Finally brought my Supra home!, '97 TT 6 speed Options

[richee3]

As much as we all dream of picking up a twin turbo Supra, Brigette and I were able to make it happen this weekend. Things started falling into place a few months ago so we sold our 350Z to make room to bring home my dream car. I still miss the 350Z on a daily basis, don't get me wrong. I loved that car and I plan on picking another one up in a few years, but I'm not in a place where I can have two RWD sports cars so I had to let it go. But I believe this is worth it. HUGE thanks to Dustin and Stef for going to check this car out for me before I flew up to Boston to pick it up! They were VERY thorough with the car.

It's a bone stock 1997 (so 15th anniversary limited edition), twin turbo, six speed, Targa top, 77k miles on the clock, Deep Jewel Green. It has some minor imperfections, but it's exactly what I wanted. It's a car that I'm not afraid to get out of the garage 7 days a week, rain or shine, and daily drive. So without further ado, PIKCHARS!














Of course, I wasted no time in yanking the stock radio out and putting a Pioneer touch screen in. Hey, it's a long drive home from Boston. Gotta listen to the music on my phone somehow, plus the stock radio is lame. Truth be told, I ordered the radio, soldered the harness together, then shipped the radio up to Dustin and Stef and installed it right before the CSP meet. Then we got home a little earlier today, and I put some LED's from Diode Dynamics in the license plate lights. I've had a 7th gen steering wheel sitting around for a few months waiting to go in this car. I was going to do the same project as my Celica and make the E shift buttons work as volume control for the radio, but I may end up selling this wheel and buying one without the buttons. I'm undecided.




Along with the car, I got an insane amount of documentation. Stef printed off the Carfax and the Toyota dealership records for the car, which is pretty comprehensive. Targa seals recently replaced, tail shaft seal replaced, pretty new clutch and rear brakes. What I didn't know is that the seller had receipts and invoices for all of this, as well as the original window sticker, wallet key, a Carfax from a few years ago, the brochure for the car bra that came with the car, and loads of other goodies. So, with everything set in place, Brigette and I bought some plane tickets and flew up to Boston to pick the car up, just in time ti catch the CSP meet. All in all it was a great trip, the car drove fantastic, and I couldn't be any happier.

So with all of that said, I'll go ahead and answer the inevitable questions in advance.

How much did you pay for it?
Enough to bring it home.

Is it fast?
Oh yeah, it hauls. It won't blow your mind, thanks to a 3,400 lb curb weight and 320 hp stock. But a few basics free up a decent amount of power, which totally transforms the car.

Are you going to build it to a trillion horsepower?
Highly unlikely. I'm leaning towards leaving it stock. If I do anything to it, it'll be BPU so I can easily return it to stock.

So now that you own a Supra, are you going to become an a**hole?
Not at all. It's just a car, no reason to think it's better than anyone else's car.

Can I have/buy your Celica?
GTFO with that talk. The Celica is still my baby, and is still going under the knife for some more improvements soon.

So, there's my new toy. Enjoy!

[richee3]

Bit of an update. I don't guess I can really call the car stock anymore. I've had an intake and downpipe on for a little while but over the last few weeks I've gotten a bit more done. Started with a boost gauge and manual boost controller. For whatever reason, Toyota felt that it was best that these cars did not come with a factory boost gauge. Instead, they offer you a clock in a perfect circle that just so happens to be 52 mm.... Or the same size as most boost gauges. Potato quality pictures but you get the idea.







I'm still playing with the mbc and trying to get it set at 14.5 lbs. I hit boost cut at 14.7 so I want to give myself a little room to play with. It seems like no matter how many times I try, I'm either at wastegate pressure of 11.7 psi or else I hit boost cut in third gear. Still gotta play with that some more and find the sweet spot.

Regardless, the increase of a couple psi was highly addictive, so Mr. Ngo got me hooked up with an HKS Super Drager exhaust. It's comically gigantic but damn it sounds good! And it's not loud at all, which is a major plus for me since I can't stand loud exhaust.






That was too much chrome for me and attracted way too much attention so I painted the body of the muffler black to somewhat hide it underneath the car. Had to leave the gigantic tip chrome because it sticks so far out. Getting the turbo back exhaust finished up really woke the car up. I used to tell people it wasn't a 0-60 car and that fourth gear is where the fun began. I definitely can't stay that anymore. This thing is starting to haul ass!

I finally took the time last weekend to tackle another project that has been bothering me. The brake calipers look like complete crap and give the car's age away. Nothing some Duplicolor caliper paint can't fix.








Still have to get rid of the horribly destroyed chrome wheels but that's a project for next year. When Alex shipped the exhaust up here, he also hooked me up with a Greddy boost cut defender. That will let me turn the boost up past 1 bar (14.7 psi) without hitting boost cut. I haven't gotten it hooked up yet since I am still having some difficulty getting my mbc set just right. No need to destroy my cute little baby turbos because of a minor oversight with a manual boost controller.




Get that hooked up, turn the boost up to 18 psi, and get new spark plugs and I should be around 400-450 whp. Which will be fun, but time to park it. I'm already making it way too thirsty.