Celica 1992 GT Transmission specs and other questions

[Chris Robinette]

Hi, I've recently been given my mother's 14 year old 1992 Celica GT (standard, 5 speed), quite a nice car, I must say. Drives great, but, I found out that the transmission fluid hasn't been changed since it was bought, and it's had 80,000+ miles on it since then. Given that I've read that it's smart to change transmission fluids every 20,000 miles or so, I figure it's time to get that done, however, I don't know the exact specs on the transmissions that these celica's had, and all a google search got me was that it's a 5 speed manual, which won't exactly help when going to an auto parts store in search of transmissions fluid. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Secondly, I've been thinking of getting more horsepower out of this car, and while I've done some research, I'm still partially at a loss. The engine in this car is a 5s-fe, which is, from what I've read, the economy type engine that Toyota put in Celicas. I was considering a 3s-gte swap, and then adding things like like a new intake, upgrade in the exhaust, headers, and so on. However, I stumbled upon a thread on these forums (5S-FE w/turbo vs. 3S-GTE) in which some people said that a conversion from a 5s-fe into a 5s-gte (I believe I read that right, please correct me if I'm wrong) will give me a boost in power in both the mid and high rpms, if what they said about the 3s-gte providing more power in only the top range was correct. Again, if I misread that, please feel free to correct, as I want to be sure that I have a good understanding of all this before I decide to put any money into this idea, especially since this is going to be my main car for awhile. Any help or explanation with any of this would be appreciated as well. Thanks.

-e- To clarify, this is going to be a street car, so I would prefer the boost in the mid and top range, as opposed to just the top range (5k rpm and up?).

[Pineapple]

Im not sure if its a C52 or S53 tranny.

Before you decide on the swap, how much HP you're looking for? 5S-FTE or 5S-GTE will be limited to maybe 300HP with lots of upgrade. The 5S is a stroker and larger 2.2L compare to the 3S 2.0L. The 5S is build for lowend torque, 130HP 140ft-lb stock. The 3S is a square engine which is more balance. The 3S-GTE is 200HP 200ft-lb stock and easy to build pass 300HP. Also your stock tranny will not hold up pass 300HP.

[suasa]

hello,
I own this exact car and i cant help you out the the transmission. The power question i can help with, there are alot of things that you can do to upgrade the 5sfe, but there are very very few bolt on parts for the car. The 5sfe or 5sfte and the 3sge or 3sgte are very different engines despite having the same block, i know this because my good friend drives a 1986 celica gts with a 3sge, the 5sfe is low rpm the powerband is from about 3200 rpm to 5500 after about 5500 the engine stops pulling, and its useless to rev it any higher, the 3sge is a higher rpm engine and is equipped with Tvis, an air management system, tvis kicks in right around 4000 rpm, and it uses a butterfly mechanism to make the air flow faster into the engine. the 3sge engine in my experience has its powerband around 1000-1500 rpm higher then the 5sfe, just some info for ya if you wanna do the 3sgte swap. If you do want to stick with the 5sfe i would avoid going turbo, although it can be done it is fairly expensive, and you will have to upgrade all the internal aside from the crank to get any sort of decent boost, as far as i can remember the stock internals will only safelyhandle around 8 psi. If you want to stay fairly cheap, and get more horsepower, i am thinking 180 bhp with these mods, some of which i have planned to do to my car. get the cams reground, custom made header, beacuse the only one available is from pacesetter i believe and is 460 dollar american, a custom made header will be cheaper. get an intake fabbed up, they do not make them for our cars. and some sort of stand alone fuel system that you can use to tune the whole thing such as megasquirt. Another option is to make a 5sge engine or 5sge, much more expensive, i wont give you the whole deal on this, but there are a few people who have done it,do a search around on these toyota forums. a 5sge consists of a preferably 2nd gen 3sge head, first gen will work as well, but 2nd gen will make more power for you. so get the head put it on the 5sfe block, you can turbo from there all sorts of things, but i am too tired to go into detail on the subject, and if i was at home i would have some links for you, but i am not. anyway hope that helps you out. have fun with your car.

[Chris Robinette]

Alright, with the C52 or the S53 what will type of fluid will I want to look into?

Looking at that information, well, I'm also gearing up to go to college here, so money will be tight. So it seems as if the 3s-gte will be the better option. Given what ya'll have told me, wis there any way to also get a boost of around 3k rpm and up on the 3s-gte? And, this may seem rather trivial, but, have any of you driven a 3s-gte, and do you remember the feel of it as opposed to that of the 5s-fe? I read an article about a turbocharged car versus a super charged, and they stated that on that particular vehicle, even though the supercharged added more horsepower, the turbocharger felt like it was a much faster vehicle, while the supercharged just felt stock.

[suasa]

well again i cant help ya with the tranny fluid as i havnt replaced mine yet, i am still a youngun. but if your strapped for cash dont think the 3sgte will be cheap, your lookint at at least 1000 for the complete engine, then if your not installing it yourself expect a bill of 3000+ for the entire project. If you are strapped for cash as you say, get your cams reground, this should cost somewhere between 400 and 600 bucks depending where and depending on shipping and depending on the grind, full exhaust and a fabbed up intake you should beable to get the whole thing done for under $1000 thats where i would go, this will bring you up to an estimated 180 horsepower, say 15 for the full exhaust and intake, 30-40 for the intake if you do a stanalone fuel management system, you will see even more gains from these ups, the dyno time to tune properly will cost you a few bucks too. either way, to get a car to go fast it cant be done cheaply, i expect with the cams and intake and exhaust done mabey some head work you will be on par with the first gen celica alltrack, although you will be lacking the allwheel drive and probably the torque of the alltrack, but you should be a 13 second car or so.

[Chris Robinette]

Hmm, true, my line of thought was that, if I was eventually going to replace the 3sgte, it might be better to put what resources I can spare into saving up for that, and then heading from there. I do see what you are saying though.

[Chris Robinette]

Well, I looked into the transmission using the school auto departments mitchel program, the recomended for the C52 or S53 is 75W-90 or 80W-90, at least, if I remember right. Don't quote me on that.

[Saggz]

Originally Posted by Chris Robinette

Alright, with the C52 or the S53 what will type of fluid will I want to look into?

Its an S53. As for fluid, the best stuff is GM Syncromesh (believe it or not.) Stuff's pretty cheap too, around $6 a litre from the dealer.

[Saggz]

I'll also throw in my $0.02 for what they're worth.

The car seems mint, 80k and no problems to speak of, given your situation I would simply drive it, and do routine maintenence. Maybe minor mods like intake, exhaust, springs/struts and bump the timing if you feel like messing with it. In the meantime, save for a car that responds better to mods, is newer, cheaper to mod, or just buy a faster car. For what you would have to spend on this chassis to make it legitimately quick, you could build a V8 FC RX7, SR 240, Turbo Mustang, etc.