I bought a celica a few weeks back. A black 96 st 25th anniversary edition. I love it, it handles like a dream and is plenty fast around town, but I'm looking to gain a good 70+hp. Basically I need some help deciding how to achieve this. Keep in mind that this car is my daily driver and has an automatic transmission. The car has about 130,000 miles in it so I'm thinking an engine swap might be a better idea than turbocharging. Any and all help is appreciated, especially any sources of motors that would fit my car and trans. I'm looking to spend not much over $3000

There's a 7A-FTE thread or two around here, but I'd say swap.

i see.. well a good engine swap could be the v6 one... 3mz or 1mz or.. if you have the anniversary one its a 7afe engine right? you could put in a 4age or 4agze.. those engines are covered under the engine section in the stickys. i dont know if you can do it with 3000 tho as you'll probabbly need a new transmission with the new engine and labor + engine might be too expensive.

4a-ge (IIRC) swaps right into the 7a-fe bay w/o modification (except to the wiring harness) but no welding or custom motor mounts required. the 4a-ge i believe is a 20Valve w/ variable timing producing 158hp (crank), and there is a super-charger for it somewhere that supprisingly didn't much help the power in it (power gains from the factory atleast) but if you did it right, i believe that 4a-gte's can put out a good amount of power. Easily run into the 250's. Or if you went with the super charger and ran a 4a-gze then make sure you use your own boost control over the factory 4a-gze. Some cali-spec 4a-fe's (4a-ge's with a "fuel-efficient" head) where horribly mulitated into 70hp turtle-slugs