1stGenCelica.com

Howdy... I have had a few Celicas over the years, but I have always wanted to get back in a 1stgen. I found this '75 coupe in San Jose and picked it up. I had a 327 powered 240Z for a while but for some reason - I didn't like it. After driving this old Celica around for a little bit, I feel like I am home even though the Z was pretty much "done" and this Celica has been neglected for a long time. The spirit is still there... Anyway, I am really excited to get to work now that I have sold my 240Z. Just need to start gathering parts...

I call it "Butta2" because my first real longtime Celica project was a yellow '80 Coupe I called Toybutta. This '75 is also yellow and for some reason it fits..

Here's the original Toybutta which is running around on the Big Island of Hawaii now...



Here's the New Hottness...



Anyway... Thanks for setting up this site and if anyone has a kit to swap over my car to smileys.. Hit me up!!!

Cheers,

Jacob

Welcome man!
I remember Toybutta from before on the other forums. Good luck on this project. What are your plans for the car?

One of the forum memebrs has a couple of pairs of smiley bumpers on Ebay that is a start. Welcome and good luck!!

Hmmm I guess I should move this to the Projects section or make a new thread.

I have made some improvements but nothing too stellar. I will take a stab at posting some pics...

This is what it looked like under the hood when I picked it up:



And this is what it looked like pretty soon after:



I have had a new exhaust system made, using a Hedman header and then a custom system from there back using a 2.5" downpipe going to a resonator and then 2.25" piping back to a Flowmaster. I had the header and downpipe ceramic coated (flat black) at a local shop, and have the system done this way so that the section behind the coated pieces can be swapped to suit the car as it progresses. I will always have a 20R/22R based engine, so this should really outlast the car. I am glad I had it done this way as it is WAAY too loud and I need a proper muffler on the back. I did this exact same setup on a 1.6L Datsun 510 and it sounded great, but that was with smaller pipe.

Still waiting on my distributer and igniter to show up so I can get rid of the points ignition and then tune the carb and ignition together. I might go ahead and do some mild tuning since I am getting backfires on decel from the carb as well as dieseling on shutdown. Have not yet touched the carb, just bolted it down and the car literally fired and ran on the 2nd crank.

Nice clean up job. Those engine compartments look like they are from two different cars.


Pete