Howdy from Texas!

[Mockingbird]

Howdy,

Greeting from Texas. So I am not yet a Celica owner but am looking to be. I would like to eventually get a 1985 gts manual (black or grey interior). Seem like nice examples are hard to find. I have been lurking and reading for a couple of weeks now and figured I should probably go ahead and join and post. While I am new to the Celica I am not new to Toyota. I have had 3 Toyota trucks during my life. An 87 2wd pickup, an 87 turbo 4 runner and a 2003 4 door Tacoma. I am a competent mechanic and have been tinkering with cars most of my life but am by no means a fabricator or super talented builder.

As I said before it seems like clean cars are hard to come by, that being said I have a line on a clean gts that is everything I am looking for except for the manual transmission ( it is an automatic). I have looked at the swap threads and it seems fairly straightforward. The one question I did have, as I didn’t see it mentioned or I might have missed it, is there any wiring/ electrical work that needs to be done and do you also need to swap the ecu? 

Thanks for letting me join the group. Hopefully I can get a Celica in the garage soon and start learning more hands on as well as hopefully contributing here and there where I can. 

[Jintei]

Hey , welcome aboard! I'm new myself lol I have that car you are talking about an 84 GTS. How was that turbo 4 runner? some decent power? And to answer your question , I would assume you need to swap the ecu. And yea most of these cars are not clean, mine has some bad rust on the driver side I have to fix as in holes lol. Anyways nice to meet you and hope to see your progress on your car when you get it! 

[twotone_ra64]

Hello and welcome! Love seeing the Toyota-familiar guys coming in.

Sorry I didn't mention the ECU / wiring differences in the writeup, but no, you don't actually need the manual ECU. I swapped it out years later on and it made no difference. Just make sure to connect the clutch switch in place of the little jumper on the white connector behind the door buzzer box under the steering column so your cruise control will work!!

[Mockingbird]

How was that turbo 4 runner? some decent power?

It was Ok... The auto trans on it was kinda a dog. If you started in 1st then went to second and then drive manually it would chirp the tires.  If you just left it in drive it was soooooo slow.  The power was there but the transmission held it back.  I was getting ready to do a manual swap on that but life decided that I needed an open bed pickup at the time and I ended up selling it.  I wish I hadn't sold it.... I still miss it 

[Mockingbird]

Also I was wondering if anyone here is in Texas? Would be nice to know there are Fellow Celica people around.

[subparmechanic]

sorry for the late reply lol, have been super busy at work and havent looked through the forums for a while! But I'm also located in Texas, little North of Dallas!