Hello all,

Long time reader first time poster. I have owned a few of these car and for some reason I have an unexplainable draw to the 165 in particular. This thread will be about my white 165 specifically. I also have a red one, and another shell that may make a few appearances but those are on the back burner until late 2013.

This car was originally a buddies car that never got around to finishing it. He had originally planned on a 600+hp setup for this car, but I have no desire for that kind of power. This car has parts from all my other Celicas hence its Zombie Car moniker.

My goal with this car is to keep it simple & drive/finish it for the winter. come spring time I plan to tear the car down & cage it, paint it, & fit a 2az from the scion tc.


Here's a photo from about two months ago. I got the car from my friend as a rolling shell & installed a jspec 1st gen I had in my red car. I didn't really know the conditions of the motor so when it started up & ran strong I was more than pleased. This photo is the first time it left my shop under its won power. Missing just about everything other than drive train lol.


I wanted to install bucket seats in my car but this is next to impossible with the bulkhead that runs across the floor, unless you want the seats touching the roof. So I cut a section of that out & made a new floor & welded in supports.


I had these slugs drilled & tapped at a local machine shop & welded them into the lateral bars.


Here's what it looks like finished. I primed everything top & bottom & re-under coated the bottom of the floor.


Here's what the seat looks like installed, Nice and low. I skipped installing a slider as that's generally the first weak spot of a aftermarket seat. This is the most rigid seat install I have ever experienced, zero wiggle.


Here's a photo of the car as it sits today. I got rid of the cladding that the american cars came with, installed the side skirts off of a convertible, and installed the trim & mirrors off of a gt-s.

I have a small list of things to do before she is road worthy, but I will keep this thread up to date.

Great to see another ST165.

The shell looks in remarkably good condition? What part of the US are you from? Somewhere dry perhaps?

Most of the UK ST165's are very rusty with not many around now due to our damp climate.

_________________
GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

I'm from Seattle Washington. The car is rust free top & bottom. Usually when you take off the claddings you get the unfortunate surprise of rust, not with this thing.

It also has no sun roof, which I've never seen before & was a non ac-car as well.

Here's my other almost complete all-trac this is the car my white cars drive train came from. With any luck that motor will go back into this car when the white car goes all motor.

Good to see a 165 enthusiast pulling parts together to keep them on the road Will the 2AZ from a Scion fit the 3S-GTE transaxle without modification?

_________________
Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

Hello, I was just admiring your thread. That thing is on another level!!

The 2az bolts to the all trac transmission but I'm not sure how it will fit in the car. I'm a bit concerned about the inlet manifold as space is pretty tight back there. I will have to build a mount to support the tail of the transmission.

The motor itself just makes way more sense than the 3sgte. I Literaly get laughed at when I go to the dealer looking for parts, which is the main reason I'd like to go with a modern motor. The aftermarket support is there as well.

From a performance stand point, it's a lighter motor with its aluminum block, it has variable valve timing, and it's a 2.4liter. Theres guys in the Scion community making 240whp w/ cams, intake, header, & exhaust.

Today I worked on making a mold to make some carbon door panals. My seats have wide shoulders and barely touch the door panal these new panals should give me more seat clearance. I'm making the middle flat for door bar clearance come spring when the car gets caged.

I should have both molds finished by next week. I also got the car registered and insured so I can legally take it on the street.

welcome along

_________________
Sprint ST165 aka "The 500BHP Sledgehammer" #6 in the Toyota Sprint Series. GT3071 1.9bar

We converted the car to a manual climate control, it was a *bleep*. It required buying everything under the dash from a standard st162 I found at the yard. There was also an entire day spent integrating the wiring from 162 to the 165 harness. I'm pretty happy with it. The stock 165 climate control is terrible looking, there's nothing worst than an 80's car trying to be a 90's car. The system is about 4 pounds lighter and a almost 2" recesessed where the a pillar bar will go, come spring Time when the car gets caged.

I also converted the doors to manual roll ups. I doubt there is a full pound saved in this conversion, but once again the roll up switches from the 80's look awful. On my red car I used 162 complete doors to save me from having to weld the holes for the cladding. I'm happy to report that the guts are interchangeable.

While I was messing with the interior harness I also depinned the following:
Antenna
Speakers
Rear wiper
Rear squirter
Door indecators front & rear
And I'm sure I'm missing something.

Some hardware showed up today from Skybolt. I'm going to use these to hold my bumper cover onto my bumper. My car didn't come with bumpers and the rear 162 bumper cover I'm using doesn't fit the 165 bumper bar, & the 162 bumper bar doesn't fit the 165 chassis because of the the fuel tank placement on the 165s. So I'll be building some custom bash bars that should be considerably lighter than the originals. I'll incorporate some tabs to mount this new hardware.



I also cut some carbon for my center console, I'll probably put something in there come spring time, for now it looks a bit more finished. So damn itchy, not looking forward to trimming my door panals.

Today I completed the passenger side of the plug for the door panal, I'm going to get this in primer and then begin making the mold. There's still a fair amount of work left on the drivers side. I think I may vacuume bag them. It's not a structural piece but I would like to become more proficient at the process.

I filled my antenna hole on my wing today. I fiberglassed the back side and skimmed the top with mud, then sprayed it with some primer. I'll drive it around like this until the car gets painted after winter.


We also installed some aerocatch hood pins.


I also found a picture of El Matador Carlos Sainz during a road side service in his 165, you can see what they were doing for door panals back then. Pretty simple, but the door bars on cages were pretty basic back then.

I got my front end together. I forgot what a pain in the *bleep* it was making the headlights not pop up. I didn't feel like masking my bumper so I just shot them black until I paint the car in the spring. I think I'll convert to the early model grill & headlight buckets come spring time, Looks a bit cleaner.

This is a nice build and well done o the work so far. Are you doing this as a hobby in your spare time or do you do this as a profession?

This is just a hobby, I restore/paint airplanes for a living, fortunately a lot of the tools and processes are the same.

It is yes and that would explain the use of garage tools. How is the car mechanically and what are your plans for it?