"Better" intake on '90 Celica?

Not likely enough to make the car seem fast.

Yes.

The car, and presumably the engine, are 17 years old. If you want to noticeably improve the acceleration, install a new engine and transmission. All other modifications are going to be marginal.

I have to agree with you on this one. Unless you have totally overhauled the rest of the gear and know its all in top notch performance, and you remember to install the correct sized filter into a cold-air-fed location while properly considering the road grime that gets thrown up you will just lose power as the stock intake isnt that bad. When i installed a K&N replacelent filter panel (direct swap, kept stock intake gear) i saw an average of 0.5-1mpg increase over about 10 tanks on the standard car setup. I also saw this with a peugeot i ran one on, but i did have to spend $50 on piping to get the filter to a protected and cold intake location lol. Unless its fairly highly modified id stay standard TBH.

The transmission was rebuilt about three thousand miles ago. As far as the engine, it has less than 150k miles on it.

I'm not exactly look> Ray O wrote:

Thats not a new engine, or nearly new. Youre likely to see a 2-3hp improvement at most, and maybe a loss if you dont keep the whole setup sealed with only the point of intake in a cold location. Hot engine-bay air really makes your car feel boggy. You might be suprised by how much a new OEM filter will improve feel if the current one is old.

My guess is that the increase will not be noticeable.

Make sure it's tuned up and everything is up to spec. Everything else will not help without a total rebuild.

You'll need more money than it's worth to make a Celica ST fast.

Carl

As you've heard from others, the increase wouldn't be significant enough for you to notice.

I say this with consternation but perhaps you should look into nitrous. It's cheap and can really make a significant difference. I warn you though to be very conservative with it as it may prove detrimental to an old engine designed for fuel economy and not for drag racing.

For more reliable power, look into a header and cat-back exhaust replacement. Make sure to purchase a high quality header. Cheap ones crack on Toyota engines (due to high heat I think).

I agree, on an older non-turbocharged engine the cost of noticable performance modifications is generally greater than the value of the car.

Just a thought... But do you have the original size tires on your car?

GL Dan