OK, I have to preface this question/discussion with some background; we purchased an ’88 supra/ 7mgte about a year ago as a budget racer with the intent of running chump car or lemons series road races. The previous owner had already done the lion share of the work… (car had been stripped down to basically no interior and the required safety equipment) and had completed at least one 8 hour endurance race on the engine. Prior to our first race in the fall of 2012, wouldn’t you know it but we blew a head gasket during some track testing. (Weird, I know) What was surprising, was that during the repair project, we discovered that the previous owner had actually done it right. ARP bolts were found on both the top and bottom ends of the engine. We successfully completed the necessary repairs and ran a respectable race last fall with no issues. Over the winter, after some lengthy and painstaking diagnosis, we discovered that the lower timing cover plate was leaking. Much to our chagrin, we realized that we were going to have to pull the motor.
Which, leads me to where we are today. After countless hours, we cannot seem to get the girl running again. She cranks and tries to start, only to cut off and die after a few (2-5) seconds. We reset the timing per the instructions both in the service manual as well as after reading countless posts on the forum, and I’m 99.9% sure it’s right. (Even tried rotating it 180, despite some conflicting reports as to whether or not that is even possible to get it off 180). The challenge we have is limited technical resources to check things such as codes or other electrical issues. The challenge with this car has always been not knowing what exactly all the stock configuration should look like since we didn’t handle the transformation into the ‘race car’ setup. By that, I mean there have always been countless wiring harnesses just laying around under the hood. She purred like a kitten before pulling the motor, but obviously didn’t like something we did to her while repairing the coolant leak.
Any suggestions? I’m sure I’m leaving some out, so ask away. We’d sure like to get her back on the track.
Which, leads me to where we are today. After countless hours, we cannot seem to get the girl running again. She cranks and tries to start, only to cut off and die after a few (2-5) seconds. We reset the timing per the instructions both in the service manual as well as after reading countless posts on the forum, and I’m 99.9% sure it’s right. (Even tried rotating it 180, despite some conflicting reports as to whether or not that is even possible to get it off 180). The challenge we have is limited technical resources to check things such as codes or other electrical issues. The challenge with this car has always been not knowing what exactly all the stock configuration should look like since we didn’t handle the transformation into the ‘race car’ setup. By that, I mean there have always been countless wiring harnesses just laying around under the hood. She purred like a kitten before pulling the motor, but obviously didn’t like something we did to her while repairing the coolant leak.
Any suggestions? I’m sure I’m leaving some out, so ask away. We’d sure like to get her back on the track.
