Since that time I have owned 9 second generation Supras all together, 4 of them being parts cars. Most I only kept for 1-2 years mostly due to financial constraints and mechanical ignorance. It took a long time and a lot of trial and error with maintenance and modification, but I can now comfortably say I am fairly knowledgeable in these cars and their quirks.
In September of 2007, a friend of a friend made me aware of a Supra being given away a few towns over. We promptly went over to check it out, and agreed to pick up the car in the next day or so.
It didn't take long for me to clean it up a bit. I removed the terrible high offset Eagle wheels, washed the car, replaced the mismatching interior pieces.
And soon started to make the car my own with various rare pieces, like custom made clear turn signals and JDM/Euro/ADM market rear vents.
And of course, I took pictures of it ALL THE TIME.
The longer I owned the car, the more I found out about it's fairly sketchy past. It was a JANUARY 1985 automatic, with grey cloth seats, originally. Someone thought it would be a good idea to put grey leather door inserts in the car instead of the original cloth. Also, probably the same owner, the stock coil springs had been heated to lower the car.
While overall the car looked evenly lowered, it was definitely higher on one side. The shocks were also original, so therefor had the original long strong and frequently bottomed out the rear shocks if there was any weight at all in the back.
At some point in the car's past, it looks to have been t-boned slightly, just enough to warrant tremendously awful bodywork on the driver's side door, a replacement door glass, and an abyssmal repaint where they painted over all the side moldings and headlight protectors. This damage, and subsequently shoddy repair, opened the way for some nasty rust to start creeping in that was not apparent at all upon first inspecting the car.
I eventually acquired some 15x7 Enkei 92 mesh wheels which I, at first, loved. Until I found out how warped they were. I could not get them balanced right and the car vibrated terribly. I kept them for as long as I could stand before selling them, and took a bunch of pictures before letting them go.
In January of 2008, I had found a 6MGE engine block on Craigslist for $50. Unfortunately the crank, pistons and rods were all wasted, but I slowly began to acquire the parts necessary to rebuild this engine.
Engine Info:
- 6MGE
- bored .030"/ .75mm
- 84+ high compression domed cast pistons
- rods resized
- internals balanced
- 7MGE harmonic balancer
- 6MGE intake manifold
- Trust/Greddy 1 5/8" primary 6-2-1 header
- first started 4/20/2008
- 155rwhp 175rwtq upon initial break-in 5/15/08
- 164rwhp 188rwtq timing and AFM adjusted 5/15/09
- 168rwhp 180rwtq as 4/19/2014 (bigger tires = loss of torque at the wheels)
In May 2009 I drove the car from Washington state to Florida in one of my greatest adventures. I met a great many of people I had known for years only through celicasupra.com. I ran into some minor trouble in Texas (busted coolant hose) and then in the Florida panhandle (what I thought was a fuel pump issue was a clogged catalytic converter).
Below are some terrible quality pictures I took of my journey with my broken camera.
Once in Florida, I promptly took the car out to the Everglades for sightseeing.
I got a few more photoshoots in before I found a new set of wheels to replace the stockers.
To be continued.... (long story is LONG)
