Hi Speedhunters, and thank you for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved Celica on your website. I am French, my name is Nicolas and I am 26 years old. I fell in love with the Celica ST205 as a young boy playing Sega Rally in arcade game centers, and later on my Sega Saturn! My first car was an AT200 Celica, cheap and affordable as a first daily driver, but I always yearned an ST205!

I have owned this car for 3 years now, bought it completely standard at the beginning of 2007 in Italy, and imported it back to France. A tough job, since the car had never been officially sold in France, I had lots of paperwork to do before I could register it. Since then, I have made some modifications, adding performance parts while I was gradually "learning" the car after each track or touge session.

As soon as I got the car, I brought it to a dyno test to know the power as standard. It made 277 bhp, which was somewhat incredible for me since the 3rd generation 3S-GTE is given between 242 bhp (Euro ECU) and 255 bhp (JDM ECU).

Then followed some basic improvements : Défi gauges (oil pressure and temperature, boost pressure, water temperature), intercooler lagging (to insulate it a little from heat, since it is a water-to-air intercooler on top of the engine), WRC spoiler raiser blocks, HKS SSQV dump valve to replace the stock one, and an HKS turbo timer.

Stock handling is very, very good, thanks to the superstrut suspension and torsen at the rear. But the shocks were worn and time for replacement had come. Following some advice of former GT-Four owners' in UK, I installed some KYB shocks with Tein springs and TRD top mounts. Nice setup for a fast road use, along with a Whiteline ajustable rear antiroll bar and PU bushes all around. To finish this chassis setup, I added Team Dynamics Prorace white wheels in 17"x8", with Rays lug nuts. I usually use Toyo R888 tires in 215/45. Not on the snow of course!

Chassis was now ok, time to increase power then! Let's go for a TRD air filter (in standard air box), lagged decat downpipe and midpipe, and a Blitz Nür Spec back box which produces a heavy, heavy noise. I love it! I almost got fired from the Nürburgring Nordschleife track because of the noise (99.4 dB at 3000 rpm).

I also installed a Blitz DSBC boost controller and increased the boost to its highest safe pressure (between 1.1 bar and 1.2 bar), installed colder plugs and Magnecor ignition leads. To make all this safer, a new thermostat was fitted with an alloy radiator and an AEM wide band to monitor air-fuel ratio.

Power was there, the overall improvement was nice, especially at low rpm! More power means faster driving, so I also fitted TRD "black" brake pads all around (the brake system installed by Toyota on the ST205 is identical to the MK4 Supra so it’s easy to find good parts). To make the car look nicer, I had the windows tinted in deep black and installed front Xenon lights and late-spec rear tails lights (not pictured here unfortunately).

But I was actually not very happy with the suspension setup, so I swapped my KYB+Tein setup for a full Tein Super Street coilovers kit with EDFC, along with Fensport camber plates (front) to fight against usual understeering of 4WD cars. Now this was a very, very crazy setup and I was having lots of fun with it as you can see on the picture bellow ! Time to increase power again !

This was my last modification in 2009 : a home made engine management, built and mapped by a serious Celica enthousiast in France. I think my 3S-GTE now produces power between 320 and 330 bhp, dyno will tell soon! The car has also been lightened a little, It weights 1400 kg with me inside, which remains heavy actually. My next modifications will be installing a front mount intercooler with a better intake, bucket seats and braided hoses for the brakes… But I am also thinking about selling the car. Time for change maybe ? 2010 will tell…

Some words about me : in my life, my job is to build websites, and I devote all my free time to importing and preparing cars for drifting and time attack. My second car is an S13 with a 2JZ engine swap for drifting, and I use a good ol' 1988 Honda Civic Shuttle daily. Hope to talk about them soon!

Photos by Laurent Jacobs, a French artist you can meet at www.jsphotography.fr

-Nicolas Koenig