The ST185 makes me sad everytime I go to garage and pop the hood. The head is off, cylinders are taking some rust. I have not decided what to do with the engine - build it to stock, build it for power, or swap in something with low miles (rev2 or rev3 3sgte from st205?). Original engine has already 300.000km on the dial, Cylinders need to be rebored, so does the crankshaft. If cylinders are on original 86mm, I could try to do 86.5 which is the sice of pistons that come with the s2.2L stroker kit. It would include new crank and all the stuff that is screwed up. But the 300k kms scare me.

After all, it seems I had a worn out bearing after the radiator blowup. piston of #1 cylinder  was hitting the head and that blew the head gasket completely. Anyway, the head gasket was in terrible condition. A specialist took a look at the head and said that I would probably have to change the pistons as well and do a full rebuild. I dont have time and money for that now. My only options for now - change bearings and head gasket and valve cover gasket and hope that the engine lives for few months.

Did some stuff, installed HKS radiator cap on the new radiator, changed engine bay hoses to silicone colored. Put on some new R16 rims and Michelin X-Ice tires for winter. But disaster striked

Today we (Celica club Latvia) were doing a photoshoot at the Toyota dealers "WESS Bergi" in Riga. So here is also a teaser pic from my iphone :D Lovely pic.

It`s been a month. And not a bright one. We went a few nights out to the warehouse to practice drift. I got too adventurous and demanded too much from the car.

No big updates.. Tinted the front turning lights. nothing special, simply used a cheap rear light tint spray in a can. Very simple to do! Take the turning lights off, clean, spray 3 layers with 10-15min intervals and done! Not sure how legal it is, but I have my next MOT after 10months, so I can live with that. It`s not that hard to borrow the lights for MOT from other celica owner. Or just buy another set from ebay.
Deciding the FMIC upgrade:

Some burglars broke my car`s window during night, while it was parked outside. I had hidden my jacket behind the driver`s seat, but still it was a bit visible. In my jacket was my passport and in center console was car registration and digital camera. That`s basically all the bastards got.