Advice for a 91 gts

Hey guys.
My friend just inherited his brothers 91' celica GTS which is an automatic thats pretty stock except for an intake and exhaust. We recently fixed the brakes and the rest of it is in fairly good condition. My friend is interested in making it a quicker car so i was wondering if the stock engine of the celica is worth the keep or should it be modded? Budget is low(in the $3000 range) and i already read the engine swap sticky and it says $5000+ at the least for a swap but we both have jobs and this could be a good first project. Thanks in advance for help.

well i would try a manual tranny swap 1st but if u cant or dont want to that sok you can still have a quick car. the 3sgte engine swap only costs 5k if done in a shop. if you do the work yourself you can do it just shy of 3k. but you need to be pretty good with cars to do this swap. another option is to turbo your existing engine. if done right you will have about 200hp and 220tq. but if done wrong you will have a blown engine. many critisize this methoid bc few have done it right, because there are very little profesionally built turbo kits for this car and all the stuff must be custom, so that leaves a lot of room for error. you could always go to poweredbytoyota.com, mthey have a turbo kit for the car although it is not a great one, if u have little turbocharging skill/knowlege it might be a good route. another route is to keep it n/a( if i did this i would 100% want to go manual tranny) you can swap the head for a g head(better power but will have to use the 3sge ecu), get headers, full exaust, intake, cams(if you can find them) , and rechip your ecu. that will get you around the 180-200hp range but you will have less torque than a turbo. just read up on the turbo and 3sgte swap stickys, decide what you want to do, save up, and do it. another excellent site for tech. info is celicatech.com there is a very good thread on there about turboing the 5sfe. good luck.

Sorry it took so long to reply its been a crazy week.
Well i'll run that plan over by my friend but since there's so much risk in it i don't think thats the way to go. I guess the swap will be needed. Thanks a bunch