Acquiring my 2001 GT-S

I bought my celica in May 2002 and it had 17,870 miles on it with one previous owner who worked at a Toyota dealership in Statesville, NC.  As of 09/09 I’m about to roll over to 150k. I’ve seen and learned a lot on this thing.

The first year

I had just finished my first year of college and moved off of campus during this time. The only things changed on the car were:

• Ice blue headlight bulbs
• Ice blue parking lights and turn signals
• Rod Millen Motorsport Intake
• Clear sidemarkers
• Blue LED sidemarker lights (these got me pulled a lot)
• Red cloth fabric on door inserts

It was during this time that I started saving for my first system.
I bought two 10″ Alpine Type R subs in a box, but had no amp. That would come later.

Exterior

The exterior of my car has changed a lot over time. I had stock rims with TRD sides and a stock body, then switched to new rims. Then bought a fiberglass veilside kit, sold it because of fitment and bought a Vizage lip kit. Now I have switched back to the TRD Action Package. My car still has tree damage on the right side, multiple rear end bump ups, etc. It’s not worth my time to paint the whole car until I fix some of the damage.

My current Exterior Mods:

• ICW 17″s Black w/ machined lip finish
• TRD Action Package
• 04 HID housings conversion w/ wiring by Tater
• 03 OEM tails (the red ones)
• OEM Style Carbon Fiber hood
• debadged rear
• Brashboy replica Carbon Fiber lip spoiler
• Carbign Craft Carbon Fiber Mirror covers
• Fiber Images Carbon Fiber hatch handle with red “celica” letters
• Topshop Carbon Fiber wrapped gas door
• JDM TRD Fuel Cap
• TRD Foglights

Suspension and Braking

I am constantly striving to find a great setup for my car. Soon I will be looking to get new springs and shocks, or coilovers even. I had some parts from Megan Racing before but I saw some cardboard boxes that were more rigid than their bars so those were removed. These tokico shocks are nearly blown now so i’ll be hunting down something different soon enough.

• Tokico hp shocks/struts
• Tein s-tech lowering springs
• Hypermotive 3pt rear strut bar
• Rod Millen Motorsport front strut tower bar
• Hotchkis competition sway bars and bushings
• Powergrid Front and Rear adjustable endlinks (09/28/09 - removed these and replaced with OEM endlinks. Joints blown in Powergrid links.)
• Powerslot slotted and cross drilled rotors (09/25/09 - new rotors added)
• Goodridge stainless lines
• Hawk HPS Brake pads (09/25/09 - new pads)
• Speedfried Roll Coupler Kit (this is a clone of the Whiteline kit)

I have Energy Suspension Front Control Arm bushings and Rack/Pinion bushings that need to be installed along with a set of rear control arm bushings from Prothane. If anyone has ever attempted bushing installs then you probably understand why I have not started yet, lol.

Engine and Transmission

Living in North Carolina and dealing with emissions makes it very hard to go balls to the wall for power. South Carolina, however, does not care about these things and I can already see the state line from my neighborhood so I will probably just scoot on down the road and open up my options a bit more.

• Energy Suspension front/rear motor mount insert (black)
• TPR Cold Air Intake / Injen Cold Air intake (I switch back and forth. The TPR runs better in winter)
• Greddy EVO2 exhaust
• DC Sports ceramic header
• Unorthodox Racing pulleys (Water pump and Alternator. Crank pulley sold to someone who could use it safely!)
• TRD quickshifter (00-02 set)
• Speed-Source shifter cable bushings
• Speed-source shifter base bushings
• Speed-source stainless clutch line
• Apex-I PowerFC standalone ECU & Datalogit/Commander

Update (08/01/09) - DD Performance Intake Manifold has arrived and needs to be installed along with the Q45 throttle body. A install thread will be created if I have someone around to help take pics.

Interior

My interior is almost complete. Here is my current setup. If i can get some new seats I will be done. I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff over the years on the interior. I think I have finally gotten the car to what I like to look at every day while driving.

I need a new steering wheel, my original one looks bad.

• Topshop’s Carbon Fiber door inserts
• Topshop’s Carbon Fiber Headliner
• Topshop’s Carbon Fiber A-Pillars
• Topshop’s Carbon Fiber Hatch Cover
• Custom TRD gauge face by Dooly
• 2003 Full Interior Conversion (last pieces finally installed 09/20/09!)
• Instrument Cluster Surround wrapped by Topshop
• real italian black leather with red stitching shifter boot from RedlineGoods
• JDM trd horn button - black
• Euro CD player dash kit wrapped in Carbon Fiber by Topshop
• JDM center console, hvac, and cluster surround, window switch cover wrapped in Carbon Fiber by Topshop
• OEM shifter knob (Had a Matrix Knob but it was coming apart so back to OEM. More comfortable anyways)

System/I.C.E./Under hood goodies

My dream trunk enclosure was once going to be a cool carbon spare tire pod but now I just want the trunk floor panels from europe so I can keep a full size spare. The box will be very much hidden almost and contoured to fit the side hatch panels. Everything I want to do has been done before but I want a clean OEM look.

• Alpine type r 6.5″ component speakers
• Alpine type x 12″ DVC subwoofer
• Infinity 1211a two channel amp
• Sundown Audio SAX 100.2
• JVC KD-DV6200 DVD/WMA/mp3/mp4/AVI single din unit
• 6.5″ Power Acoustic headrest monitor for JDM console
• PS2 mounted in rear

• Toyota Factory VIP Alarm RS3200
• Fiber Images Carbon Fiber Valve Cover
• Fiber Images Carbon Fiber Small Relay Cover
• Fiber Images Carbon Fiber ECU cover
• Fiber Images Carbon Fiber Radiator cover
• Carbon Fiber Spark Plug Cover by Kenny Heiser
• OBX racing Red Radiator hoses (will most likely be replaced with the OEM ones. these aren’t doing it for me anymore but they work fine and haven’t faded much in 3 yrs)
• Gunmetal AEM oil cap
• Hypermotive billet battery tiedown
• Wrinkle Red powdercoating on valve cover
• Wrinkle Red powdercoating w/ hi-temp clear on strut tower bar
• Gunmetal powdercoating on intake manifold

The Optima battery died of bad cells after 5 years so back to a Duralast. Not a bad run with Optima though. Probably will get one for the Jeep.

Gunmetal Intake manifold, carbon engine covers, optima battery, red valve cover

underhood a LONG time ago

Currently I am working on chasing down a faint wobble in my right rear suspension and a rotor drag noise coming from my new brakes. Once I get those sorted and a new set of tires for the OEM rims I will be much happier. I am tired of these black rims. I hope my suspension issues are not anything major I really dont want to tear a lot of that stuff back out of there.

Also, currently one of my HID headlight housings is leaking like a mofo so it will be coming inside and getting opened up using the kitchen oven. It leaked so bad it blew out the bulb. So, currently I’m only cruising around during daytime even though with only one HID projector working it is still brighter than any of those cheap ebay bulbs ever were.