A Supercharged Journey
A couple of years after Paul Walker drove the A80 into pop culture history, and shortly after my 14th birthday, I saw an A70 Supra for the first time. I had no idea what a Supra was, or what the name Supra would come to embody. What I did know, was its refined 80s style, pop up headlights, seats that fit like a glove, and a dash full of instruments all oriented toward the driver. Just sitting in it was like being in a fighter jet. This planted the seed that would grow into an obsession, and I knew I had to have that car.
I worked odd jobs all summer and fall to pay the $900 asking price, and had the Supra dropped off at my grandparents’ house, so my mom would not find out about it. I learned how to drive stick down their long drive way, and when I was confident enough, tooled around on the backcountry roads when they left for an errand. It was fun to feel the road under me while listening the turbo spool.
As you would expect, you can’t hide things from your mom very long. The car had to go; my mom was worried I would hurt myself in a wreck. Of course, this didn’t end the obsession. The expression “absence makes the heart grow fonder” fits perfectly here.
Fast forward to when I was a junior in high school, I found someone selling a light blue 1989 Supra targa in good shape. Well, it was in good shape except for the engine; the block knocked harder than a door-to-door salesman. After some “shrewd” negotiation, I got it for $300 and a spare computer I had laying around. A replacement eBay engine and lot of hard lessons later, it was on the road, and I was in love all over again. For a few years, I raced it at the Lebanon Valley Dragway and Mohawk-Hudson SCCA track events.
By the time I was almost through my first year in college, I had a lot of time under the hood. With only a college student’s budget, I had come up with some pretty clever mods. The little blue Supra’s best pull was 12.7 seconds, not an extraordinary number, but it would make up for it on the autocross track. I had a lot of great times in that car.
Then, I found a red 1988 turbo Supra hard top for $500. The car was in pieces, the engine was in boxes in the trunk, and the interior was all but gone, but it was a hard top and I needed to own it. Unable to see past the good to see the bad, I sold my blue Supra, making one of my biggest mistakes. Sadly, I later found out that the kid who bought it utterly destroyed the engine and cut the body up attempting to make it look “cool”, and it ultimately found itself getting crushed. I had betrayed the car that had been like a friend to me.
When the red A70 arrived at my house, it was apparent that the car was in worse shape than what I noticed while it was sitting in the barn. It was rusting away, and the engine parts were not all accounted for. However, I wanted a hard top car, so I got to work on the new project. The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, until I i finally admitted to myself that the rust had compromised the structural integrity of the car. After nearly a year of dumping money into it, it was apparent that I had made a grave mistake, and it was time to give up on that project.
Some time passed, and the rusted Supra just sat under a tarp behind my moms house, waiting to be a donor for whatever came next. I was again Supra-less. I looked everywhere, trying to find one that was not rusted out. Living in Upstate NY, most of them had not fared well over the years. I finally gave up looking for the dream project, as it seemed impossible.
Sometimes life has plans for you, when you’re not looking. Shortly after I started dating my now wife, I stopped at Bap-Geon Import Auto Parts when an employee told me about an A70 hidden away at an old mechanic shop a few blocks over. It wasn’t far away, so I decided to go take a look. Talking to the shop owner, I found out the car had been sitting for 12 years. The previous owner had blown the head gasket and dropped it off for repairs. While the shop owner was replacing the engine, the car’s owner passed away. His wife gave the mechanic the title in lieu of payment, and there it sat.
Hidden behind a few rows of cars and a lot of dust, there she was, sitting on 4 flat tires. I started to look the car over. It was built in May of 1989; it was within a month younger than me. The black paint was faded, and the clear coat was flaking, but the car had just over 60,000 miles on it. I found my forever car.
Today, I have owned my dream car for nearly 14 years, and I have enjoyed all kinds of modifications over the years, like converting it from automatic to an R154 manual transmission, hopping up the turbocharged straight six. A little over a year ago, not happy with the performance of the 7MGTE, I finally decided to stop trying to do what everyone else did and challenge the norm. I ditched the 7M, and asked myself what would the hotrodder of the 60s and 70s do? Back when I still owned the blue Supra, my stepbrother Kevin said “do you think that Lexus V8 would fit in it?” This is why he had earned the nickname hotrod Kevin; he was always hopping up everything with 4 wheels. So, it was settled! The Supra was getting a V8.
I started by sourcing out a donor car, specifically the 1992 Lexus SC400, because the oil pan would clearance the front subframe. Man, did I get lucky, as I pulled the engine and found it had a set of PPE headers already on it, saving me over $1000. I adapted the R154 to the engine, set it up with an aluminum fly wheel, and stage two clutch. After preparing the engine for its new home, I fabricated a set of engine mounts and shoehorned it in. I ditched the two piece driveshaft in favor of a single piece aluminum one, and mated that up to a non-turbo 430 differential out of an A70 1990 donor. The brakes were upgraded to meet its new stopping needs. The front rotors are a set out of a 2007 Nissan 350 Z with concentric rings to center them, Brembo calipers out of a 2001 Mercedes Benz S500, and yellow BBS pads. The rear rotors are slotted and drilled factory replacements with yellow BBS pads. Though this woke it up, I still felt it needed more.
Maybe it was because I felt like I had something to prove, or just pure insanity, but I got a custom intake manifold to fit a Harrop HTV 2300 supercharger, ditching the distributors for Audi R8 coil on plugs, installed a Haltech 2500 Elite ECU, and wideband module to make it all work, and installed a modern Denso 4pin alternator to make up for all the new power requirement. The first time I took it out it and it pulled 16lbs of boost, I was that 14 year old kid again.
I have different kind of cars, from muscle cars to classic cars, but the Supra always seems to find its way into conversations. The running joke I have with my friends is that I will start out by saying “this one time, my Supra”. I know it is not the most interesting model car in the world, but there is something about it that I just can’t quantify. Like all dream cars, it is more than the sum of its parts, more than a hobby: it is an obsession.
