Mk4 Toyota Supra

[macca]

Well I've had this car for nearly three years now, longer than I've had any other car (I've had a lot!).

She is a rare UK manual twin turbo, of which only about 200 were made. When I bought her she was completely standard and on just over 100k miles. She'd been well looked after with a full Toyota Service History (not as good a thing as you'd think).

Her big claim to fame is that her first owner was Ukyo Katayama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukyo_Katayama), driver for the Tyrrell Formula 1 team during the early 90's whilst using Yamaha engines. I suspect that the car was some kind of company car in the UK due to the link of Yamaha and Toyota.

Anyway, this is her when I brought her home:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/mcsupra3.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/mcsupra4.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/mcsupra5.jpg

To go in to a bit more detail, she is a 1994 Toyota Supra with a 2998cc inline-6 24v steel blocked engine running twin sequential Toyota turbochargers through a side-mounted intercoolers. Being a UK model it runs 550cc injectors, steel turbine turbos (JDM models were ceramic turbined) and two catalytic convertors.

Power is delivered through a dual-mass flywheel in to a Getrag V160 6-speed gearbox (very agricultural gearbox, also used in some BMW and Mercedes models), in to a LSD diff at the rear of the car. On the UK models as this car is, the rear diff has an oil cooler fed by the vent behind the drivers door to keep the oil cool enough for long periods of high speed.

Official figures are 326bhp and 315lb/ft running about 0.8 bar of boost. It allegedly runs the 0-60 in 4.6 seconds hitting a limited 155mph and the 1/4 mile in 13.1 seconds. Removing the limiter has seen stock cars hit just over 180mph.

The UK car came with quite a few luxury features, heated leather seats, cruise control, climate control, headlamp washers, automatic front spoiler (Active Spoiler, lowering at 56mph to aid downforce) and a larger fuel tank at 80 litres.

Yes, I am a geek :)

I'll post some details of what she's had done to her once I dig out some of the photos!

[S40R_Rob]

Nice Supra - your car looks a lot different now from what I have seen! Look forward to seeing the newer pics

Rob

[macca]

Cheers Rob :) Reminds me that I need to get some more pics up of it!

[Kerry_T-5R]

Nice write up, this project section is really good. Excellent history that your car has by being owned by an F1 driver. For anyone who hasn't been in this car it is absolutely rapid and makes your car feel slow! So much so that you have to spend more money on your own car so that you like it again.... :)

Get some more pics up!

Kerry

[AndysR]

Nice bit of background information, looking at the pictures made me realise.... you don't see many of these car's about. Jap car's are very popular especially Scooby's which makes the Supra a welcome change to the norm even if it is still of Jap origin, not that that is a bad thing as I do like most performance car's of which Japan can claim many. :)

Looking forward to seeing the updated pictures

[macca]

Ok, well I don't think I have all of the pictures for things, but I've gathered together most of them.

This is the box of bits that arrived shortly after I bought her home:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/parts1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/exhaust1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/exhaust2.jpg


I also had to get it a new intercooler as the 100k+ mile one was shot to pieces. Living in the drivers side of the bumper it picks up stone chips and debris like a magnet and was pretty shot:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/intercoolercompare.jpg

Got a second hand one for £40 from fleaBay (as opposed to ~£1000 from Mr T).

The difference was quite noticeable, especially on warmer days. Response was a lot crisper and it felt more torquey.

I then decided to get rid of the horrible orange blobs that the standard Supra has in the bumper and on the side wing. The front indicators are from a facelift Supra and the repeaters are later Toyota items.

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/clearsides1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/clearsides2.jpg

After an airfield day in Arundel that caused some painful bruising to my knees from holding on the dash round corners (standard leather seats were too slippery and crap at holding you in) I got a pair of Recaro SR seats, same as OEM fit to some of the JDM Supra's.

Before:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/old-interior.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/old-interior2.jpg

The difference in driving experience was amazing, I could go into a corner faster just because I felt more secure in the seat and knew I wouldn't move around in the cabin.

After:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/recaro1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/recaro2.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/recaro3.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/recaro4.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/recaro5.jpg

[macca]

Smaller numberplate :D :

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/numberplate.jpg

Some pictures of the new set of wheels and straight after a trip to the bodyshop, so nice and shiny:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supra1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supra2.jpg

And then finally my trip to Surrey Rolling Road last year where she did me proud and suprised everybody there by rolling 396.8bhp/360lb/ft @ 1bar boost at the wheels. The suprise was that this was just from an exhaust, decat and panel filter. And they said it couldn't be done ;)

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/srrdyno1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/srrdyno2.jpg

Oh, and she also has an OS Giken twin plate racing clutch which rattles like a washing machine full of nails (honestly, it's embarrassing!).

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supraosg1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supraosg2.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supraosg3.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supraosg4.jpg

Well things in the pipeline, I have an Aquamist 2S water injection system that I need to fit, and I would like to raise the boost to 1.2-1.3bar. She needs quite a lot of paintwork doing, the drivers side wing is badly faded and somebody drove in to the offside rear outside my house and drove off :( The front bumper is tatty too from the mileage and needs a going over.

I've got a grey/black carpet to pick up from Reading (once I can walk again) to replace the tatty cream carpet, and I plan to strip the rear seats out. I'd like to get a harness+strut bar across the rear instead.

I also want to sort the dash out, as some of the rubber is peeling from the panels, and generally tidy the interior up a bit.

After that it needs big money to go much further, especially power wise but that should see 420ish for the time being.

[AndysR]

Cheeky! Thats one hell of an impressive power figure at the wheels for what essentially is still a standard car! Plenty of potential for power from these so I have heard! Seats look good was thinking they didn't go with the cream but then you answered that with the replacement carpet and rear seat removal :cool:

Know what you mean about the clutch I know a few people who have Evo's one has a HKS tripple plate and the other has a Greedy tripple plate and they both rattle like the gearbox is going to fall out! Lovely feel on the pedal, much better than a single paddle clutch, and will easily cope with what they have thrown at them so how care's about some little rattle. :)

[macca]

Nice write up, this project section is really good. Excellent history that your car has by being owned by an F1 driver. For anyone who hasn't been in this car it is absolutely rapid and makes your car feel slow! So much so that you have to spend more money on your own car so that you like it again.... :)

Get some more pics up!

Kerry

Done! :D Cheers for the comments, feels really slow to me now, I think I've got used to it. I can see how people get the modding bug so badly, whatever you do starts to feel normal after a while.

However, whenever it is starting to feel normal I just take it out in the wet so I can make myself sh*t my pants :blink:

Nice bit of background information, looking at the pictures made me realise.... you don't see many of these car's about. Jap car's are very popular especially Scooby's which makes the Supra a welcome change to the norm even if it is still of Jap origin, not that that is a bad thing as I do like most performance car's of which Japan can claim many. :)

Looking forward to seeing the updated pictures
Thanks Andy. You don't see so many no, certainly not like Sccoby's (one on every street corner and then some). There's a lot more jap imports coming in now but they only made just over 600 UK models, 200 manuals and the rest autos.

I think you either love or hate Japanese 'fast' cars, they're a bit different to the european stuff.

Personally the Supra is far more my thing than a Skyline. Awesome car, but I like to be able to feel when I drive and I think you lose that with all the electronic stuff in something like a Skyline.

You really have to keep on the ball with the Supra, she can be a total bitch when it's slippery. Not a car you drive and let your defences down, because she'll have you. But very rewarding when you drive it right, so I'm looking forward to the summer again.

Of course the one thing I haven't mentioned yet, that I fall in love with every time I start her - the sound.

3.0 straight 6 with a near-on straight through exhaust, it's loud but has such a lovely tone. Can't beat a tunnel with the windows down :eyes:

[macca]

Cheeky! Thats one hell of an impressive power figure at the wheels for what essentially is still a standard car! Plenty of potential for power from these so I have heard! Seats look good was thinking they didn't go with the cream but then you answered that with the replacement carpet and rear seat removal :cool:

Know what you mean about the clutch I know a few people who have Evo's one has a HKS tripple plate and the other has a Greedy tripple plate and they both rattle like the gearbox is going to fall out! Lovely feel on the pedal, much better than a single paddle clutch, and will easily cope with what they have thrown at them so how care's about some little rattle. :)

That's flywheel BHP unfortunately, if it was at the wheels it would be very very quick. The UK's seem to fair better for basic mods than the Japanese, but the injectors and wastegates are bigger so there's more scope. The turbo's are also stronger but slightly laggier.

The standard engine internals will happilly manage 600-700bhp as long as they're healthy and mapped ok, which is impressive for stock stuff. The gearboxes have been proven to take 1000bhp+ with a strong clutch!

I'm not sure about the Evo's, but the Supra has a dual-mass flywheel to stop rattles from the long drive train (gearbox is massive, I think some german bloke nicked it off a tractor). When you take that out and put in a single-piece flywheel you get rattles anyway and then the twin plate clutch adds even more.

If I drive up a hill with walls on both sides and load the gearbox up at about 1500rpm, people 200 yards away will turn to see what the hell is blowing up :D

[macca]

Had a few things arrive today that I'd ordered before I was laid off.

Firstly a second hand HKS EVC 3 (photos to follow) to control the boost and hopefully get a bit more response from the turbos.

Secondly, these two new shoes arrived for the car, after Mark had a look at the weekend and declared the outside rear as not much cop :)

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/gef1asym1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/gef1asym2.jpg

They're the new Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric in 265/35R18. They look very nice, I'm not sure they'll be that easy to fit though as the sidewall is very stiff! Hopefully they'll live up to the reviews they've been getting.

I managed to get a pretty good price on them, £140 each from www.camskill.com (http://www.camskill.com). I've changed down from 275's in the hope that the damp and wet grip will be slightly improved. They were also £30 a side cheaper than the 275's!

[macca]

I forgot to mention, but the balance lines on the two tyres are near to identical to each other, so should be nicely balanced on the car which is good!

[Kerry_T-5R]

Really nice tread pattern, they should be awesome on your car. If they don't grip, what the hell will?!!

[macca]

They should make a lot of difference, I want to get a proper alignment done on the car before I use them too much too.

Richard had offered to do it on the Blacktech, and said he would even though I'd been laid off, but since I've upset Peter I don't want to put Richard in that position.

[Kerry_T-5R]

They should make a lot of difference, I want to get a proper alignment done on the car before I use them too much too.

Richard had offered to do it on the Blacktech, and said he would even though I'd been laid off, but since I've upset Peter I don't want to put Richard in that position.

Thats a shame, Melvin can do alignment but not to the same standard as the black tech can do!

[Crazy_C]

That's a really clean Supra there man, and I love the plate slogan :D lol

Always been a big fan of the dash on Supras, only other dash that reminds me of being an 8 year old kid again than the Prelude EL dash :D

Very nice and tidy, look forwards to seeing in the metal someday :)

[macca]

It looks a lot cleaner in the photos than the flesh, it needs quite a bit of paint work doing when money and job allows :( Thanks though :)

I love the dash, it's such an event sitting in it, you feel like the captain of the enterprise with all those controls and dials at your finger tips. The passenger side is horrible to sit in, nothing there at all and no leg room! Definitely a drivers car ;)

Sure you will see her soon enough!! :)

[macca]

Ok, well here are some more toys that I have collected over the last few months for the Supra -

Firstly a chap on the Supra forum made a batch of these vacuum manifold. I've not seen them before but they're a fantastic idea. Basically you take one hose from the inlet manifold on your car as a vacuum reference and then can plumb in all your vacuum/boost devices to it. So, boost gauge, boost controller, dump valve etc.

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-vmani1.jpg
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-vmani2.jpg


Then there's this, a used HKS EVC 3 boost controller. Fed up with my old Apexi AVC-R as it's a bastard to program properly, so fancied something a bit simpler. The AVC-R will be coming to an eBay near you soon!!

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-evc3-1.jpg


And then this pair of temperature sensors. They're designed for computer case temperature monitors but are good for inlet temp sensors too. I plan to have one pre- and one post- intercooler. Or possibly one post- intercooler and one just after the air filter to see how well the intercooler (and WI when I get it plumbed in) are working.

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-temps1.jpg

[macca]

I also bought a fields harness of a chap on the Supra forum many months ago. I pretty much finished off wiring it up today. It's basically a short stretch of wires, with OEM plugs and sockets that fits in between the factory wiring loom and ECU giving you a place to wire all your gadgets and toys in to without worrying about butchering up the factory loom. In the Supra this is very handy as the ECU is in the passenger footwell and quite hard to get to. The length of available loom is very short and hard to get enough room in the wires to patch stuff in to.

In to the harness, I've made a small auxilary loom to patch my data-logged in to (Innovate LMA-3), with a handy plug so that everything will come out seperately without having to chase wires all over the dash.

I've also been looking in to a good way of getting power to various devices, the boost controller, gauges, temperature monitors, etc. without chopping wires and soldering them in permanently every time.

Well a few days ago I had a bit of a brainwave and have come up with what I think is a perfect solution to the problem. Basically I've wired in a Molex connector (it's the connector the hard drives and CD drives in your computers all use for power, standard connector) to the harness to give power to all the devices. The beauty of this is that you can buy connectors from Maplin for £1.30 each and wire them on to your device and simply plug them straight in. No worries if you want to remove, you just unplug. Splitters are also easy to come by, about £3-5 for a 3 or 4 way splitter that just plugs in!

I'm happy with it anyway :D

On to the pictures:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-fields1.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-fields2.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-fields3.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-fields4.jpg

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/supe/supe-fields5.jpg

[Kerry_T-5R]

Nicely done - you have kept yourself busy!

[macca]

Got to do something. Hooked up a bench power supply today and tested the thermo sensors which work fine, then tested the boost controller and the bloody thing doesn't work!! Grr..

[macca]

Panic over, I was being a numpty :rolleyes:

I'd managed to stupidly hook it up to the 5v rail on my bench supply and not the 12v. It seems that the temp sensors will fire up on 5v but the boost controller refuses unless it gets the full 12v!

Phew!

[mills]

this is very nice macca, what a beast :eyes: im looking forward to watching
this one come together. what are your plans for the paintwork, are you going to keep it the same colour or go for something different?

[macca]

Thanks Mills :)

Finished the carpet the other day, now nice and black to go with the seats, instead of the cream. Haven't had a chance to get photos up yet though.

I'll be keeping the paint red, just getting the panels that are damaged sorted out. Red is the fastest colour you know ;) lol..

[Angelnatty]

Mr Macca you forgot a new addition to your car! your personalised plates I got you for your birthday!!! :p

[macca]

Ooh sorry :blush: I did forget to mention the number plates that my lovely gorgeous girlfriend bought for me for my birthday!!

[mills]

Thanks Mills :)

Finished the carpet the other day, now nice and black to go with the seats, instead of the cream. Haven't had a chance to get photos up yet though.

I'll be keeping the paint red, just getting the panels that are damaged sorted out. Red is the fastest colour you know ;) lol..


i heard that red was the fastest but i thought it was a myth :think::sign_lol:
i bet it looks nice in the cockpit now ;)

have you put your new plates on yet?

[macca]

New plates have been on for about a year and a half :innocent:

[macca]

Well yesterday was a productive day on the old girl. Barry, Mark and Nick popped over to give me a hand in return for a bbq :)

The guys managed to get the offside rear upper arm changed. It was obvious how bad the original one had become as soon as it was inbolted. The bushes in the new one are solid, whereas the old ones could be moved about half an inch by hand.

No wonder the handling was 'interesting'!

First things first, here is Mark modelling the new arm:

http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0854.jpg

The arm is alloy and suprisingly light considering it's size. It's very nicely designed and obviously capable of holding the considerable weight of a Supra for nearly 130k miles. I'm rather glad it lasts this long since they cost £350+VAT each :blink:

Here's the team hard at work:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0858.jpg

This is the old arm with the bush pushed acrossed to once side to show the movement:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0861.jpg

Once this was changed and back on the car, we thought we'd have a crack at changing the old carpet for a newer one while the weather was nice and the BBQ warming up.

This is the old cream carpet on the way out. It looked out when the cream leather front and rear seats were in but since putting in the Black recaros it looks a bit out of place:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0869.jpg

Barry's obsessivley hoovered the dirt from the floor under the carpet to make himself feel better :D :
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0876.jpg

Taking the carpet out isn't too bad, all seats out, centre console, drivers foot rest, doorstep moulds, and the seatbelt mounts for the front seats. Plus for some strange reason, Toyota had bolted the speaker amp (no longer used) through the carpet but with carpet under it. That didn't go back in! Also left the rear seat out as it's just taking up space and adding weight, it's so small it's next to useless anyway. Soon the area left open from it will be covered with some black carpet I have to make it look stock.

So with the new black carpet in, you can see the 'Airbag ECU' behind the handbrake. It's actually bigger than the Engine ECU and one of about 7 in the car:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0881.jpg

And one last picture of the interior all back together (once we found all the bolts!) and looking very nice:
http://www.i-macca.co.uk/stuff/DSC_0889.jpg

The carpet is second hand from somebody on the Supra forum, but in very good condition. It actually started out grey, and I dyed it on the public grass next to Natasha's house :innocent:. Black carpets are quite rare for Supra's and tend to go for £4-500 second hand and £1200-odd new. So £50 for a grey one and £25 for some dye is well worth the effort :)

I've also got the wiring loom I made properly installed in the car now, with a few modifications for things I didn't see and realise.

Most of the datalogger is now working, it's currently logging AFR, RPM and boost. It's wired in to log Speed and throttle position too but I haven't got the settings right for that yet. It should be a very useful tool once it's done, and especially once I go standalone and start mapping myself.

It will also be handy if it ever goes to a garage to see exactly what the car did in my absence!

[Stavros]

She's looking good mate :thumbs:

[macca]

Cheers mate :) Lots and lots more to do, hopefully as money allows and she'll slowly start looking a bit more cared for. And go a bit better too ;)

[850_Turbo_Brick]

Barry's obsessivley hoovered the dirt from the floor under the carpet to make himself feel better :D :


Dirt!?!?!?!?!!? There was half a beach under there! lol, its looking much better with the new carpet mate!

[Kerry_T-5R]

Nice one Macca, looks mint!

[macca]

Cheers guys, does look much better! Much nicer place to be now :)

Had a little rag yesterday while the weather was dry, such a difference now the arm is sorted. It's so much more planted now, you can really put the power down even round bends in second gear without the bank end coming out to play.

Can't wait to get the geometry sorted, she'll be a real giant killer!

[Ang]

Sounds like you lot have been nice and busy. Glad that's another job out of the way now :)

[mills]

that looks loads better macca, good job dying the carpet ;)

[Steve]

Really nice mate, I think i'd much rather have a supra over a skyline, and the red with black wheels goes nicely. :)

Nice mod with the seats as well, they look much more manly:cool: So what mods are you thinking of to get more power? Obviously theres endless options with these cars. Bit more to them than an old vauxhall. 7 ecus? mines got a steering wheel, 3 pedals and a handbrake, thats about as complicated as it gets for me! :haha:

[macca]

Good choice, who wants one of these Slowline things anyway! :D

Cheers for the comments :) Not sure on the power front, things from here get a bit more expensive. Most common thing to do is go single turbo so would need the turbo kit and an ECU for it, looking at about £4k for that but it will see around 550bhp.

Sometimes I wish it was as simple as your car mate! One look under the bonnet and I shy away from taking it apart, far too much stuff!

[Steve]

£4k! im getting scared, ive only spent about £1200 on the nova, and that still seems alot. :( Why single turbo if yours is twin?

[macca]

Put it this way, one great blow job is better than two ok ones ;) lol.

Basically, take off the two sequential turbos and put on one bigger one, makes it a lot more driveable plus flows more air and gives better results. Having two uprated turbos is great, but very very expensive so this is the cheaper way.

Don't forget, on top of that £4k, I've already got a £1k clutch and an £800 exhaust system lol.. Plus rear tyres at £300 a pair every 3-4k miles and 12-15mpg no matter how you drive it, that's why I'm always skint!!

I still love her to bits though :D