Hi everyone, this is an attempt to convert a Toyota Celica '96 GT into the Rally Castrol Celica GT-Four we all know and love. This project will only concentrate in the exterior appearance as I live in California and pretty much cannot get a 3S-GTE engine installed. I will get it to look as much as I possibly can and will be basing most design as seen in the video game GT5, with a few modifications. I will much appreciate input and suggestions as time goes by. This will take some time as I don't have much money available to throw into the project, but I expect it to go in a steady peace.

I should start by stating that I fell in love with the car since I saw it in the video game. I really didn't pay much attention to cars as I only saw them as simple machines to take you from one place to another, but the Celica is so stylish and sleek that it changed everything. I see other cars and none match this one car. As a tribute to the car that got me into this, I decided to buy the car and make it look as close as I possibly can to the Castrol Celica. This will have to be my everyday car here in So. Cal. so it has to be street legal and comfortable, but also look like that awesome car.

To start, back in November I bought a Celica GT '96 automatic for this project. I know, it should've been stick, but I just could not find one that I really liked, plus this was an opportunity that I could not let get away. The car is pictured in my profile and it was mostly stock; it had HID low beam lights, and a custom thief alarm with remote start and seat covers in red-black. The car's paint is not original as it was painted from the original white to a creamy pearl color, which has a lot of imperfections. I must say that there are some imperfections all throughout the car that need to be fixed first.

What I've done so far (this will be updated as progression goes on):

1. Placed my JOHANFR license plate on the car on 11-11-11.
2. Changed front right car bearing on 11-21-11.
3. Changed the Water pump on 11-28-11.
4. Changed the Time Belt on 11-28-11.
5. Got a pair of tires on 12-10-11.
6. Installed a new reverse glow gauge on 4-12-12.
7. Got JDM tail lights on 4-27-12.
8. Did a front end conversion on 8-4-12.
9. Replaced the radiator 8-26-12
10. Painted the car in its original white color 9-16-12.
11. Got the OZ Racing rims I was hoping to find 2-14-13.

I still need to buy a new antenna so the car can look a little better.

As for the modification in appearance, this is what I plan to do and where I am open to suggestions:

1. I am getting the rear wing with the blocks to lift it. I plan to paint the block black.
2. Converting the front of the car so that it will look like the GT-Four. I plan to buy the front clip without the engine so that I can follow the tutorials described here for a complete change. I know about the disadvantages with the hood and all, but will try my best to do this right.
3. Installing JDM tail lights. I've actually bought them already and am waiting on the shipping.
4. Paint the car the original white once all parts have been installed. I am not sure as to leave the exterior rear view mirrors in black as well as the devise used to open the car doors. Also, I have not yet decided on weather I should paint the car matte white or not.
5. Order the Celica Castrol decals or have it car wrapped with the same design.
6. Tint all windows, if legal.
7. New leather upholstery on the car per original specifications, only featuring black and red.
8. New O.Z. rims as in the rally car. I've been looking for these, but cannot find them; not that I have the money to buy them right now, but would love to know how much they are.
9. If not too expensive, change the car from automatic to stick.
10. Depending on the founds and how the car looks, increase its power in any legal specifications without sacrificing much fuel efficiency. Again, any suggestions regarding this would be much appreciated.

This is all I think I want to do to the car. Again, I would not do an engine swap since the car would always fail emissions in my state. As you have read, I had not been a big fan of cars, so I am a newbie in this modification matter, I am only driven by the impulse of having a car that looks like one that has some history.

Again, suggestions are always welcomed and appreciated.

Pictures to follow.

This post has been edited by JohanFer: Mar 5, 2015 - 12:24 AM

Welcome to the boards! You might check this thread out:

http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=69764&hl=

Good luck with the build

Hell yeah dude. The first time I saw my 6gc thats exactly what I saw , the Castrol GT4 from just about every game to feature WRC cars. Its gonna be so badass when your finished, you'll steal looks from a ferrari parked next to you.

Should be sweet looking ive seen people with wrx's do the same thing an it looks sweet
Good luck

It depends on how accurate you want to be with it all?

Visit Mook at www.skewer.co.uk he does the most accurate castrol sticker kits for the Celica.

On the GT4OC you can buy replicas of the WRC wing mirrors which look awesome and finish the car off a treat,

The rally cars didnt use JDM rear light clusters they had euro spec lights...I think the standard US lights look more or less identical (saves you a few $ not having to buy them, thats up to you of course)

Most of the rally cars didnt use the rear number plate surround at all either, they just painted the metal behind it black and stuck the plate directly too it......for the sake of passing vehicle inspections you might need rear number pate lights so paint the number plate surround black...UK plate surrounds look the best but I dont think the US plates would fit into them?????

Fill in the standard aerial hole on the rear wing...two vertical aerials on the roof about 12" apart about 2/3s from the front.

wheels to use should be either Compomtive MO 6 spoke (expensive) or a better replica is the Revolution Millennium alloys which look spot on for the tarmac rally wheels that TTE used....18" of course.

I loaned a set of TTE lamp pods for the ST205 to the GT4OC to make replicas from, dont know f they have done them yet....they are damn ugly anyway...they also make replica roof scoops too.

Leave the raiser blocks black...look better for the rally replicas IMO although the rally cars had both black and white raiser blocks.

Cant think of anything elase helpful.

Awesome plan. I've always liked the WRC Celica too. How can you not?

Need the roof vent look here

http://www.launsport.com/

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Hey it is being helpful. Thanks!

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I saw a Ferrari last Saturday parked in front of an In&Out and everybody was taking pictures. Steal looks from it would be a mayor feast.

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Hey tanks for the info. I've already contacted Mook back in December and gave me a quote. I will definitely buy from him

and the mirrors:

Mirrors $700 USD
JDM Power Folding mirrors: 2.8kg
Autosport Iwase CF mirrors: 680grams

Ok everybody, at last I got around taking some pictures of the car and update what I've done.

The following pictures show the state of the car as of right now. I show a few imperfections in the hopes that I can show you the things I need to buy. I would appreciate if someone could name them and suggest where I can get them. Remember that I know nothing of car parts, where to get them and how they work. I am learning thanks to this forum, but it should be a long process.

Here they are:



















We can see in the picture above that there are imperfections on this side of the fender by the turn signal light and just below the headlight





The sticker on this door was placed by the previous owner to cover some imperfections in paint.













I just had this installed on Friday-Saturday. The guy also changed some blown dashboard lights so that they all turn on.





The visors need to be either reupholstered or replaced.



Here is a detail of the imperfection in paint. This one is rather large, but well covered.



These two pictures show the chipped tail-light that will be going soon.







Here we can see the stickers that I placed on the car. As a microbiologist, I've come to appreciate the biohazard logo.











These are missing. They hold the top of the car and are located in the rear end, where the hatchback door opens. I hope to replace them, but don't know how to find them. Any suggestions?

Here is an update of what I've done, nothing that important as I have to arrange a few things before I start the conversion of the car. I will be traveling soon as well, so that will delay things a bit.

Yesterday I got around installing a resistor in the place where the IAT sensor goes. It is expected to render me greater MPGs. As of now, I have logged my milages and gas consumption on the fueleconomy.gov website and have an average of 24.79 miles per gallon, where the highest is 26.4 and the lowest was 23.4. I am dying to know if this resistor will increase that and by how much. I have followed the steps of resetting the ECU on my celica to make sure of any changes.

Also, I have purchased the OEM interior rearview mirror because the one that I have is not solid enough. I should be getting it this coming week.

Likewise, I have ordered the JDM tail-lights which should arrive the following week. Even though Nial said that rally cars did not use JDM tail-lights, I will be installing them because I just love the way they look. They are different. I will do the swap in spite that I really love the stock tail-lights but as you could see, the driver's side tail-light is chipped so I was going to exchange it anyway.

I will be posting more pictures once I install the int. rearview mirror and the tail-lights. Any comments and suggestions would be much appreciated.

This post has been edited by JohanFer: Jul 11, 2012 - 5:07 AM

Will you be adding a roof scoop as well? Maybe go all out and make your own snorkel kit and front bumper grill...that would be awesome to see!!!

The resistor in place of the IAT does squat. Lol. Several of us have done that mod and got the same result. The JDM tails are a nice addition to the car I've always thought the USDM tails look a little dated and 80's-ish but the JDM tails bring the car into this decade

All things considered, that's a pretty clean shell. So you are just looking to do the outside appearance huh? there is going to be some body work for sure. For starters, start with the two post spoiler and gtfour raiser blocks..... When installing the two post, you'll have 3 post holes in the hatch that will need to be filled and hence painted. There is a guy in Cali on this forum selling a white hatch with two post spoiler. Might look into that. link: http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=77842&st=0

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Haha, that was my intention until I bought a car with sunroof. I don't think there is enough space otherwise I would. About the snorkel kit, what is that? As the front bumper grid, do you mean modifying the bumper I have, the GT one, and make it look like the GT4? I am under the impression that it would be difficult or migh look ugly. I would be down for that as it would probably save me some money.

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So you don't think the resistor will help? I was hoping it would. Oh well, I will be watching it and playing with the data I have and will be collecting. Now, do you know of any other means of making the engine more efficient? I remember reading something long ago about chips that are installed and such, but cannot recollect where I read it or for what car.

About that 80s look, that is it! This is why I like them. I grew up with my dad's '81 AMC Eagle with tail-lights that deep inside my mind resemble the USDM tails. Still, with the JDM tail lights I intend to make people believe that I converted an actual GT4 into the Castrol Celica rather than the Celica GT; these headlights might help with this.

This post has been edited by JohanFer: Apr 22, 2012 - 10:58 PM

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Yes, some body work will be done. The car looks white in the pictures and needs to be white. There are minor imperfections throughout the body that makes the body work a must, however I was thinking of sealing these holes as described in the tutorial for getting rid of the spoiler altogether. Thanks for the info though as I would consider a swap with this member, if the part is in a similar condition.

just for future reference, resize the pictures to about 600x400 because they will be a great size for the page and will not take so long to load.

as for the better mpg, the only thing that will actually help is if you get a fuel management system and then get it tuned. the whole resistor thing does not work nor will any other of those cheap things you can buy.

you should look into getting the GT4 bumper cover and hood, it will make it look a lot more like the rally car.

Just never open the hood at car shows lol

For real... I'm on some serious fast internet and these pics are killing my web browser like a champ. Some serious cache storage issues for real on my mac. people on cell phones are really gonna struggle.... but it's nice to get some real quality pics for a change.

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Yes, that is in my plans, the GT4 bumper and hood as well as the wing. As for the resistor, I suspected, but wanted to try. So un expensive. I will look at that when the car is done.

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I am working on it. I will resize the pics. I just happened to upload them without thinking. I will resize them ASAP.

Lol
im droids having zero trouble loading the pics

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Because I fixed it right after. You loaded the lower resolution pics

Ditto, my pc had no problems and it's a few years old.

This post has been edited by Box: Apr 23, 2012 - 2:06 AM

Hmmm - interesting. My phone was dying like nothing else.... Loaded fine right now, maybe was just a weird thing last night. who knows. But that is a clean car to start with. I'll be enjoying the physical transformation for sure

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Haha, no, what I did was to resize all pics in Photoshop. They were 12 mp images each averaging about 2.3 mb. They are 1mp noe each averaging about 90 kb, I think. It is much better now

Yes, I am hoping to do most things this summer, but will have to see. I've got a few things to take care of first, but will be starting with the cheapest parts first.

Just a small update, I got the mirror yesterday and here is the picture. I will install it today.

I have a new update, I got the JDM tail lights this morning, so I installed them this afternoon. How do they look?













I don't know about you, but I love they way they look on the car.

This post has been edited by JohanFer: Jul 11, 2012 - 5:08 AM

They look great!!! Want to get a set myself one of these days.

i always thought best mod for the @$$ of the car. makes it look "clean" is the only thing i can call it.

I feel like every time I enter this thread your avatar is eye raping me.

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LMAO