Maturity and Modding
My time working on the celi has been an extremely helpful learning experience in many ways, and it continues to evolve as I get older. It’s surprising to think back to what was important for me to modify in my early days. Sidemarker lights, headlamp bulbs, all exterior stuff pretty much. Not many good performance parts were available besides the common intake, header, exhaust combos.
I used to enjoy wild and agressive looking cars, even went as far as to buy the first Veilside kit for the celica (it was a replica, BIG mistake!!). I put on a set of flashy tuner rims, an exhaust, an intake, and called it a day.
Then, one day the fitment problems on that kit started to bother me. Whichever day this was is definitely the beginning of me turning into a perfectionist about my mods. All of the sudden things were not just about “get it in there and working” it was about “get it installed PERFECTLY”.
Fast forward a couple of years and I was still being very picky about the fitment and finish of things on the car. I sold the veilside kit and bought a JP Co. Vizage kit. It was a lip kit, attached to the factory bumpers and therefore was almost guaranteed to fit 1000% better than the current setup. Things were better. Still was making small shortcuts here and there on the car but most importantly I was doing extra amounts of research before attempting anything.
Sometime in 2008 I decided that I was unhappy again with the car. I decided that, and this is important, “nothing should be messed with unless it has definitive benefits” and “I should not mess with anything unless I am taking the time to do it properly, even if that means waiting for more expensive parts”. I sourced a TRD kit and installed it. It fit SO nicely. What else should I expect from a factory part though?
So, keeping with that spirit, my two newest additions for my celica parts are a full factory interior from a 2004 celi and a set of OEM GT-S wheels. I keep damaging and flat-spotting my cheap rims so I am going back to what worked before. I keep repainting my interior so I am swapping it out and shouldn’t ever have to touch that crap again.
While the interior is halfway disassembled any extra wiring from my modding over the years is being taken out. Also, now that I know a bit more about running stereo wiring I am doing some cable rerouting to avoid cable crosstalk. I am also pulling any wiring associated with “neons” or interior lighting that was not factory.
I hope to have the car back to a more stock’ish look and feel quite soon. Once I get there then I will begin installing my new DD Manifold and making some power out of this PFC tune.
Maybe some others have had a change of taste and attitude towards modding as the years have passed with your celica. I feel that if I had prior experience modding a car I might know what to do and not to do. I would probably have taken a different path. If you had it all to do over again would you do your mods differently? Or would you never even begin modding? Would you even buy the celica?