Vintage celica questions?

This advertisement for a 1979 celica locally in craigslist captured my heart. What are the plusses and minuses/possibilities of this era of celica for a rally car? Engine,suspension,etc. http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/4452781330.html

its a good starting point

if i had the cash i would buy it

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!

Sean I just had a celica rally car for sale locally!!!!

Oh, sorry Steve, I didn't know you were selling a celica.

Throw a 2rz in it and have torque for dayzzzzzzzz. The Clarks have one, and it's awesome! Well it's an 84 Celica, but basically the same thing right...?

They are great cars... Built to last. I would buy it for no more than $1200.
Cage looks like it's gotta go too

Looks like an AutoDeath cage. Better to cut it out and start over. I would rather jump out of an airplane with no parachute than roll a car with an Autopower cage, higher likelihood of survival.

Yeah, obviously the cage has go, but are there any down sides to this generation celica as opposed to the next generation as far as engine and suspension?

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Sean Burke
Yeah, obviously the cage has go, but are there any down sides to this generation celica as opposed to the next generation as far as engine and suspension?

Whatever problems in that year is going to be same sort of problems in the next year: extreme difficulty finding any : glass, blinkers, grill, hood, fenders, doors, ya know, junk and stuff..

But what real rally driver ever needed to replace a door or a fender or a hood or a windshield or a blinker? Pushaw!

As far as engine--the truth is kinda like what i say for the cast iron junk in the Xratties: if it has oil pressure--RUN IT.

But don't spend money on hopping one up.
Spend money on something that is way better outta the box than an old 22R could EVER be.
I'd suggest what the crazy man John Reed did...perhaps pure coincidence!!!!! ---but I had said something about the great 3S-GE fambly....
86mm bore, 86mm stroke and the one he got was some JDM thang with variable cams =both sides and supposedly 207 Japanese Pferd Stärke ---didn't know Japanese had krautski horsies but that's a whatta de Pea Ess is.

He got on with the trans for like cheep cheeep made some simple mounts and dropped the bugger in...

Of course the car still will be stuck with recirculating ball steering with maybe 7-8 turns of sloppy hell for steering---if you could call it that,
And for which there's no know cure.

and maybe 6.2" diameter discs up front...and 5" dia drums, maybe..

And ancient style struts with the tubes welded into the bottom forging....

Virtually all those problems afflict other Japanese cars of the next generation as well...

See the thing is the Japanese culture still is an extremely hierarchical society.. If anybody wants to rally they have to be RICH, like REALLY RICH, so then if somebody is rich, they don't mind paying for all the "pretty OK" stuff that once was available --always RHD---way back..its just money and conspicuous consumption like $2000 steering box REINFORCES the cultural structure and rich boy is the "cool" that he has genuline 'Gloopah Aie 2.5 tuln steeling brox"'

They tried to make their Press in Group 4 and later B and . Since they could get results in Safari and Côte d'Ivoire where full scale substitution of EVERYTHING was allowed, why put any cool stuff on a street car_ What they did was give away AM-FM and 2 speed wipers and 3 speed heater controls and didnät even put LSD in things like Celica GT in USA while other markets they did..

But you could paint it just like the Works TTE cars..and look marvelous.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
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is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

don't worry too much about the brakes they unbolt and can be replaced with larger ones

the steering can be upgraded too, as can the engine

if the car makes you happy buy it everything else can be worked out

if i had the cash i would be driving that car right now!

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!

I had a 3sge in my celica. Not much torque in the lower rpms. For RWD i'd think you'd want more torque to get those wheels spinning in the turns; 3sgte accomplishes that, but obviously more money.

Would suck if you wrecked it though. It's a 2nd gen and the model run wasn't that long. Parts would probably be few and far between.

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john vanlandingham
Spend money on something that is way better outta the box than an old 22R could EVER be.
I'd suggest what the crazy man John Reed did...perhaps pure coincidence!!!!! ---but I had said something about the great 3S-GE fambly....
86mm bore, 86mm stroke and the one he got was some JDM thang with variable cams =both sides and supposedly 207 Japanese Pferd Stärke ---didn't know Japanese had krautski horsies but that's a whatta de Pea Ess is.

3SGE Blacktop BEAMS (<- info link) engine, 6 spd trans, harness, ECU and even driveshaft, on ebay for $1100 + shipping . . . that much cash would barely get you past pistons and head work on a 22RE, and then you'd still be stuck with a 30 year old asthmatic 8 valve truck engine. If you go the BEAMS route, just make sure it was originally mounted longitudinal, the transverse engines were mounted on an angle and have the cyl head drains oriented specially because of that

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR9.TRC1.A0.H0.X3sge+beams&_nkw=3sge+beams&_sacat=0&_from=R40