2JZ '88 - my new baby

[Ronald]

Well thought its about time I post up some pics...

I bought this car from a forum member September 2007; it is a N.C. car that was in average shape when he picked it up (i think it was just sitting on a lot somewhere, was faded and rough around the edges but over all in solid shape).

He had a 2JZ swap performed, and got the shell re-sprayed.

I drove from OH to NC to buy it with hopes of continuing to clean it up and eventually want it to be show car quality.

Its a work in progress for now, and as I'm successful appropriating funds from the wife, I work on stuff here and there.

Future plans are T67 or bigger turbo, Apexi NEO, 550 side feed injectors (currently has stock Aristo 440's)... the injectors and NEO are in posssession, just need to install; but need to find someone to tune the car after I do that, and I'm afraid to trust the car to anyone else (except Accelerated Performance but they're all the way in Toledo, couple hours drive for me).

Since bought I've added the ADR 18's with staggered lip; paint engine bay and hood, turbo compressor housing, intake manifold, spark plug cover, fuse box cover (pin striped as well) -- All done with 1200 degree ceramic paint. The cam cover and spark plug cover are dry carbon fiber. I installed 2.5inch polished alum hard pipes all the way around with new front mount intercooler and also polished 4inch intake pipe... Oil filter relo kit and Oil cooler, all red vaccuum and boost lines, alum radiator and chrome hard pipe, chrome plate battery cover, radiator shroud, intake guard, and catch can, and red silicon 4-ply couplers and T-bolt clamps all the way around the boosted side, turbine blanket, and irridium tip spark plugs (seemed to really help smooth the idle). Inside I bought a custom made carpeted dash cover to cover the cracks on the dash (it fit better than I expected it would), tinted gauges in aluminum gauge cups, silver dash trim kit, and chrome gauge bezel cover.

So far I'm happy with how its shaping up, I still have several more gauges to install and i've yet to wire up the gauges that I just put in on the dash.

I'm trying to accomplish as much 'show car bling' as possible whilst spending as little as possible. Initially I was going to have the the manifold, compressor housing, and valve covers professionally polished; but I cheaped it and painted instead. I polished the valve covers myself, and they turned out ok (not perfect, but close enough to look good).

First two pics are how it looked when I bought it. More pics to follow in additional posts... I think my interior pics at on my computer at home, i'll get those up at a later date.

Enough babble, here's the car, runs a T61 turbo at about 13.5psi (just shy of fuel cut) Hope you all approve!

 

[Ronald]

a handful more pics...

 

[Ronald]

and a still a few more....

 

[s000pra89T]

Don't remember how it looked before but definitely looks very nice! :bigthumb:

 

[mk3supra91]

OMG that car is amazing, So clean.

 

[johnd]

Super looking engine bay,:aigo:I hope mine will look like that some day.

 

[Ronald]

thanks guys!!!

Very first pic hosted is the engine bay when I bought it... Luckily for me Drew had most of the HARD stuff done already when I bought it (the swap and shell paint).

I just prettied it up. In terms of going for more power... That was going to be my first priority; but after driving it a bit, I realized how unholy fast this car is just at 14psi....... Decided that could wait till spring/summer 2009 and started working on cosmetics instead.

I guess some might not find it that fast, but I came from a 300awhp Subaru Impreza.... The comparison is not even in the ballpark i don't think. Yes the subaru was quick, but this car is just DARN fast. The highway grunt on this is such a nice change from the WRX, where you're already going 75mph and don't feel like the car has much gut left to give. Supra is whole different story!!

forgot also - - car is lowered on tokico blues and H&R springs. Wheels in case wondering are 35 offset all round, with 245/40's and 275/35's

 

[arizzle]

cars looking clean!!

 

[queenskid926]

man that car is clean. great work on making that engine bay look alive. Lol i definitely plan on buying those rims. Ive been looking at those for a while and few othes with similar style by sportmaxx 006 but i think im going with the adr's now

 

[Ronald]

man that car is clean. great work on making that engine bay look alive. Lol i definitely plan on buying those rims. Ive been looking at those for a while and few othes with similar style by sportmaxx 006 but i think im going with the adr's now

Thank you! for the money i've spent I really think i got good bang for the buck in terms of cleaning up the engine.

As for the ADR's, I think these were great bang for the buck too. About as cheap as you'll find 18inch with a staggered deep dish. They aren't rediculously heavy either like you'd expect. They came with the tires mounted, but not balanced. I've yet to even bother with the balancing, they actually must be very close on their own because I get almost zero wheel wobble throughout the speed spectrum (at least up to 130mph anyways :evil2... So that impresses me. I've bought cheap wheels in the past and even after EXTENSIVE measures to properly balance the inner and outer of each rim, had trouble with imbalanced and wobbly steering wheel feel on my cars. (and I know I'm balancing them perfectly cuz I use my Pop's new balancer in his shop). The thing is I think sometimes the cheaper wheels are out-of-round very slightly, or maybe not perfectly "true" (straight).

So I was expecting more of the same with these, I buy them and refuse the balancing (save a few bucks) cuz I always ended up pulling off the weights and starting the balancing from scratch again. So far so good, I can tell the 'hyper' silver paint isn't gonna last forever, but typically you get what you pay for so once its chipping way signifanctly, I think i'll paint the inner rings with gloss black and leave the polished lip part untouched; should still look nice on the car like that.

 

[Bigzavs]

looks really good man, you cleaned the engine bay up nicely

what size turbo is that on it currently?

 

[mako18]

very clean red 2jz swap

very nice:biglaugh:

 

[Ronald]

thanks,

I don't know all the specifis on the turbo inducer/exducers and trims/whatnot... but seller indicated it was a Precision SC6176S.

I think that reads that the compressor is 61mm and the turbine is 76mm... It reads .70ar on the compressor housing. I believe its similar in size to a GT35r? Sorry i'm not well informed on turbo sizing and specs. I just know T61= fast, T67=faster, T88 = STUPIDFAST; and that comparatively the stock turbo on a wrx looks like one of those little debbie mini-donuts my wife gets at the grocery store, compared to these.

I've been trying to read as much as possible about setups and what HP ranges they are in... Best I can tell at 13-14psi on pump gas and no special tuning the car should be making 365-380whp, give or take. I'd say it feels like alot more than an 80whp difference from the subaru.... but I think that is the displacment factor and 'area under the curve' coming into play there.

My butt-dyno definately says its fast; and so does the Mustang Cobra I spanked the other day on the highway :burnout:

 

[Bigzavs]

61's are a hell of a lot of fun, should be makin the power you're thinkin pretty easily

if it wasnt for trying to keep up with some of the MKIV's around dfw, i woulda kept my 61 setup, it was a ton of fun

 

[suprastanger507mgte]

Nice work man. Engine bay is looking sharp. I like that carbon fiber treatment. Any more details on that?

 

[queenskid926]

I think i'll paint the inner rings with gloss black and leave the polished lip part untouched; should still look nice on the car like that.

that is exactly what one of my boys did with those same exact wheels which tempted me to do to my racing harts but i want the some depper 18's first. Im def going with that setup tho. thanks

 

[honestabe]

There's a couple guys here on the forums that will polish your parts for fairly cheap. Why not strip that paint off and send them to them? They will look 10 times better. Very nice work already btw. Glad to see you are improving the car.

 

[Ronald]

Nice work man. Engine bay is looking sharp. I like that carbon fiber treatment. Any more details on that?

Thank you,

The spark plug cover and cam gear cover are both made from dry carbon fiber... honestly it doesn't look as nice and shiny as the more common "wet" carbon fiber, but its actually more expensive to manufacture and stronger/stiffer/lighter than wet carbon fiber. Not that it really matters in this instance, but in the case of a hood or targa replacement, I suppose you could shave even more weight by getting it done in dry carbon fiber.

I wish I could say the parts were cheap, but they indeed were the most "extravagent" of any of the monies I spent to clean up the bay.... and to boot i went and painted the spark plug cover anyways, I'm DUMB! I just found there to be too much 'flat' looking blackness in the engine bay and making the spark plug cover match in red really gave it a nice 'finished' look i thought. Nice part was the carbon fiber was smooth, 'flat' and dry, so it took ZERO prep work to paint. The paint stuck to it like it had been finely wet-sanded. The stock cover I had was pretty beaten up and I didn't want to deal with extensive repair/prep work it would have taken to clean it up for painting. Painting unfinished surfaces really exposes eye-sores in short order i think.

By not painting the cam gear cover then you do still have some carbon fiber visible. I actually found if you wipe it down with a cloth and tad bit of motor oil is 'shines' the carbon right up and almost looks like the normal wet carbon fiber; keeps its shimmer about a day or two after that. Its not shined up in these pics.... I'll try to snap one tonight up close and then wipe it with the motor oil and post a few pics of the different appearence.

I was considering painting both the spark plug and cam gear covers, but this way i think it looks a little more unique (don't see too many supras with a carbon fiber/paint mix on these two parts, usually just one or the other - paint or carbon fiber; or no cam gear cover at all).

 

[suprahero]

Very nice looking car sir. You've turned it into a real beauty...........:love:

 

[Ronald]

There's a couple guys here on the forums that will polish your parts for fairly cheap. Why not strip that paint off and send them to them? They will look 10 times better. Very nice work already btw. Glad to see you are improving the car.

Yeah i had priced polishing work from a couple peops (not on here I should have checked first)... wasn't that it was unaffordably expensive, I actually had all the 'funds' lined up with the wifee (ever wonder why it is that you need someone elses permission to spend your own money? :sarcasm. Oh yeah I forgot for a moment there... :love:. Anyways yes I looked into it, in the end i was too impatient, didn't want to do without the car running, and the hassle of shipping and then tracking the parts around to have the work done and having to worry about others doing work on your timeframe. So I killed two birds, one stone - - Paint instead - tuck the cash away for other mods next summer.

There's another catch too, I can't say for sure how long the turbo will be on this car, and I've learned this lesson before, pay to have a compressor housing polished, within 12months you decide the turbo you have just isn't 'BIG' enough, and now you're parting with a perfectly good (albeit small) polished turbo :3d_frown:

Definitely if/when I go to a larger turbo it will be getting polished.