I haven't really ever made a project thread for my car, and I figured that some of you might be interested.... I'll start out telling you that my name is Kyle, and I've owned my 1990 Toyota Celica GT-S for about 3 years. I bought it completely stock, looking something like this.
Did a few little mods...
After getting the racing itch. I started doing little things to the car to help the handling, and took it to some local auto-cross events and lapping days. I live in Southern Ontario so I have to park the car for the winter and decided that I really want to get serious and build the car to compete in Time Attack events. I parked the car for the winter last year and decided that I wanted the car to be out and ready race in the spring of 2011. Before I parked it, it looked like this.
I didn't want to swap a 3SGTE because I like the reliability of the 5SFE, and I think its cool to go out a beat up on Porches, STI's and k-swapped Civics with my 120hp car. I began collecting parts over the winter and the first thing I came across was a BEAMS transmission with a TRD Helical LSD, and 4.176 final drive. Having an S53 with sworn 2nd and 3rd gear syncros, something had to be done with the transmission and this was a wonderful upgrade.
Another thing that needed attention was the suspension bushings. After browsing a bunch of forums, I came across Martin's (gtfour77) build thread. It was a huge inspiration. After getting to the end of it and realizing that he was parting the car out, I was lucky enough to get his front control arms and roll center adjusters since they'll bolt up to a FWD model. His rear suspension was quite a bit different than mine, but after a ton of email's back and forth, I ended up getting the parts needed to make a similar rear setup to his. Needless to say, I ended up having spherical bearings and heim joints in every possible spot, not to mention everything is now adjustable so I can set the car up exactly how I want.
Front.
Rear.
That took me until the spring, I got the car out and took it to some lapping days. It took about 3 full track days to finally get all the suspension figured out and dialed in, as well as fix the few things that didn't hold up as well as I had anticipated. Once everything was working properly, The car felt awesome. Huge thanks to Martin for all his help, and dealing with my hundreds of questions.
I decided that I should probably step up in the safety department, so I got a roll bar put in. I started out deleting my sunroof to strip some weight of the car as well as make room to get the main hoop of the roll bar up that much higher and away from my head!
Took this out.
Ended up with this.
It's not very pretty, but it works!
This is how the roll bar turned out, I am super happy with it. Excellent work by Can-Alignment. Let's just hope that I never have to test it out.
After a few events and getting quicker and quicker each time I was out, I started overheating my stock brakes so I decided to upgrade. I didn't want to go with anything crazy because I want to keep 15" wheels to help with the gearing of the car. I just upgraded to Alltrac brakes and Carbotech XP10 pads over the XP8's that I was using with the stock brakes. The pad is the same size, but the rotor is quite a bit larger which helps dissipate the heat and puts the clamping force farther from the hub with adds leverage to improve braking.
Before.
After.
Comparison.
Did a few little mods...
After getting the racing itch. I started doing little things to the car to help the handling, and took it to some local auto-cross events and lapping days. I live in Southern Ontario so I have to park the car for the winter and decided that I really want to get serious and build the car to compete in Time Attack events. I parked the car for the winter last year and decided that I wanted the car to be out and ready race in the spring of 2011. Before I parked it, it looked like this.
I didn't want to swap a 3SGTE because I like the reliability of the 5SFE, and I think its cool to go out a beat up on Porches, STI's and k-swapped Civics with my 120hp car. I began collecting parts over the winter and the first thing I came across was a BEAMS transmission with a TRD Helical LSD, and 4.176 final drive. Having an S53 with sworn 2nd and 3rd gear syncros, something had to be done with the transmission and this was a wonderful upgrade.
Another thing that needed attention was the suspension bushings. After browsing a bunch of forums, I came across Martin's (gtfour77) build thread. It was a huge inspiration. After getting to the end of it and realizing that he was parting the car out, I was lucky enough to get his front control arms and roll center adjusters since they'll bolt up to a FWD model. His rear suspension was quite a bit different than mine, but after a ton of email's back and forth, I ended up getting the parts needed to make a similar rear setup to his. Needless to say, I ended up having spherical bearings and heim joints in every possible spot, not to mention everything is now adjustable so I can set the car up exactly how I want.
Front.
Rear.
That took me until the spring, I got the car out and took it to some lapping days. It took about 3 full track days to finally get all the suspension figured out and dialed in, as well as fix the few things that didn't hold up as well as I had anticipated. Once everything was working properly, The car felt awesome. Huge thanks to Martin for all his help, and dealing with my hundreds of questions.
I decided that I should probably step up in the safety department, so I got a roll bar put in. I started out deleting my sunroof to strip some weight of the car as well as make room to get the main hoop of the roll bar up that much higher and away from my head!
Took this out.
Ended up with this.
It's not very pretty, but it works!
This is how the roll bar turned out, I am super happy with it. Excellent work by Can-Alignment. Let's just hope that I never have to test it out.
After a few events and getting quicker and quicker each time I was out, I started overheating my stock brakes so I decided to upgrade. I didn't want to go with anything crazy because I want to keep 15" wheels to help with the gearing of the car. I just upgraded to Alltrac brakes and Carbotech XP10 pads over the XP8's that I was using with the stock brakes. The pad is the same size, but the rotor is quite a bit larger which helps dissipate the heat and puts the clamping force farther from the hub with adds leverage to improve braking.
Before.
After.
Comparison.
:notworthy: