If the owner claims that it is making gobs of power, don’t believe it unless you see a recent dyno chart from a reputable shop. Make sure the car is exactly in the same trim it was dynoed. It’s too easy for the seller to pull a few critical pieces off and replace them with parts that aren’t up to the task. Find out the fuel and boost level it was dynoed at. If you want 300rwhp all the time, don’t purchase a setup that made 310rwhp at 25psi on race gas. Better yet, pay a good local shop for a baseline and remove all doubts.

Check the wiring throroughly. I cannot stress this enough. Pull out the trunk liner, look under the engine lid, look under the dash, pull off the center console the kick panels and inspect the inside of all the fuse boxes. Deduct big money for every T-tap you see. Be particularly wary of S-AFC, boost controller, EMS and piggyback installations that cut and splice into the stock wiring. People have paid me for tons of hours of wiring work just to get badly hacked up wiring removed and the original Toyota harnesses put back to a reliable state. Also pay close attention to how the wires are routed. In many cases inexperienced installers wire a boost controller so the only way to pull the engine harness out of the trunk to drop the engine is to cut the wires. Of course, these same installers use a single color wire so you cannot easily tell one from the other. If you see loose, naked wires running around all over the engine bay and/or the trunk, stay away from the car. Speaker wire in the engine bay? God forbid! What about unused connectors for removed stock equipment? These should all have been carefully taped up with electrical tape to prevent unwanted shorts or water damage. Inspect aftermarked fan and pump wiring carefully. Are they getting their power supply from the right place? Are there fuses close to the power source or is the entire setup ready to light off like a dry christmas tree tossed in a bonfire?

Look for missing bolts or bolts that don’t look OEM. You can expect to see non-Toyota bolts on aftermarket kits, but having these all over the motor is a sure sign of shoddy work done by an inexperienced or inattentive person. Are the bolts on the exhaust system stainless or are they rusting in place? Is the distributor or fuel rail held on with just one bolt? Are any nuts or studs on the manifolds missing? If yes, you might want to give the car a pass.

Are there missing parts? Is the timing belt cover missing? If so, I’ll bet the idler pulleys are rusted to hell. What about one or more of the engine grounds? Are the heat shields between the turbo and the gas tank missing? What about the battery? Is that puppy strapped down with the stock bar or is it ready to keep you off the track at your first track event? Are all the plastic undercovers on the car there and are they all held by more than one or two bolts? Missing parts are a sure sign that the car was not modified by somebody who paid attention to details. Some parts should be missing (like the cruise control–both units, not just the actuator) but other things should be there regardless. At the very least, make a list of the missing parts, get a quote for them deduct the cost of replacing them from the asking price.

Were holes made through the firewalls to get fuel or water lines routed? Obviously somebody never heard of bulkhead connectors or was too cheap or lazy to use them. You should deduct big time, especially if the holes were made with a sawzall.

Do the modifications make sense? If they are making 350rwhp on a stock IC, you need to be moving right along. Unfortunatelly, unless you trust the guy who built the car like a brother, you need to do your homework or at the very least run the mods list past someone who knows what they are doing to have it critiqued.

Is there a turbo kit? You better take a very close look. Is the center section properly clocked? Most turbo manufacturers specify that the oil feed must be no more than 5-10 degrees off vertical. If the oil feed is visibly clocked to one side, the turbo is probably already damaged. Start the car and warm it up. Do you see any visible signs of smoke? Do you smell any oil in the exhaust? Pull off the downpipe and see it there is any oil there. Check the shaft for play. What about the quality of the lines and the installation? Are there bolts or fasteners missing? Are the welds good? Did they clamp stainless steel braided lines on with hose clamps? Are areof the fittings loose or visibly leaking? All these point at a poorly assembled kit or an inexperienced installation job. Proceed with caution.

Take a close look at the vacuum lines, clamps and hoses. Are they in good shape or rotted and ready to pop off and either strand you or cause the overboost event that starts a new motor build? Are there clamps on all the vacuum lines that might see boost? What kind of shape are the turbo hoses in? Do the intercooler pipes and their routing look well thought out? My favorite was the car that came in with a silicone hose clamped right onto a smaller diameter silicone hose. Are there strange transitions between different diameters in places where they don’t need to be? Are there more turns in the pipes than you encountered at your last hill climbing event?

A leak down test is a good idea on a used car, but it is essential before you put down big money on a modified turbo setup. The 3S motor may be non-inteference, but with higher lift aftermarket cams the possibility of bent valves is there and too many shops simply don’t know what they are doing when they try to degree cams. Pull off the valve cover and check valve clearances. A well built motor will be on the tight end of the spec. A loosy-goosy set of measurements within spec but all over the map are a sign of either an older setup way past its prime or a poorly built head.

If the seller doesn’t allow you to perform these tests on the setup then take a pass. Don’t pay top dollar for somebody else’s mistakes. It’s better to pass up a deal than to get stuck with your next living nightmare.

If everything looks good, ask yourself honestly if the car is going to be enjoyable to drive for more than a few minutes. Is the fuel pump or the air-to-water intercooler pump so loud that you can hear it over the motor? Does the motor shake your seat so hard that you see blood on your next visit to the urinal? Is the car going to attract unwanted attention from law enforcement in your area even when you are granny driving? Is the clutch so hard that you end up with a left leg twice as strong as the right one after a couple weels of driving it? These things may be expected on a 600rwhp setup, but hardly warranted at the 300rwhp level.

Visual inspection (general inspection engine and drivetrain ):

Fluids:

1) Does it have coolant? What color is the coolant, green is usually the most common, but then there’s red and blue and pink and orange and off yellow. To which i’ve noticed is almost like how many different flavors of cool aide there is, interesting eh? Is the coolant clean , not cloudy or lumpy. If you can’t see through it or it sticks like peanut butter that’s a good indication it wasn’t properly serviced. Check yr coolant at the fill port in the engine compartment. Driver’s side on MKII and pass side on MKI, cant remember where it is in the MKIII, but if its’ an MKIII you better damned well still have yr owners manual. Now dont just except that since there is coolant at the fill port that the system is full, if you’ve ever had to bleed the system then you already know. There is the air bleed port on the radiator and the air bleed port at the hot water valve. If the heater hoses are routed back into themselves at the hot water valve it has a heater core problem. If there is no signs of coolant then you have a problem. Where did it go? Lots of places where there are potential leaks, but this is the visual inspection. So take a good look at all the hoses, heater bypass and radiator. You may not be able to see the tubes, but if there is a sizeable leak there will be puddles drippin from the plastic underpanels. Common leak that is hard to pinpoint sometimes is from the weep-hole in the water pump, generally there will be a trail underneath the timing cover above the oil pan at the front of the engine. The “hose from hell” will be more on the left side of the engine. While you have the cap off dont forget to inspect the rubber seal inside of it. Then the heater pipes tend to crack right at the tabs where they fasten to the body. Take a good look in the resivior, see if there is sludge in it, kinda hard to do sometimes, but you can get an indication by the level indicator stick or the brown clump that stick to the end of the tube when you pull the cap off. Make sure that yr radiator isnt just zip tied to yr core support cause it cant do much cooling when it’s bouncing around.

2) Engine oil, sure it may be clean and it may be full, but we are more interested in what it smells like and where it isnt suppose to be. Fuel smell from the engine oil is a bad thing, think piston rings and injectors. Engine oil that looks like chocolate milk is a sign of water/coolant in the oil, think headgasket. It may be a little tricky gettin the dipstick in and out, damned engineers, but take more than one reading and take note of what the wet end looks like, carbon build up on the stick means carbon build up in the engine. Sure there are a lot of possible places oil can leak. Valve cover gaskets, main seals, oil pump seals, turbo lines, oil pan gasket, head gasket, distributor o-ring, cooler. Front seals will definitely need to be replaced and while yr at it the oil pump o-ring and seal. Knocking noise on start up and quick accel is a sign of low oil pressure. Moist is acceptable for high mileage, wet and dripping is not.

3) Transmission fluid, no you cant see it unless you have an automatic, so it shouldnt be anywhere. If you see wet around the axle seals you should wiggle the CV joints to make sure they arent worn out.

4) Power steering fluid, if you cant find it, then you prob dont have power steering, haha. It should be relatively clean and full in the resivoir. Fluid at the steering rack boots is a sign of the internal seals in the rack leaking.

5) A/C , does it even work? Freon evaporates very quickly, but there will be traces of refrigerant oil in places that leak, like where all the fittings are.

6) Fuel, there better not be any fuel leaks, haha. Do a visual on the lines and injectors. Dont be shy bout stickin yr nose down there and taking a whiff in case the leak is too small to see.

Drive belts and timing belt:

Have to be able to run the A/C and alternator. Squeaky belts are either loose or worn out. Generally visible from above in the engine compartment with a flashlight. Timing belt is not visible, unless the cover isn’t there. Flappin noise from behind the cover is generally from a stretched belt. Oil leaks from the front seal will deteriorate the timing belt.

Air filter:

Is it clean, is there a mouse nest underneath the filter in the air box?