Ok so whatever your reason for swapping is (hopefully you didn’t blow the old motor like I did). It’s a super rewarding and amazing learning experience. Before you start you need to make sure you have the funds and ability to do this. I hate seeing projects that get the engine pulled and then left for dead because the guy had no idea what he was doing or didn’t have money to buy the parts they needed. Now here’s me doing my best in helping the few people who will do this swap. All of the parts I bought will be at the bottom of the write up, with pricing, websites and links. I tried my best with this to make everything clear and simple, but if you see something you had to do that I missed make sure you let me know in the comments, I can go back and add in.
BUYING MY 3SGTE | Ok to start out I live in the Dallas area so I went to a place called Dallas JDM Motors. Most major city’s have a Japanese engine import depot. (I will also be completely clear on the price of everything I used.) The engine is a fourth gen 3sgte. As far as stock power this is the way to go. Gen 3 has less stock power but is more tunable from my understanding. The engine was 2300$ I DID NOT SHIP THE ENGINE. So I did not have to pay for shipping cost. It came with the harness, ecu, but no intercooler.
ENGINE REMOVAL | As far as removing the old engine just use your brain. Take lots of pictures before you even start, vacuum lines, sensor plugs, just the way things go together you need pictures of, this makes reassembly much easier. Next you need to keep all of your bolts in separate labeled bags. Examples are subframe bolts, passenger knuckle bolts, axle nuts, passenger engine mount bolts. All need to be in separate organized bags. When you go to pull the old harness, note that there is three different harnesses. There is on harness for the interior, this controls gauge cluster, door lights, airbag, radio, etc. The second harness is connected to the headlights, horn, radiator fan, etc. The third harness is the one you must pull. This is the engine harness and has injector and coil plugs, alternator plugs and connectors, ALL ENGINE SENSORS. This is the harness that goes through the firewall on the passenger side and goes into the ECU.
HARNESS | Now that you have the old engine out and engine harness pulled, I would either start on building you own harness or sending the old and new engine harness to Doug Copeland who owns WireGap to have your harness built. This is what I did. It was 500$ to have the harness built and 200$ extra dollars for him to get the harness done at the front of the line(like a week). This harness is super easy to do (did most of it in one day), and Doug is super helpful if you do not know where a plug goes or have any questions. The stock Caldina ECU is used unless you have a standalone you will be using.
TRANSMISSION | Now we get to the transmission, the celica comes stock with a S53. I bought a S54 from a junkyard for 400$. The S53 has a slightly longer second gear, and its built slightly stronger. The S54 bolts right up to the fourth gen 3sgte. There is also an e153 out of a camry I believe you can use but I didn’t look into it so that’s a question for someone more informed than me. I used the Southbend stage 2 daily clutch kit (clutch and pressure plate), and the XTR lightweight flywheel. I’m going to assume you know how to install the flywheel and clutch. Don’t forget to lube the fork;)
PREINSTALLATION MAINTENANCE | Okay assuming you have an engine, harness and transmission you can start to do the fun stuff. While the engine was on the stand I did a valve cover gasket, water pump, rear main seal, timing belt, and serpentine belt. While I had the timing cover off I saw that the metal shield that is behind the timing cover and connected to the crank behind the balancer was shredding the old belt. These metal shields that look like big washers often bend on these s-series engines and start to tear up the belt so just try to bend it back where you see it’s warped. Also when I first started my engine after it was in I had bad injector orings. Check the injector orings before you have the engine in, as doing this while it’s in the car is way harder. I used an injector oring kit from autozone.
ENGINE-TRANS MATING | I’m not exactly sure what the easiest way to mate the engine and trans are but I did it outside of the car. So I had the engine on the cherry picker and lowered it down almost to the floor. Then I put the transmission on an assortment of 2x4s to get the splines and bolt holes to line up. Took me way longer then it should have, but I’ve never done it like that before so it was something new.
ENGINE INSTALL | Ok here’s the fun stuff where you beat your head in for an hour before you get to stare at your nice new engine in the car. Ok you NEED a leveler for this part. They’re like 30$ at harbour freight. You are going to lift the engine side up at a very steep angle. I used multiple ratchet straps to do this because you need to get the transmission side in first. There’s really no way of explaining this except that some how you need to get the drivers and passanger side motor mounts to line up with the engine.
HARNESS INSTALL | Now you have the two easy to reach mounts in. Start to work on the harness. It becomes pretty obvious once you start. The way I did it was took the yellow plugs for the ECU and taped them up so that they would be able to slide through the hole in the fire wall easier. The hole is in the firewall on the passenger side and has a rubber grommet to keep the water out. The harness goes down behind the air box where the blower motor for the hvac goes and the ecu is behind the middle console, where the radio is. Once you have the new ecu in and the harness is connected, start from where the harness comes from the firewall and just start to plug stuff in. It’s pretty obvious and most of the plugs are color coded and have different clip mechanisms so it’s hard to plug a connector into the wrong plug.
MOTOR MOUNTS | Assuming you did the whole harness in 10 minutes and had no problems whatsoever you can really get the engine bolted in. There’s two mounts on the subframe that runs parallel with the body of the car. Make sure you tighten all these mounts down hood because I had to go back and retighten them. The smaller subframe has one nut and two bolts on each side of the subframe(I know this because I’ve taken it off at least 15 times) and I believe they are 21mm bolts but don’t quote me on that.
MISCELLANEOUS | Ok so assuming I didn’t miss something which I probably did that I’ll get to later or someone will yell at me about when they comment. There’s a bunch of little stuff you need to do.
First is the air filter. Autozone sells a plastic 90 degree pipe and a cone filter. This is what I used because it fit nicely pointing down to the ground.
Downpipe is also something you need to do that I waiting too long to buy and delayed my first start. I got a downpipe from prime mr2 is a 3in with a flex pipe and is ceramic coated. The welds are nice and it’s a good quality downpipe. It also turned a cool purple color when I started driving the car.
Intercooler is another thing. I was just using the caldina top mount, but the hood dosnt fit with that on. So I’m doing a front mount right now so I can put my hood back on. I just bought an intercooler and piping kit off of eBay. I’ll link it at the bottom.
Fuel filter is just a basic maintenance thing and I bet it hasn’t been done in a while on ur car so just do it while you have it on jackstands.
Sensors, coolant temp sensors on these engine tend to break down over time so make sure you look at it and if it looks messed up you need a new one. The sensor is up under the right side of the valve cover threaded in the watercock on the backside of where the top radiator hose goes.
The flywheel has an inspection hole, and the engines usually don’t come with rubber cover for it and I don’t think you want rocks in your bell housing so you should probably buy the cover.
Ok I’m sure I’m missing some stuff but that’s the basics of what you need to do make this build happen. All of the links for the parts are going to be under this in case you were wondering how much this cost me.
PARTS | Engine-2300$ https://dallasjdmmotors.com Water pump-60$ 
https://primemr2.com/products/water-pump?_pos=3&_sid=1a036df55&_ss=r Timing belt- 60$ https://primemr2.com/products/timing-belt-oem-gen4-gen3?variant=32897073774731 Rear main seal-35$ https://primemr2.com/products/crankshaft-seal-rear?_pos=1&_sid=217b85297&_ss=r Valve cover gasket-40$ https://primemr2.com/products/valve-cover-gaskets-gen2?_pos=1&_sid=c02c6b09d&_ss=r&variant=32897539670155 Valve cover bolt kit-15$ https://primemr2.com/products/valve-cover-stainless-bolt-kit?variant=32897551499403 NGK plugs-12$ https://primemr2.com/products/spark-plugs-ngk-v-power?variant=32896599261323 XTR lightweight flywheel-200$ https://www.tcsmotorsports.com/products/xtr-lightweight-flywheel?_pos=1&_sid=534cdccfb&_ss=r SouthBend clutch kit-440$ https://primemr2.com/products/south-bend-stage-2-daily-clutch-kit-s54-hybrid?_pos=30&_sid=b6096f34f&_ss=r Coolant temp sensor-55$ https://primemr2.com/products/coolant-temperature-sensor?_pos=2&_sid=445c7d4c9&_ss=r Downpipe-230$ https://primemr2.com/products/prime-gen4-3sgte-3-downpipe?_pos=3&_sid=109d5832f&_ss=r Turbo outlet gasket-32$ https://primemr2.com/products/ct15-turbocharger-outlet-gasket?_pos=7&_sid=109d5832f&_ss=r Flywheel inspection cover-15$ https://primemr2.com/products/flywheel-inspection-cover?_pos=1&_sid=2d4d9e190&_ss=r Front mount intercooler-100$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/Turbo-Intercooler-Black-27-675-X8-5-X2-75-Inch-Tube-Fin-Fmic-Front-Mount-/373454610385?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0 Intercooler piping kit-115$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-5-63mm-Polished-Aluminum-Intercooler-Pipe-Kit-Black-Hose-Clamp-/264989693428?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0 Harness-500 https://www.wiregapinc.com
Total-4200$
Don’t expect this to be the most about of money your are going to spend. There’s little odds and ends that I didn’t include and they add up very quickly. I would account for 5 grand.
