Hey I converted my 5th gen swap into an AWD - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

westsidebigred · 01-28-2006, 07:12 PM

Hey , Im new to the forum. I was just wondering how many other people have finished and how many are going to attempt themselves or pay a shop to do the swap and full conversion. I used an 93 MR2 motor with a tranny and rear driveline set up out of a 90 alltrac. It was scary when my car was gutted in the rear end. When i ran FWD with my 3SGTE it was fast but as any body knows about FWD is they dont launch like RWd or AWD and the way they corner is no comparison with AWD. I broke the Celica FWD tranny and was stuck with the decisicion of replace it or upgrade it. So what did you all do to your celicas?
Brett

ST185 · 01-28-2006, 11:32 PM

If I'm not wrong, you are the third person who did this. (on 5th gen body)
Both cars before yours were on eBay for a while.
IMO, it's an expensive conversion which may worth or not worth depending on the owner.
But you definitely learn and gain something from the conversion.
Money, no. Experience and knowledge, yes.

I honestly don't think it worths doing on 5th gen body since it's easier to accquire a real alltrac (ST185) in the States. On the 6th gen body, it's another story.

westsidebigred · 01-28-2006, 11:46 PM

Absolutely right! There are several times that I wished I had just bought an alltrac and upgraded from there. At first I was just going to do the motor swap. That got expensive enough. Then when the tranny went out, I knew it would happen again. So I was kind of stuck with half of my so called dream car. Basically I had to build the rest so that the first investment would finally pay off. Then again it's a car....the biggest money pit ever. I did become a better mechanic, had to buy more tools, but now I can do anything to that car.
Brett

terrastrife · 01-29-2006, 05:25 AM

you didnt stick with the old tranny with the motor swap did you? that would be a bad idea...

anyway, if you cant find an alltrac/gt4 and you cna afford the conversion, go for it, and scare the wits out of everyone at the xmas tree drags =)

presure2 · 01-29-2006, 11:08 AM

pics

westsidebigred · 01-29-2006, 01:33 PM

Check out my crews website and all the pics are there. In the videos there is a clip of me racing my buddys MR2. Yes, when the motor went in I had a rebuilt original tranny. I didn't want to use the MR2 tranny but it would have been more cost effective to use it in the begining. Then it wouldn't have broke. But the car needs AWD or it becomes a typical FWD with more power than traction.
There is a link on the bottom of every post I leave check it out.
Brett

thousand_five · 01-29-2006, 02:06 PM

I checked out your import page. Very nice. I love KYB GR2 struts too! The burnout by the mr2 is wicked, best I've seen. The back fire is a good touch to the clip.

westsidebigred · 01-29-2006, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thousand_five

I checked out your import page. Very nice. I love KYB GR2 struts too! The burnout by the mr2 is wicked, best I've seen. The back fire is a good touch to the clip.

Yeah thanks for checking it out. glad you liked the clips. Did you see the one of he and I racing? that was fun too!

alltracman78 · 01-29-2006, 11:18 PM

I didn't see any pics of the conversion?
Or of the floorpan...

What did you do?
Weld in a Alltrac floorpan?

ST185 · 01-30-2006, 02:30 PM

http://www.oregonizedimports.com/pages/5/index.htm

westsidebigred · 01-30-2006, 04:31 PM

No I made the front brackets with a bottom plate on the seat pan that is slanted and then rectangle steel came through that where the seats used to be and then i built and welded a box around that with a flat top.I welded and bolted those in and then ran a long thick bolt down through bracket into the carriers normal holding spot and put a plate on the bottom of that and nutted the bolt there.

As for the rear I used angle iron to strengthen the sub frame and put a plate on the top kinda encompassing the three sides of the sub frame for about 10" or so. Then i ran a bolt down through the normal holding spot and put a plate on the bottom and nutted it.

The rear suspension lined itself up once i connected the Alltrac strut to the Alltrac nuckle and put the drive line and shafts in .The pumpkin carrier only really wanted be in one spot once all was connected. So we beat the tunnel up a bit and bolted and welded the original carrier bearing brackets in place and hung the driveline. Where i purchased my driveline and rear end system from kindly went back out to the car in the junk yard and cut out the floor pan from the middle of the car so i could have the carrier barckets . Which we pealed layer by layer until we had just the bracket itself not three or four layers of car. Then for more strength i put a T frame of rectangular steel going from side to side to rear. Then covered it up wit a piece of stainless steel.

Hope that helps . I will add some pics of the front brackets on my site. Luckily or skilled some how I came out with a perfect alignment.

Brett

alltracman78 · 01-30-2006, 10:24 PM

ok, I gotcha.

Quite a bit of work...
Personally, I would've welded the whole floorpan in, but I'm picky like that.
Good Job.

I see you've got that photochop from www.celicatech.com lol
Do you know the story behind it?

Thanks Gary.
I STILL couldn't find that page on the site... :P
It might not show on my computer... :shrug:

westsidebigred · 01-31-2006, 01:36 AM

No, I dont know the story. What photochop picture are you talking about?

The pics of the conversion are just two thumb nails on my page at the site. One of the suspension on the left side and one of the carrier and pumpkin and T frame .I need to put more pics up.

So do you know where i can get a 3SGTE head used or rebuilt?
E-Mail me
Thanks Brett

alltracman78 · 01-31-2006, 07:40 PM

I'm not sure where you can get the head at, sorry.

Regarding the photochop, it's the pic of the GMC with a rally ST185 flying over it...

alltracman78 · 01-31-2006, 07:41 PM

What's wrong with your head?
Is it warped too bad to fix?