It's been a while since I've been on SM. I figured I'd check back in and share what I've been working on over the past year (most of it at least). Simply sharing my past, present, and future with my A70. Some may not agree or like where I am taking her build wise, but I find it refreshing and challenging taking a road less traveled.
This will be a Build Thread of my A70. I've been through a lot with this car, and I think to truly appreciate the situation and my reasons for sticking with her I have to go back in time quite a ways. (Skip ahead if you like)
I have been around a Supra in some shape or form since I was 3 years old, I am 26 going on 27 this October 2016 and Supras remain a constant in my life. Before I knew what a Supra even really was I always knew it as "The car Dad gets mad at us for if we park our bikes too close" lol. That said I took it for granted in my early days as kid, it wasn't until later in high school where I started to have a vested interest. Up until that point in high school though I got to experience what I call the "Golden Age" of the Supra community (SILV & SOGI days). Looking back it seems like there was always someone over at our house working on their car with my dad (Larry_A). This was a simpler time when people helped each other out because it was the kind thing to do and for the experience, I'm talking exchanging wrench time for a few Coronas here and there. I picked up some basic wrenching skills working on my Dad's A70 with him, I also got to go through the demons that come with modding a car past it's limits through his car. We Jokingly called it the "Millenium Falcon" due to how his hand vented hood looked and how it always seemed to act up at the most inopportune moments. One second it would work like a dream, the next my Dad would literally just wiggle the harness here and there to get it to start. She made around 450WHP @ about 470LBS of torque in 2001. This was before JZ swaps were common and the information to do so was easily accessible.
My Dad ultimately got out of the Supra scene, it was his only car and daily driver. To put it how he did he got "tired of driving a racecar" on the street. The interior was partially gutted in a manner where the factory panels could no longer go back, that coupled with solid motor mounts and flakk from my mom was what ended that era. I still vividly remember the day that A70 was sent off to the scrap yard, my Dad was changed for sure as was I. Loosing what I saw metaphorically as an inanimate family member which was always present in my upbringing was tough.
Fast forward to my high school years (2003-2007ish). My Dad kept a select few parts along with his engine in hopes of parting it out. He sat on them a little too long and JZ swaps started becoming a common thing. He needed a car for work so he ended up buying a non running A70 from NorCal. We transplanted what we could into it and once again he had a running Supra. This briefly brought him back into the scene and every now and then we'd go to meets again like in my childhood and once again fellow Supra owners would hangout and work on their cars at our house.
Enter my Supra. I remember it clearly, June 18th 2007, I was sleeping in and my Dad bursts into my room waking me up. "Hey do you want a Supra?" I heard in my groggy state of mind, I said "yeah sure" thinking he was joking and went back to sleep thinking nothing of it. Later on when I finally got up he explained that he wasn't kidding. A good friend of his, Michael Bringle, had recently been rear ended at a stop light by a woman on her phone driving an Excursion, estimated speed of travel 45MPH. Mike had been around our place a few times prior, he and my Dad swapped out his auto transmission for an R154 right in our driveway. He is the owner and operator of the CygnusX1 website that many A70 owners have come to use and link others to for the TSRM and other info. I was familiar with the car itself but was skeptical of the damage and if it was really worth repairing. Mike stated he was going to part her out, this was when we stepped in and offered to buy the car as is for a Father Son project of sorts. We ended up saving the car from being parted out and brought her home to begin the repair process.
Insurance totaled the car due to the age of the vehicle and market value. There was no serious frame damage and we ended up replacing these parts:
- Hatch
- Tail Lights
- Bumper & Bumper Cover
- Gas tank
- 3 Piece Factory Spoiler
That was about it. The rest was paint and body work to clean up the scuffs, dents, and scratches. Upon completion of the restoration we ran into harness issues. The car refused to start despite us not having touched anything related to the engine or harness. My Dad and I were stumped and to be honest we almost gave up at one point. It was then we remembered we had a spare engine harness tucked away in our attic full of Supra parts. Long story short with a little bit of modification and a few long nights we got the new harness in and the car passed inspection allowing it to be registered again as a street car.
(Me far right lol)
The next few years 2009-2012ish were just blissful for me. The local SoCal Supra scene was at it's strongest and we went to every show, meet, get together posssible. I am grateful for all the friends and Supra fam I meet in the process and I owe it to that common bond we all share, the love of Supras. Several years went by with the pace of meets and get togethers slowing down. In late 2013 I met my girlfriend, Dez, a fellow Supra owner in need of help getting her car running again (A80). I was working at a Toyota dealership at the time and was approached by a friend since I could get a decent discount for the parts needed in the car's repair. I figured I had no one to really help me in my time of need and if I could change that for one person before leaving this planet I could be at peace. I went into it blindly, all I asked for was some Coronas in spirit with the oldschool style I was used to. We hit it off and have been together since.
This brings my story closer to current times. In January of 2015 I was on my way to military duty, I am a reservist in the Marine Corp, and there was classic Cali winter weather going on: cold and rainy. I wrecked my car at around 4AM in the morning. I was simply commuting to work and wasn't messing around or pushing it. I had been driving for 8 years at this point with no accidents or tickets, not even close to getting pulled over either. It was a back country, one lane in either direction road with the first rain of the season. I still to this day am left with more questions than answers. Did I do something wrong? Could I have prevented it? What if I didn't hit the tree stopping me from a huge drop off a ledge? The wreck hit me hard to be honest. To wreck the one thing that has brought me so much joy was a tough pill to swallow, something I still deal with till this day.
[video=youtube;5jGD_rM0JAA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jGD_rM0JAA[/video]
My Supra was exceptional for me in the 7-8 years of daily driving it, so parting her out is now far out of my mind. She deserves better than that. Never gave me issues, BHG, or left me stranded. It has proven to me that all the BHG horror stories I'd heard growing up were just grown men unable to come to terms with their own errors. After all it is MUCH easier to blame an inanimate object than yourself.
This was the car the day of the wreck before I had time to take a pressure washer to her. My signature image shows the before.
I cleaned her up and started removing broken parts and panels where I could to assess the damage. My carbon fiber hood was astoundingly in one piece and saveable. The hood just like most of the parts on this car have personal history attached to them, it came off of my Dad's Supra and we restored & painted it as it was just sitting in our garage for years.
During the wreck I lost traction on a gradual right hand turn doing about 35MPH(posted limit was 45MPH). As I mentioned earlier the weather and environmental factors were not in my favor so I was going at what I thought was a safe pace simply commuting to work. The back end started to slide out in a clockwise direction, when I attempted to correct this with counter steer and letting off the gas the car went counter-clockwise immediately. I traveled a good 50-60FT completely horizontal taking up both lanes before crashing through a barbed wire fence, going down a grass embankment about 15FT, and finally coming to rest with the passenger side rear wheel taking the full weight of the Supra. It was dark and early morning when this happened, it wasn't until sunrise I realized how serious the damage and outcome could've been. As you'll see at the end of the vid in the first post I was stopped by a downed tree that was already there which acted as a buffer keeping me from falling off a easily 30FT drop. I'm still a little messed up to this day knowing how close it really was.
Damage assessment upon initial inspection:
- Passenger side rear wheel hub and wheel.
- Front fenders and bumper.
- LED headlights damaged.
- Frame damage to both front rails.
- Paint on entire car whipped by barbed wire.
The car is totaled, AGAIN, and I am left with big decisions to make regarding my future with it. I contemplated parting it out and getting out of the Supra scene, but I remembered all of the friends I made along the way and good times we've had. I ultimately decided to rebuild her again. I started the slow process of gathering the parts needed to complete such a task. I was approached by my good friend Nick Stonawki (2JZUL8R), I call him uncle Nick lol, who I had known since I was a kid. He recommended me to a a local shop that could help me out as well as offering his input on how to bounce back from this setback better than ever. I gathered my parts and dropped off the car at AK1 Motorsports in Montclair California in summer of 2015. The car has been there since and this is where the build portion of this topic comes in.
Amazingly there was no serious engine damage other than my radiator support being knocked up and back a little throwing my radiator out of alignment. The car still turned on after the initial wreck and I honestly thought I could drive out of it, when day hit I saw the extent of the true damage but was proud of the brute 7M. Not only that, 6 months later when it came time to transport her to AK1 Motorsports she fired right up first try. The engine was pulled and work began.
The car was sent to a frame shop after the engine pull. This allowed us to see if she was even saveable. They pulled back what they could and good news came back with her, AK1 welded up/repaired the frame and buckled engine bay portions.
With the help of Aaron over at Driftmotion a new core support was sourced and fitted to the car. Big thanks for that man! Progress was literally halted up until this point.
Cuts were made in the radiator support as well as having the lower cross member widened slightly. This will accommodate my new radiator and intercooler.
And finally an initial parts pic of what is actually going back into the car. I chose the Chasebay's 14" Tucked Aluminum radiator for JZ series engines. I chose this radiator because of the compact size and successful use in many JZ swapped 240SX's. Dimensions: 27 1/8" x 13.5" x 3" double pass design with -16AN coolant inlet/outlet. The inlet and outlet will be chopped off and -20AN hardware will be welded to the radiator and engine sides. Fans pictured are standard Mishimoto fans.
I am not going for a full show car so I am having to make budget decisions in regards to parts chosen etc. I have never been one to take on sponsorships as I feel you lose your car in a way when doing that not that I frown upon those that do so, just preference. What you see is simply a kid at heart trying to restore his pride and joy. This wont be a huge power build as I never aspired for that, I prefer the driving experience as whole. I'm hoping finally posting the progress up in full will motivate me to keep at it, it's been in the dark for about a year up until now as have I.
I will be updating this topic as work progresses on the car. For now I leave you with this, I figure those interested will know where it is going, as the title suggests:
All in the pursuit of happiness and to separate from the masses.
This will be a Build Thread of my A70. I've been through a lot with this car, and I think to truly appreciate the situation and my reasons for sticking with her I have to go back in time quite a ways. (Skip ahead if you like)
I have been around a Supra in some shape or form since I was 3 years old, I am 26 going on 27 this October 2016 and Supras remain a constant in my life. Before I knew what a Supra even really was I always knew it as "The car Dad gets mad at us for if we park our bikes too close" lol. That said I took it for granted in my early days as kid, it wasn't until later in high school where I started to have a vested interest. Up until that point in high school though I got to experience what I call the "Golden Age" of the Supra community (SILV & SOGI days). Looking back it seems like there was always someone over at our house working on their car with my dad (Larry_A). This was a simpler time when people helped each other out because it was the kind thing to do and for the experience, I'm talking exchanging wrench time for a few Coronas here and there. I picked up some basic wrenching skills working on my Dad's A70 with him, I also got to go through the demons that come with modding a car past it's limits through his car. We Jokingly called it the "Millenium Falcon" due to how his hand vented hood looked and how it always seemed to act up at the most inopportune moments. One second it would work like a dream, the next my Dad would literally just wiggle the harness here and there to get it to start. She made around 450WHP @ about 470LBS of torque in 2001. This was before JZ swaps were common and the information to do so was easily accessible.
My Dad ultimately got out of the Supra scene, it was his only car and daily driver. To put it how he did he got "tired of driving a racecar" on the street. The interior was partially gutted in a manner where the factory panels could no longer go back, that coupled with solid motor mounts and flakk from my mom was what ended that era. I still vividly remember the day that A70 was sent off to the scrap yard, my Dad was changed for sure as was I. Loosing what I saw metaphorically as an inanimate family member which was always present in my upbringing was tough.
Fast forward to my high school years (2003-2007ish). My Dad kept a select few parts along with his engine in hopes of parting it out. He sat on them a little too long and JZ swaps started becoming a common thing. He needed a car for work so he ended up buying a non running A70 from NorCal. We transplanted what we could into it and once again he had a running Supra. This briefly brought him back into the scene and every now and then we'd go to meets again like in my childhood and once again fellow Supra owners would hangout and work on their cars at our house.
Enter my Supra. I remember it clearly, June 18th 2007, I was sleeping in and my Dad bursts into my room waking me up. "Hey do you want a Supra?" I heard in my groggy state of mind, I said "yeah sure" thinking he was joking and went back to sleep thinking nothing of it. Later on when I finally got up he explained that he wasn't kidding. A good friend of his, Michael Bringle, had recently been rear ended at a stop light by a woman on her phone driving an Excursion, estimated speed of travel 45MPH. Mike had been around our place a few times prior, he and my Dad swapped out his auto transmission for an R154 right in our driveway. He is the owner and operator of the CygnusX1 website that many A70 owners have come to use and link others to for the TSRM and other info. I was familiar with the car itself but was skeptical of the damage and if it was really worth repairing. Mike stated he was going to part her out, this was when we stepped in and offered to buy the car as is for a Father Son project of sorts. We ended up saving the car from being parted out and brought her home to begin the repair process.
Insurance totaled the car due to the age of the vehicle and market value. There was no serious frame damage and we ended up replacing these parts:
- Hatch
- Tail Lights
- Bumper & Bumper Cover
- Gas tank
- 3 Piece Factory Spoiler
That was about it. The rest was paint and body work to clean up the scuffs, dents, and scratches. Upon completion of the restoration we ran into harness issues. The car refused to start despite us not having touched anything related to the engine or harness. My Dad and I were stumped and to be honest we almost gave up at one point. It was then we remembered we had a spare engine harness tucked away in our attic full of Supra parts. Long story short with a little bit of modification and a few long nights we got the new harness in and the car passed inspection allowing it to be registered again as a street car.
(Me far right lol)
The next few years 2009-2012ish were just blissful for me. The local SoCal Supra scene was at it's strongest and we went to every show, meet, get together posssible. I am grateful for all the friends and Supra fam I meet in the process and I owe it to that common bond we all share, the love of Supras. Several years went by with the pace of meets and get togethers slowing down. In late 2013 I met my girlfriend, Dez, a fellow Supra owner in need of help getting her car running again (A80). I was working at a Toyota dealership at the time and was approached by a friend since I could get a decent discount for the parts needed in the car's repair. I figured I had no one to really help me in my time of need and if I could change that for one person before leaving this planet I could be at peace. I went into it blindly, all I asked for was some Coronas in spirit with the oldschool style I was used to. We hit it off and have been together since.
This brings my story closer to current times. In January of 2015 I was on my way to military duty, I am a reservist in the Marine Corp, and there was classic Cali winter weather going on: cold and rainy. I wrecked my car at around 4AM in the morning. I was simply commuting to work and wasn't messing around or pushing it. I had been driving for 8 years at this point with no accidents or tickets, not even close to getting pulled over either. It was a back country, one lane in either direction road with the first rain of the season. I still to this day am left with more questions than answers. Did I do something wrong? Could I have prevented it? What if I didn't hit the tree stopping me from a huge drop off a ledge? The wreck hit me hard to be honest. To wreck the one thing that has brought me so much joy was a tough pill to swallow, something I still deal with till this day.
[video=youtube;5jGD_rM0JAA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jGD_rM0JAA[/video]
My Supra was exceptional for me in the 7-8 years of daily driving it, so parting her out is now far out of my mind. She deserves better than that. Never gave me issues, BHG, or left me stranded. It has proven to me that all the BHG horror stories I'd heard growing up were just grown men unable to come to terms with their own errors. After all it is MUCH easier to blame an inanimate object than yourself.
This was the car the day of the wreck before I had time to take a pressure washer to her. My signature image shows the before.
I cleaned her up and started removing broken parts and panels where I could to assess the damage. My carbon fiber hood was astoundingly in one piece and saveable. The hood just like most of the parts on this car have personal history attached to them, it came off of my Dad's Supra and we restored & painted it as it was just sitting in our garage for years.
During the wreck I lost traction on a gradual right hand turn doing about 35MPH(posted limit was 45MPH). As I mentioned earlier the weather and environmental factors were not in my favor so I was going at what I thought was a safe pace simply commuting to work. The back end started to slide out in a clockwise direction, when I attempted to correct this with counter steer and letting off the gas the car went counter-clockwise immediately. I traveled a good 50-60FT completely horizontal taking up both lanes before crashing through a barbed wire fence, going down a grass embankment about 15FT, and finally coming to rest with the passenger side rear wheel taking the full weight of the Supra. It was dark and early morning when this happened, it wasn't until sunrise I realized how serious the damage and outcome could've been. As you'll see at the end of the vid in the first post I was stopped by a downed tree that was already there which acted as a buffer keeping me from falling off a easily 30FT drop. I'm still a little messed up to this day knowing how close it really was.
Damage assessment upon initial inspection:
- Passenger side rear wheel hub and wheel.
- Front fenders and bumper.
- LED headlights damaged.
- Frame damage to both front rails.
- Paint on entire car whipped by barbed wire.
The car is totaled, AGAIN, and I am left with big decisions to make regarding my future with it. I contemplated parting it out and getting out of the Supra scene, but I remembered all of the friends I made along the way and good times we've had. I ultimately decided to rebuild her again. I started the slow process of gathering the parts needed to complete such a task. I was approached by my good friend Nick Stonawki (2JZUL8R), I call him uncle Nick lol, who I had known since I was a kid. He recommended me to a a local shop that could help me out as well as offering his input on how to bounce back from this setback better than ever. I gathered my parts and dropped off the car at AK1 Motorsports in Montclair California in summer of 2015. The car has been there since and this is where the build portion of this topic comes in.
Amazingly there was no serious engine damage other than my radiator support being knocked up and back a little throwing my radiator out of alignment. The car still turned on after the initial wreck and I honestly thought I could drive out of it, when day hit I saw the extent of the true damage but was proud of the brute 7M. Not only that, 6 months later when it came time to transport her to AK1 Motorsports she fired right up first try. The engine was pulled and work began.
The car was sent to a frame shop after the engine pull. This allowed us to see if she was even saveable. They pulled back what they could and good news came back with her, AK1 welded up/repaired the frame and buckled engine bay portions.
With the help of Aaron over at Driftmotion a new core support was sourced and fitted to the car. Big thanks for that man! Progress was literally halted up until this point.
Cuts were made in the radiator support as well as having the lower cross member widened slightly. This will accommodate my new radiator and intercooler.
And finally an initial parts pic of what is actually going back into the car. I chose the Chasebay's 14" Tucked Aluminum radiator for JZ series engines. I chose this radiator because of the compact size and successful use in many JZ swapped 240SX's. Dimensions: 27 1/8" x 13.5" x 3" double pass design with -16AN coolant inlet/outlet. The inlet and outlet will be chopped off and -20AN hardware will be welded to the radiator and engine sides. Fans pictured are standard Mishimoto fans.
I am not going for a full show car so I am having to make budget decisions in regards to parts chosen etc. I have never been one to take on sponsorships as I feel you lose your car in a way when doing that not that I frown upon those that do so, just preference. What you see is simply a kid at heart trying to restore his pride and joy. This wont be a huge power build as I never aspired for that, I prefer the driving experience as whole. I'm hoping finally posting the progress up in full will motivate me to keep at it, it's been in the dark for about a year up until now as have I.
I will be updating this topic as work progresses on the car. For now I leave you with this, I figure those interested will know where it is going, as the title suggests:
All in the pursuit of happiness and to separate from the masses.
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