Celica GT4

[rtbiscuit]

I know when he bought it the car was apparently a fully built engine, but as it turns out it was done badly, i know he's currently rebuilding at the moment, but not 100% sure whats gone into it. i know he had put a hybrid turbo on it, and then he had engine issues (not the turbo's fault) turns out i think the engine had been over bored, and sleeves were to big, but its now all been corrected and refitted. i don;t know what is and is no longer forged. i know he was looking at boost control setups and looking at being able to turn it all down low etc (in effect allowing him to drive a bog standard 2 litre) and then when he wanted to play, be able to turn it all up again.

 

last time we had a play i know that it was just keeping up with my car but as mine got to 100 it would start to pull ahead before we ran out of tarmac on the airfield we were on. and my xkr is currently near 440 bhp. but thats the difference between a turbo'd 2 litre and a supercharged V8.

[ozwald]

If those are genuine Compomotives you'll get a decent price for them if you are looking to sell, really good wheel, hard as nails! Ran the same 18's on mine for a while but moving down to 17's IMO 18's are just a bit too big.

 

Downside as you've mentioned due to the calipers you don't have much clearance so there's limited wheel designs you can run, unless you want to use spacers. I'm still trying to decide on what I want to go for!

[rtbiscuit]

i'll tell him to come on and have a look at the thread, he can talk for himself then and give you a better idea.

 

he did say th gt4 forum was excellent

[mick-r1]

If you weren't across the pond id swap my 17's for them 18's.

[Topcat]

If those are genuine Compomotives you'll get a decent price for them if you are looking to sell, really good wheel, hard as nails! Ran the same 18's on mine for a while but moving down to 17's IMO 18's are just a bit too big.

 

Downside as you've mentioned due to the calipers you don't have much clearance so there's limited wheel designs you can run, unless you want to use spacers. I'm still trying to decide on what I want to go for!

 

Blimey! They do appear to be expensive, didn't realise.

i could get nearly quarter the worth of the car back selling them!

I'll prob get the suspension raised and softened first and see how it is.

I could prob strip this car and make a massive profit. But that sounds too sensible for my liking.

[Topcat]

i'll tell him to come on and have a look at the thread, he can talk for himself then and give you a better idea.

 

he did say th gt4 forum was excellent

 

Yeah I joined up, seem a nice bunch, Maybe i'm just trying to hold on to the zed a bit longer.

Had to go to the buyers house and pick up my old insurance documents i gave him by accident.

Felt ashamed in my rusty laquered celica.

[mick-r1]

i had one of these for 5 years and still my favourite car out of all i've owned:

 

 

Very reliable, but watch that superstrut suspension and the figure of 8 links - it all gets very expensive to replace!

I actually have a c-one lip there like above I'm not using either if your interested in it?

[Husky]

Hi

 

Sorry, PM inbox is probably thousands over being full.

 

I swapped in my 350z for a GT4 a few years back. Love the GT4.

 

I did indeed take the spoiler risers out to lower the wing, it's just personal preference. The bonus is that the WRC risers sell really easily, think I got around £40 for mine on ebay and they needed a respray.

 

The best thing I ever did with this car was take it to Martin at MK Auto Repairs And Tuning https://www.facebook...4641634?fref=ts I'm real damned picky with garages after being burned a few times in the past with so called "amazing" recommended garages doing shoddy jobs. Now I drive from Coventry to Blackburn to get the car worked on, it's worth it. Let him know I sent you

 

Speaking from experience I'd take everything previous owners say as a guide to the car, not fact. Get everything they have told you confirmed first and then work from there. My car was running 300bhp when I got it, but only because of some Maplin style ECU mods that ended up killing my injectors and MAP sensor. I detuned mine right back after that was discovered and then I rebuilt from stock levels.

 

Originally I bought mine with forged internals, and some random bits modded here and there. Since then, due to the shoddy work of previous owners garages, I've replaced most of the engine. I'm not too concerned about it as now I know it has been meticulously put together by Martin. I basically have a factory fresh engine. I bought some fresh forged pistons too as the bore in my engine was stupidly large for stock sized forged pistons it had, I stepped up to the next size piston and we bored the block to match perfectly.

 

Turbo wise, it depends on what you want out of her. Personally I decided on 350BHP as you can get a refurb of your stock turbo with hybrid internals. The hybrid actually gives you a better spool time and wider power band than the stock as it's ~15 years newer. If you go bigger than 350BHP it starts to get on the laggy side. There are plenty of guys running bigger turbos pushing out 400~450 no problem, but it delivers it in such a different way. You completely miss out on low down power, and when you do get power it is all in one lump and over very quickly leaving you changing gear rather often. Again, all personal preference though.

 

I happily pay the gt4oc.net membership as the guys on there really know their stuff. They also have their own version of Ebay which you can view without membership.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Husky

[Topcat]

Hey.

 

How easy is it to remove the risers and fix the wing back on? I think i'd be happy enough with the look of that.

I've already been in touch with Martin actually

However i'm booked in to Powerhouse in Derby tommorrow for a check over, never been but he said he was knowledgable on GT4's

As for the previous owner, he's a very genuine guy (I think) he's been the only owner from import in 2006 and it was standard then.

He has receipts for over £10,000 of mods so i'm hoping they're all under the bonnet and not fitted to another car lol.

but hasn't any receipts for the actual build as he said his cousin who owns a garage did all the work.

If everything he has said is correct the only mayor internals that haven't been uprated are the conrods and camshafts i think. Which are quite strong as standard i understand?

Anyway i will probably take it to Martin soon as he's highly recommended.

 

I'm totally new to turbo's not actually even been in a turbo car before.

So i'm not sure as to how i would like it.

I am looking for the feeling of speed rather than actual speed so maybe i would prefer it to all hit me at once.

Thanks for the info mate

[Husky]

Yeah, removing the risers is really easy. Depends on how well they were fitted originally as to how tight the bolts are etc.

 

Just open the boot, look underneath and you'll see some access holes for the spoiler with bolts in them.

Can't remember if you have to take the black plastic trim off, it just pops off if you do.

Undo the bolts to the risers.

take the spoiler with risers attached off

look inside the risers and you'll see the bolts holding it to the spoiler.

unbolt the risers from the spoiler.

use these bolts to fix it back down onto the boot.

 

Mine hadn't been fitted properly so there was a lot of paint damage sadly. But better to know about it than leave it hidden under the blocks rusting away.

[Topcat]

Brilliant thanks, that sounds an easy enough job. The whole car will prob be having a respray at some point unless i just leave it as a track/weekend toy.

have you tracked yours much?

Hear contrasting opinions on 4wd on track, I imagine in the wet though it will show up better cars that aren't 4wd just has endless grip by the looks of it, not wanting to push it on public roads obviously.

 

Will have a crack at the spoiler tomorrow if it's not lashing it down again

[skyinsurance]

They have the same Turbo as The MR2 Turbo.

 

Same engine as the MR2 Turbo - 3SGTE. I have a 3SGTE retro-fitted into my 1988 Mk1 MR2. Mine is actually a Celica GT4 (ST185) engine but runs an MR2 Turbo LSD gearbox.

 

Here's our old company car, limited edition WRC ST205. Nice car but felt very slow compared to my MR2 but the GT4 is a heavy old hector

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Ollie

Edited May 30, 2013 by skyinsurance

[skyinsurance]

Here is ours as a stock car:

 

[Husky]

Fired an insurance enquiry your way

[rtbiscuit]

i'm with sky they have been extrememly good at sorting me out and were the cheapest