1991 toyota Celica SX performance upgrades

[HarryHubbert]

Hey everyone, I have a 1991 Toyota Celica SX and have recently spent a fair bit of money on the appearance of the car and i want to upgrae the engine a bit and was wondering if anyone knew and performace upgrades or modiications i could do to get a bit more power and performace out of my celica. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanyou :)

[Guest]

It depends on a few things;

a) what do you call extra performance? 20hp, 50, 100.. more??

B) do you want to keep your 5S-FE? or swap a different motor in to it?

c) do you want NA performance... or Forced Induction?

d) what is your budget?

If you are in QLD (and NSW) and on your P's then you are somewhat limited in what you can do... e.g no engine swaps (NA or otherwise) and no FI.

I will try and cover as many options as I can in this post;

Low Budget (assuming you can do the work yourself)

NA;

Standard I-H-E combo (Intake, Headers, Exhaust)... would probably cost you $1000 all up and yeild maybe a 20HP gain at most from your 5S-FE

IF YOU CAN FIND ONE (here is a hint, wacol wreckers)... you could do a 3S-GE swap... would probably cost you around $1500 and yield maybe 30hp (depending on age of motor, etc)

FI;

5S-FTE conversion (see my thread about it)... could yeild as much as 150Hp extra and cost maybe $2500 at the most.

High Budget

NA;

3S-GE BEAMS swap... the best version of the 3S-GE, has vvti and will give you a 50+ hp gain over your 5S-FE... will probably be in excess of $3000

5S-FE build, hi comp pistons, cams, I-H-E, etc... will give you maybe 50+hp more and alot of torque, will be in excess of $3000

FI;

3S-GTE swap... this is the motor in a GT4 celica... 100hp + gain (depends on age/mods/etc)... $2500+

5S-GTE... this is what I am doing... depending on how you go about it you are looking at $3000+

This is just a basic overview of options for these cars... and it assumes you know how to do all the work yourself.

[HarryHubbert]

Thanks for that :) i was wondering what you would suggest for an upgrade that i coul do without an engine swap? an im on a P1 qld licence aswell. cheers

[HarryHubbert]

Thanks for that :) i was wondering what you would suggest for an upgrade that i coul do without an engine swap? an im on a P1 qld licence aswell. cheers

[Guest]

Thanks for that :) i was wondering what you would suggest for an upgrade that i coul do without an engine swap? an im on a P1 qld licence aswell. cheers

Since you are on P1 in qld, you can't do a whole lot.. any FI or engine swap is out. (you *might* be able to do 3S-GE as it was available in the ST18x... but was not in AU so you might not)

TBH I would not waste too much coin on your 5S-FE, because making them fast without a turbo costs a LOT of money.

If i were you I would do a Cold air Intake, new headers, better flowing exhaust and then maybe do some mods to make it handle better, since you wont be that fast in a straight line.

You could do lowered springs + new struts, or get a set of coilovers... put some decent brake pads on it and some light wheels and it would feel a fair bit faster.

If you are in bris and want some help with any of this let me know :)

[k_san]

Mick a G series head is a stronger, better flowing head too isnt it? And is a direct bolt on to the 5S block? Isnt that one of the reasons we are bolting a G head onto your 5S? :)

With a port and polish, a shave and a re-kit, you may be able to drag a few extra kW out! Use the 5S block so you have that extra 0.2L - and lots more torque!

Also, is there a better / bigger throttle body that could be bolted on?

And slightly larger injectors?

Theres really not much else for a N/A engine hey :(

[Guest]

Yeah, you can do a 5S-GE conversion if you like (and can get a cheap head)... here is a link on celictech to a guide;

The G head has bigger ports, and larger valves (about 1mm bigger from memory)

http://www.celicatech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38644

The problem with larger injectors is that the ECU runs rich already, and adding bigger injectors will only make this worse...

You could put a piggyback on it to sort out your AFR's... and the 3S-GE has a bigger TB that will work as part of a 5S-GE

[HarryHubbert]

Thanks for that guys. will get onto that. What about those performance chips? are they any good, do they actualy do anything?

[Guest]

Thanks for that guys. will get onto that. What about those performance chips? are they any good, do they actualy do anything?

they are mostly bollocks.

If you want a performance 'chip' get a piggyback ECU (eg. greddy emanage, fcon, etc) and a tune... this will be fairly pointless without other mods though.

[HarryHubbert]

Yeah i'm just getting the money together for the cold air intake kit, and already have new headers and a bigger exhaust. But yeah on this site i was looking through to get the cold air intake it had the performance chips and was just wondering if they were worth the money. cheers