Bob

If you get the ones that count the revs, it can get very competitive amongst drunk people

I love venison! Have you tried it with a red wine and chocolate sauce? To die for!

My advice would be to get handy with the spanners! You can save yourself a lot of money by learning how to do repairs and servicing yourself.

Yep. I always tend to leave mine off for about 10 minutes or so to make sure

I befriended the local kids - hell, they even wash the car for me some days! When I had my Celica caps nicked, I told them that I was a bit gutted (I'd had the new wheels on for less than 5 hours!). 3 hours later and having beaten up the other kids that had nicked them, they were returned to me I'm too soft though, and let them keep them for their bikes anyway.

Bastard. I was still half asleep. Not now! lol

I thought the thing with these uprated manifolds was that you wuld ose low-end power, sacrificing it for more top-end grunt? I'm sure I read that on here somewhere regarding the GReddy intake manifold.

Standard amp then. My '93 had one (no sub though) and ripping it out made the whole system a lot better. I think if you get rid of it though, you'll probably lose the standard sub.

Standard amp? What was it plugged into?

You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that! At least this little episode has given me an excuse to get several bits done that I've been intending for ages - replaced the thermostat with a TRD one, relocating the battery to the boot (install coming soon), ripped out the carbon canister thingy, decatted, and new fmic on the way

Checked the intercooler - a bit of oil and crappy flaking fins, but no debris came out when I gave it a good shake. Would the scratch in the bore cause excessive ring wear?

pitting was just on the faces of the valves in the combustion chamber.

My bad, I meant to say it's pitting to a couple of valves in there. Looks more like general wear-and-tear tbh - certainly not recent. As far as I can tell the pistons are completely un-damaged.

Right then. Had a gander at the insides of the bores today. The pistons look okay, though very black. All valves were a manky rusty colour, but no obvious damage, with the only slight bit of pitting to #2 cylinder though it didn't look like it had been done anytime recently. There were a few very faint vertical scratches in cylinders 4, 5 and 6 but not so much that they were instantly noticeable. The problem, it would seem, is cylinder #2. Much as I wished he wasn't, Chris was correct in that something has passed through recently. There are 2 deepish scratches (deep enough to snag a fingernail, for example) 1 of which I managed to get a crap picture of (below). It would also appear that something has twatted the spark plug as there is scratching to the edges of it. Though that may just be my hamfisted removal of them So, will 2 scratches (1 reaches about 1/3 of the way up the bore, the other about 1/4 way up, from roughly BDC) mean a head-off and costly engine work? Or can I get away with sticking the turbos on and turning to prayer? Piccies: General state of my spark plugs (Denso Iridium IK20's) #2 spark plug top: dodgy photo of the scratch to bore #2 (runs about 10 degrees from horizontal in the picture - didn't bother rotating it!) :edit: Also noticed a fair bit of black oil around the head gasket area inside the bore - is this normal?

That's weird - I could have sworn I PM'd them to you but my Sent box doesn't show anything. Sorry fella, they're on their way now

bump

May as well, it can't hurt!

Seems like a rather camp selection of Autobots, doesn't it?

You can get them for about £20 from ebay

Standard air box and a Blitz panel filter. Standard boost too I've had a look around the turbo housing and there's no little bits of ceramic there - in fact, the 1st turbo came off fairly easily once the v-band clamp was off. I gave it a few medium taps with a dead-blow hammer (rubber head) and it slid off no problem. Just done a quick(ish) compression test (many thanks to Bijal for lending me his kit and talking me through it! ). Everything seems okay, if a bit high. Readings from front to back ('cos I don't know the proper firing sequence! ) 1 - 180 2 - 165 3 - 178 4 - 170 5 - 165 6 - 180 And joy of joys, I've managed to find somewhere that will lend me an endoscope this weekend for £60. It's for inspecting cavity walls but is small enough for use through the spark-plug hole

Ah well, Google and Ebay it is

No more than your average v-tec engine

I'm hoping it's nothing sinister and that my engine is otherwise fine and dandy, but now you've got me worried! Nothing but ceramic bits came out the cat though, which is a good sign. I hope. How would you suggest I go about inspecting the piston tops without forking out £300 for a bore scope and / or removing the head?

brake discs and wheels are a main one as mentioned above, but if it's the 190 vvtl-i engine, make sure that the lift bolts have been done - if the seller looks at you blankly, they haven't and could seriously fook up your engine at worst. Have a wander over to http://www.celica-club.co.uk and search for lift bolts - that should reveal all

. . . they don't mess about, do they? Looks like #1 was a little worse for wear as well. These taken off at a smidge over 90k miles on the clock. Thought you people would like to see some not-so-pretty pics