My name is Bennett, I am 18 and for the past couple of months I have been looking for a toyota celica to replace my current car. Finally I found what seemed to be a good deal on one and it was only about 2.5 hrs away. I brought money and had a friend drive me to the car. I had already talked to the owner several times, and the engine/transmission were in "good" condition. However once I got there it was easy to determine either the slave or master cylinder had an internal leak, also the CV boots were ripped. However the owner would not budge from his 2300 asking price, claiming he could get more for it in it current condition. This made it seem as though I would never find celica, however I was able to get in touch with Auto Gallery which had a 94 celica gt.
Though the car was another 4 hours south the trip had to be made. Upon arriving I looked over the car and aside from the paint (previous owner had it lime green, then the dealership did a black spray over it...) the car seemed to be in good condition. As I began the test drive I went wot, followed by being thrown forward as I hit what seemed to be rev limiter. I looked over to my friend as the rev limit was at 4k. I tried going past 4k in every gear and it would cut every time. At idle the rpm would stutter, and up to 4k this car had zero power. The check engine light was on, so after running the code I determined that it was the distributor circuit. The clutch also felt a little soft. After making a huge deal about these problems I was able to get the salesman to come down to 2200 dollars (yes I am 18, but I work and paid for the celica and bought my first car). Finally I had gotten a celica, however I wasn't sure if it could make the 6.5 hr drive back.
The usual 6.5 hour drive became an 8 hour limp topping out at about 80-85, and if you have tried this on I-95 it isn't to great for merging.... I knew the car wasn't running well especially after a full tank was empty after 150 miles. Amazing enough I made it back by 2am.
The next day my friend and I set out to replace the distributor to see if that could be the problem. After we swapped the distributor (took off of an extra engine) we wondered why when the distributor pointed to cylinder 1 or 4 when the engine was not at top dead center. My plan for an oil change and distributor swap turned into a timing belt job.....Prior to me purchasing the car the timing belt had been replaced, however someone messed up. So in the end this celica was a tough sob making an 8hr drive with the timing extremely off. So if you are looking for horrible mpg, no power, and 4k rev limit...have the timing completely wrong (really don't it is pretty bad). Now she is running like she should, hopefully I can replace the clutch soon, I will try to get pictures of it once I get to clean it up.
The car needs some work and I am starting to put a list together of things I need to do:
- replace clutch
- remove window tint (fogged up can't see oout the back window)
- more to come.....glad to finally have a celica
UPDATE:
Got the windows tinted...
Looks like the stock clutch isn't going to hold out anymore....I have been rev matching and using the clutch as minimal as possible. I already have and E153 tranny with stage 4 clutch and lightweight flywheel...however I am still waiting on a few other parts for it so I would rather not rush the tranny swap.
Tonight after work my friend and I are going to put a stock clutch in there and maybe the lightweight flywheel...hopefully it won't take to long, but after having owned a vw for 2 years I am guessing something will go wrong...hopefully I will get pics of the install
Forum for all Toyota Celica discussion! Including the ST16x/18x/20x, and ZZT230/231.
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