Celica Forums General Discussion Engine and Performance Boosting the 1zz

I've got a 2000 Celica GT 1zz and am in the process of porting my head, I've already got strong billet rods and the motor is fully rebuilt, I've been thinking of getting the monkey wrench racing turbo setup with 8.8-1 pistons and am wondering if it's really worth spending the almost $7k cdn after shipping to do all this. I'm sure there's lots of threads like this out there but I just can't seem to find any good one that gives me an answer.

That seems a bit steep, even for CDN dollars. Where did you find this pricing?

Literally anywhere, turbokits,monkeywrench and a bunch of others, because the pistons and everything it takes to boost it properly without blowing it you have to replace all of the internals with high quality expensive internals. It's 100% not worth it. The 1zz is just garbage. Motor blew on me again so I'd rather do an engine swap with a stock boosted engine out of something better

Are you saying that after upgrading all the internals in your 1zz, it still blew on you? How much boost were you running? I’m asking because I’m considering going down that path myself. I talked to my mechanic for the first time tonight and he said pretty much what you said about having to upgrade the pistons, rods, studs, etc. and that “preparatory” work alone is going to run me $3,000. I’m actually ok with the money. That doesn’t bother me so much. And I rather like the idea of driving around in a little ‘sleeper’ Celica GT that’s putting out 300 - 400 hp. But if there’s nothing I can do to keep from blowing up my little 1zz, then I may have to rethink the whole thing entirely.