Allow me to begin with a brief explanation of who I am. I am 21 - young enough that most people expect me to be interested in bitchin' underglow and airbag suspension and wicked subzzzzz and enormous exhaust tips and 'high performance' cold air intakes. However, I am not. I bought my first car at 18, a 1985 Toyota Supra. I knew very little about it except that it was a lot of fun. I had it for two months before it was rear-ended by an old lady in a Protege who wasn't paying attention. The alternator had died at a traffic light while it was red - it turned green and she plowed into the back of the car, while my friend was helping me push it out of the way. (It broke both her legs, but she's all right now.)
The car was a hopeless writeoff - you should have seen the buckle in the rear quarters. You all know what I'm talking about. Anyways, after that, it was a downhill battle. At the time, I didn't know what was even wrong with me car causing it to die like that. Yes, I often wonder if it could be considered my fault that my friend got hurt, I don't really need a lesson on ethics or responsibility. I've had that battle with myself. What it DID give me, though, was an intense desire to learn more. I always want to know everything, and this was no exception. A month later, give or take, I bought my second car, a 1983 Celica GT Coupe. My first 22R, no less. The same day, I had the back window smashed out. The day after, I found one miraculously in the local Pick 'n' Pull, and taught myself a very unpleasant crash course in repairing auto glass. This broke the ice.
The car had some issues, not least of which was a REALLY leaky master brake cylinder and a shot front main. Again, at the time I didn't really know that. While I owned the Celica, I bought myself a 1987 Supra (NA, Auto, Targa) from the wrecker's as they were dragging it off to be crushed. I figured I'd fix it and drive it. Neither of these cars really came to be 'fixed'. There was a long, unpleasant fight with the storage yard I was keeping the '87 at, and it eventually got sold to my roommate at the time, which is also an unpleasant story where I got screwed a lot. Lessons learned.
In April of 2007, I bought a relatively solid 1982 Supra - this was going to be my replacement for my first car, which I desperately missed. To this day, I still have it. Her name is Violet. In May, I bought a 1981 Supra (MA47) with a period-correct 'BAE' (Bob's Automotive Engineering) turbo kit on it, installed probably around 1983. It was a thing of beauty, despite some body damage. While driving the MA47 home from a dyno day in Edmonton (153hp and 165ft-lbs of torque out of a 5M-E) I was brutally sideswiped by a middle-aged woman in a Sunfire without a driver's side mirror (she wasn't looking where she was going) on the highway. The car survived, but something somewhere hiccuped and the engine melted a few pistons. It was rough.
This necessitated the revival of my 82 Supra - I bought it fairly well stripped, so I had to put most of an interior back in it and fix a lot of silly things like the blower motor. This is the car that taught me about cars, really. Incidentally, the 82 started making an awful squealing noise that reminded me of what my first car was doing before the battery stopped charging. On the 82, I replaced the alternator belts, and the problem ceased. Lessons learned, right? Anyways, I took the car out to Suprafest in Kamloops that year (Pete might remember this, if he's around) where someone blew up their 1JZ. While drunkenly joking around, I sold them my 83 Celica, ending that era, and leaving me with just the 82 I'd brought back to life and normalcy (though it weighs only 2700 pounds soaking wet as a result of all the stuff removed).
That summer, we decided to 7M-GE swap it. It never got finished, and to this day the car sits in a driveway with no motor in it in a state of disassembly waiting for me to get moving on it. I have amassed a large number of suspension parts (I'm one gland nut from being able to put the entire suspension together) and brakes and things for it, so when I do get a motor into it, it will drive very well. I also have a 7M-GTE and R154 that will find their way in there, running on a MegaSquirt (2.0 on a v3 motherboard). Needless to say, I've learned lots since then.
I've been through the following cars since then:
- 1987 Camry (3S-FE, bad water pump, harder to replace than the car was worth)
- 1984 Celica GT-S hatchback (cammed early 22R, best car I've owned)
- 1983 Supra (7M-GTE, ~425rwhp, total POS)
- 1983 Supra (one owner, original car. Took it to the states, it was a blast. Sold it for what I paid, bought the motor back for $200)
- 1984 Supra (7M-GE swap, parted out)
- 1984 Supra (original, got my 7M-GTE and R154 with this car, sold the car, kept the stuff)
- 1985 Supra (girlfriend's car, still have this one, swapped the 5M-GE from the 83 into it)
- 1979 Celica GT Coupe (girlfriend's car as well, getting a 22R-E swap and IRS from a 3rd-gen)
- 1983 Celica GT-S parts car
So, over the course of this obsession, I delved deeper and deeper into Celica lore. I have the dragon tattooed on my shoulder, if that's any indication. And so, at the back of my mind started to develop this plan. All along, I knew exactly what car I wanted. The Supra is classic, and will always have a place in my heart, but the holy grail of Celicas is the RA29. Specifically, I needed to have a '77 GT Liftback. I've been searching for years, looking for one. I've had people looking for me in the Pacific Northwest, and I've said repeatedly that for a good clean car, I will fly down and pick it up. As long as the chassis is good, I would have had no issue flying down, trailering a car back to someone's place, and fixing it up into running shape before driving it home. It really was nothing short of an obsession. Just recently, though, I'd sort of lost hope, watching them rust away into disrepair, more and more of them getting to be so far gone even in places where cars don't rust terribly, to the point where I'd convinced myself that I'd settle for a 72 or 73 coupe. It wasn't ideal, but it was truly classic, and at least one of the iconic Celicas.
Two days ago, somebody dropped a pretty hefty bomb on that plan. On the local club forum, someone posted a link to a Kijiji ad for not one but TWO RA29s, both 77s, one of which had undergone a lot of bodywork, and the other a parts car, being sold as a package for $1500. Now, it was about $500 more than I wanted to spend, and about $1000 more than I had, but I sent the guy an e-mail anyways, asking if he'd split them up. Simultaneously, I was looking for someone to go halfsies with me on the deal, price adjusted depending on who got which car. The owner got back to me saying he wanted $1300 for the good car, which had lots of aftermarket goodies (carb, swaybars, Kamei front airdam, louvres, etc) - too rich for my blood. However, he admitted to paying $200 for the parts car, so suddenly my eyes were set on that. It was rusty, yes, but not unrepairable. The frame and floor are still good, it just needs some fenders and some work on the rear arches and rockers under the door.
A drive out of town, some fiddling, some humming and hawwing, and $200 later, I own a 1977 Celica GT Liftback, with all the parts needed to put it together except for a driver's side front fender. I'm still pissed about that - the local Pick 'n' Pull JUST had one, but they crushed it this morning before I could get to it. Incidentally, if anyone has a front fender for a 77...
Anyways, it's not much to look at right now. Lots of rust, mismatched body panels, currently without a front bumper, and missing the louvres. The interior's a little bit thrashed, but the car comes with lots of spares, including an entire roof section. (The one original to the car has a sunroof, the spare does not.) The interior smells like mice, because mice have been living in it. I'm sure the wiring will be a lot of fun. I know a guy, though, who's pretty damn good at body work, so my goal right now is to get it running and driving so that I can get it over to his shop - if we can move it, we can work on it, and then the real fun begins.
I'm a Supra guy, through and through, so as much as a period correct 20R build, or even an 18R-G would be cool, that's just not why I want this car. I want to make power - real power, accompanied by all the torque in the world. To this end, the motor will be one of the following, depending on pricing and availability:
- 7M-GTE
- 1JZ-GTE
- 2JZ-GTE
- 1UZ-FE
I'm aware of the difficulties firstly of shoehorning a six-cylinder motor into an RA2x, and secondly the difficulty of getting a 5-speed transmission on a 1UZ, as these are all swaps I've considered for other cars. A turbocharged 2RZ-FE has been suggested as well, and is not out of the question, though I'd prefer one of the aforementioned motors.
To put all of this power to the ground, I'm looking at a MkI Supra rear axle (disc brakes FTW anyways) with the 3.73 LSD gears from a MkII. Can you True-Trac a MkI differential? I'll burn that bridge when I come to it, anyways. Probably a custom four-link setup on the rear - again, the guy who I'm looking at to do the fabrication for this stuff is pretty good, it shouldn't be an issue.
I'm also interested in doing some interesting stuff like modernizing the interior and option loadout - I'm going to look into power locks and windows using the existing regulators and modifying some junk from the third-gen Celica (or MkII Supra) to operate it. Again, I'm just talking out my @$$ here for the moment as I haven't had a chance to familiarize myself with the chassis mechanical on the RA29.
As of right now, I don't have any photos of it. I need to go back this week and pick the car up, so until then, all I have is this one:
Mine is the one in the back, with the green fender - most of the car is hidden, but that's okay 'cause most of it's really rusty, too! The one in the foreground is its sister, which is still for sale.
I'm sorry for being really long-winded, but now you know who I am and where I'm coming from.
. That said, if anyone needs a good roof...
It's so beautiful.... Anyways the 7MGTE fits into the RA29 almost like it's made to be there. Check out speedfreak426celica's project thread, he did the swap, and is like Yoda of the 7M. I am like halfway through the swap myself, and it's looking good so far. Your Celica really doesn't look to bad! That rust should not be horrible to fix. Just think of how sexy it's going to look when it's done! I'm going to ask the registries if they can tell me how many 77 Celica's there are in Alberta, I have honestly NEVER seen one on the road.
