RE: Shed Of The Week: Toyota Supra

RE: Shed Of The Week: Toyota Supra

Author
Discussion

bondango

1 posts

136 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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gareth_r said:
Not convinced about there being fixes for the head gasket (and the bottom end). A nose round the MkIII Supra forum might suggest otherwise.

Still, the 7M-GTE is, arguably, the reason that Toyota's JZ engines were so thoroughly over-engineered, so every cloud and all that. smile
Properly prepared head and block, quality head gasket and Arp's - And an adequate cooling system
theres a Few simple mods on oil system too

JZ lover though i am, i started with 7M's and when you have a well sorted 700hp 7M motor, you will realise why they call them the Torque monster compared to a 2JZ


EarlOfHazard

3,601 posts

157 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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I thought the reason the HGs failed was due to the head bolts torque not being enough from factory??
In fact some people extended the life by tightening later on in the cars' life.
Also, the mk3 used to feature in the opening credits of old Top Gear!

dapearson

4,252 posts

223 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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LewG said:
From what I remember in the 80s didn't BMW and Toyota team up at some point in an effort to come up with another model, hence the similar looks?
I've got an early Mark 2 Celica Supra I bought from the original owners, still a relatively old fashioned car compared to the MK3 Supra which was a bit of a technical showcase in its day. You can clearly see the influence on cars like the 850i looking at it:
ooooohhhh that's lovely! cloud9

fuchsiasteve

326 posts

205 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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My old man had the one identical to the one in the shed article. Amazing car of its era. Getting dropped off at school in it was awesome! Picture it: Sierra's, cavaliers, escorts etc then the White supra turbo. It was like a spaceship compared to the competition lol.

Effortless performance. Its party trick : watching the revs go up to say 4k rpm then hearing the click, bonnet rose and whoooooooosssh it was off like stink! The first car I'd been it that gave you that "push back in the seat" force of acceleration. In car terms like your first orgasm!

Definately a car I plan to own at some stage. White, auto turbo with the white wheels😎

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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Unsurprisingly, I owned one for 9 years, a 1992K plate Turbo Auto.

Before I bought it, it had undergone around £3k of engine rebuild due to a blown head gasket around 60k miles.

I had problems with the windscreen and tailgate leaking, the exhaust manifold kept parting with the block (which took a few attempts to fix) and in the end (around 140k), the oil pump drive started to make clunky expensive noises and the A/C compressor lunched itself frown

I loved the car though, you could put it in Drive, switch on the cruise control, and drive one handed, it helped to have right handed indicator stalks so you literally only needed you right arm to drive it (both feet off the pedals).

It was a shame when it became uneconomic to run it as an everyday car so I sold it in 2008 (as I already had the TVR as a weekend toy), and replaced it with a new Focus ST. I really missed the Supra and it's arm-chair like comfortable seats, driving position and view over the bonnet. Although the Focus has been hugely more reliable, it is nowhere near as special to drive frown
I imagine if I turned up at a PH meet in the Supra now, it would attract a lot more attention than the Focus or Chimaera which are largely ignored. Perhaps I sold the wrong car?

A bit of a mucky photo of it here, after a weekend away in Exeter February 2006, I took a daytrip down to Cornwall before heading back to Essex.


mrtwisty

3,057 posts

164 months

Friday 19th September 2014
quotequote all
fuchsiasteve said:
My old man had the one identical to the one in the shed article. Amazing car of its era. Getting dropped off at school in it was awesome! Picture it: Sierra's, cavaliers, escorts etc then the White supra turbo. It was like a spaceship compared to the competition lol.

Effortless performance. Its party trick : watching the revs go up to say 4k rpm then hearing the click, bonnet rose and whoooooooosssh it was off like stink! The first car I'd been it that gave you that "push back in the seat" force of acceleration. In car terms like your first orgasm!

Definately a car I plan to own at some stage. White, auto turbo with the white wheels??
My old man still has his. White with full leather, aftermarket Momo wheels but otherwise totally original. 3.0 turbo manual with 50ish thousand miles iirc. Two owners, garaged for its entire life. It must be one of the best examples left really.

It doesn't get used now, so I've toyed with the idea of either stripping it and taking it on the track, or having a go at fitting an LPG system and using it as a daily. Seems a shame somehow though, 'tis a lovely old beast.



LasseV

1,754 posts

132 months

Friday 19th September 2014
quotequote all
mrtwisty said:
It doesn't get used now, so I've toyed with the idea of either stripping it and taking it on the track, or having a go at fitting an LPG system and using it as a daily. Seems a shame somehow though, 'tis a lovely old beast.
]
Please don't do it!

gareth_r

5,712 posts

236 months

Friday 19th September 2014
quotequote all
bondango said:
gareth_r said:
Not convinced about there being fixes for the head gasket (and the bottom end). A nose round the MkIII Supra forum might suggest otherwise.

Still, the 7M-GTE is, arguably, the reason that Toyota's JZ engines were so thoroughly over-engineered, so every cloud and all that. smile
Properly prepared head and block, quality head gasket and Arp's - And an adequate cooling system
there's a Few simple mods on oil system too

JZ lover though I am, I started with 7M's and when you have a well sorted 700hp 7M motor, you will realise why they call them the Torque monster compared to a 2JZ.
I've no doubt that it's a lovely thing when it's working as designed, Marty, but I guess I've seen too many second or third rebuilds on mkiiisupra.net to ever trust a 7M. smile

Sadly, I think the effects of the British climate and the potential engine problems make the majority of UK cars too much hassle for most of us.


Edited by gareth_r on Saturday 20th September 14:00

tali1

5,265 posts

200 months

Friday 19th September 2014
quotequote all
dinz said:
Neil E 99 said:


Nice Supra! I thought it was a Bimmer 850i at first glance smile
8 series scratchchin




s m

23,164 posts

202 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
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J4CKO said:
From that angle they are quite similar arent they, never noticed before.
Nor me, but very similar looks as said

Would be good to do that 8-series/Calibra type test that Performance Car mag did with the public to see which one they thought was more expensive smile
Does the same numbers to 100 as the current GT86 ..... only with half the mpg

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
I was obsessed by these cars in my teens. When I got around to owning a few I was greatly disappointed. Awesome when working, but between headgaskets blowing up within 1000 miles of buying and bodywork being more rust and filler than metal, they weren't working for long.

Then I figured out I could buy a Soarer with more performance and far better reliability for the same sort of money and haven't looked back. They don't rust either!

Earl of Petrol

485 posts

121 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
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Ooh like it, like it.

wotnot

383 posts

173 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
LewG said:
From what I remember in the 80s didn't BMW and Toyota team up at some point in an effort to come up with another model, hence the similar looks?
I've got an early Mark 2 Celica Supra I bought from the original owners, still a relatively old fashioned car compared to the MK3 Supra which was a bit of a technical showcase in its day. You can clearly see the influence on cars like the 850i looking at it:
I had a white on white one of these back in 2000, complete with body kit and that amazing LED dash.
It had what could only be described as beach buggy tyres and had absolutely no grip in the wet. The most sideways car I've ever owned.
Fortunately the head gasket blew before I managed to slide it into something solid so I moved it on.
Almost bought a maroon n/a Supra but got seduced by a Merc coupe instead.

Rs2oo

2,195 posts

197 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
Ive had five supra over the years and all were reliable fast and fun. I see them all as future classics and would have another no question. I lowered a coupe of mine including my Mk11 and it transformed the handling along with slightly bigger wheels thats all furthers. KGB shocks are all you need with lowering springs.


LewG

1,357 posts

145 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
Thanks for the comments! It is pretty rare indeed, looking on howmanyleft it says there's only around 64 MA61s left on the road in the UK. I imagine a very small percentage of that would be narrowbodies. wotnot you're dead right, they can be nicely tail happy. I've just sold mine to my dad a few months ago, it's still on its Michelin XDXs so god knows how old they are. Should really get them changed but to be honest the car gets used so infrequently I'm not sure he will. It more than likely will be up for sale soon, it's been a fantastic car so far. Absolutely everything works on it as expected, and as the original owner was a very wealthy man anything and everything was done at Toyota. I've got a huge file of receipts and previous MOTs, including the original registration document. Just sitting in it feels like you've been transported back to an episode of Miami Vice.
I keep looking at Mk3 because it's clear they're a much more capable car, wouldn't mind one for a daily if I could afford to put up with the thirst!

iloveboost

1,531 posts

161 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
It's probably been mentioned already but when the article says:
'forced aspiration engines run lower compression ratios, so maybe this is not such an issue on the Turbos..'
That's not really right (unless I'm about to look foolish). For an engine of the same type to make more torque/power per rpm the cylinder pressure must be higher. This increases the pressure on the head bolts and gasket/s. All engines have a 'dynamic' compression ratio as well as a 'static' one.

I think head gasket failure is/was common on these because the head bolt torque was too low for the turbo engine. Maybe this was meant to deter people from raising the boost or it was a mistake. Either way some gaskets failed because of it and I think it's a good idea to ask or check if the bolts have been tightened to a higher torque.

I'm not sure these will become collectable or desirable like the later Supra models. They are worse in every way other than the cost to buy one, and I don't think they have any real heritage or prestige. I think you're better off spending a bit more to get a non-turbo later Supra, it should be better in every way (unless you'd like to spend some money modifying an early turbo one).
Apologies to the owner of the mint 1JZ Supra earlier as I'm sure it's nice to drive, and you're allowed to think my opinion is a load of crap. biggrin

Crook

6,715 posts

223 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
LewG said:
From what I remember in the 80s didn't BMW and Toyota team up at some point in an effort to come up with another model, hence the similar looks?
I've got an early Mark 2 Celica Supra I bought from the original owners, still a relatively old fashioned car compared to the MK3 Supra which was a bit of a technical showcase in its day. You can clearly see the influence on cars like the 850i looking at it:
I had one of those: fastest rear drive car I could buy with my student loan! Great fun.

tali1

5,265 posts

200 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
quotequote all
LewG said:
Thanks for the comments! It is pretty rare indeed, looking on howmanyleft it says there's only around 64 MA61s left on the road in the UK. I imagine a very small percentage of that would be narrowbodies. wotnot you're dead right, they can be nicely tail happy. I've just sold mine to my dad a few months ago, it's still on its Michelin XDXs so god knows how old they are. Should really get them changed but to be honest the car gets used so infrequently I'm not sure he will. It more than likely will be up for sale soon, it's been a fantastic car so far. Absolutely everything works on it as expected, and as the original owner was a very wealthy man anything and everything was done at Toyota. I've got a huge file of receipts and previous MOTs, including the original registration document. Just sitting in it feels like you've been transported back to an episode of Miami Vice.
I keep looking at Mk3 because it's clear they're a much more capable car, wouldn't mind one for a daily if I could afford to put up with the thirst!
64 ? HML is showing 51 on road and a total of 188 inc SORN.Widebody start in 1984 therefore meaning 24 narrow ones- although there might be a 84 narrow out there.Well,for what i know anyway.

Jordan Clarkson

375 posts

143 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
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Brilliant! Amazing value :O

jcl

227 posts

242 months

Saturday 20th September 2014
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Hudson said:
Buy the supra, win the first 3 races and buy a mk1 impreza WRX.

Good times!
I'd just stick with the Supra until I had enough for an NSXsmile