica was a blast to drive with the 7mge in it. It had a rumbly side exit exhaust and looking like a little mustang it would confuse a lot of people on the street(Mullet sporting redneck"what year mustang is that?" Me"it's a Toyota" Neck"oh" with confused look on face.. I even took it to the autocross a few times and with the upgraded suspension and sticky tires it actually handled the track pretty well. Drifting through corners was easy and with the upgraded brakes the car stopped very well. Both times I finished ahead of about 2/3's of the cars. It took some time to get this car handling good after putting so much weight up front but with enough suspension work and decent tires I got the car to handle pretty well. Besides being way faster than a 22r it also got better gas mileage and passed emissions with flying colors. It's a cheap and easy swap and in my opinion will save you money over modifying a 20r. And as Mat would put it "it's fucking fun".
