Well I guess it’s time for me to start my build thread because it won’t be long before I’m in need of major help and one thread to put all of my questions and planning in is probably the way to go. Plus, it’ll be fun to look back as the project progresses and see where I started from and where I end up.
I guess a little history wouldn’t hurt. I bought my first Supra, an 88 Turbo, back in ’98 when I was just a 20 yr old broke college kid. The car didn’t run when I got it – had a bad turbo, bad CPS, blown headgasket, and some creative engineering work under the hood. Well a solid week of working on it along with some healthy credit card debt and I was rolling.
My mods consisted of a manual boost controller, gutted cats, K&N fipk, springs/struts/swaybars/rims. Just enough to make a young guy drive his car so hard that things break. Here’s a pic of the ol’ beast in it’s heyday:
Well in early ’04, after spending a never-ending fortune fixing things that go wrong with a 16+ year old car I got frustrated and, on a whim, parked it in exchange for a GrandAm. Although I felt all grown up with a more adult car it didn’t take long for me to realize how much I missed the Supra and how much I hate American cars - but I put it out of mind and didn’t think about the Supra much for the next 3 years. Then a few months ago I bought Forza 2 for my Xbox and within 3 days of racing my virtual Supra I was negotiating with people on eBay and Craigslist for a targa top shell to rebuild using my ol’ Supra as a parts-car.
Here’s what I found:
An ’87 Turbo that runs and had a brand-new bodykit with it. Again, on impulse (and since it was dirt cheap and only 45 minutes away) I scooped it up without really checking it out – solid body my ass, dude did a good job hiding some of the not-so-solid parts of the body (especially the driver’s side rear wheel well):
Hopefully that’s the worst of it, no worries tho, I’ve got a friend who’s a professional bodyman at the Toyota dealership and will be helping out in exchange for beer.
The future plans for this project, as Yoda would say, are always in motion. We’ll probably start with getting the body-work done, then paint. I plan to gut it completely and take it pretty much down to the shell and cut out any rust so there’s no nasty surprises in the future. I’ll be pulling the springs and struts off the parts-car along with the sway bars, probably the blue interior, the new’ish turbo, the head, who knows what else. I really have no idea where this project is going to take me, I know I don’t like the primer color exterior or the maroon interior so all that will have to go.
Before the engine goes in I plan to have a full 3” exhaust and an intercooler+pipes upgrade, probably a lexus afm and an afpr etc… I’m shooting for late April ’08 for the ‘new’ Supra to be road-worthy, hopefully…
Here’s how they were last week, no engine in the blue ‘parts car’ at that point and the bumper just set on the grey car:
I guess a little history wouldn’t hurt. I bought my first Supra, an 88 Turbo, back in ’98 when I was just a 20 yr old broke college kid. The car didn’t run when I got it – had a bad turbo, bad CPS, blown headgasket, and some creative engineering work under the hood. Well a solid week of working on it along with some healthy credit card debt and I was rolling.
My mods consisted of a manual boost controller, gutted cats, K&N fipk, springs/struts/swaybars/rims. Just enough to make a young guy drive his car so hard that things break. Here’s a pic of the ol’ beast in it’s heyday:
Well in early ’04, after spending a never-ending fortune fixing things that go wrong with a 16+ year old car I got frustrated and, on a whim, parked it in exchange for a GrandAm. Although I felt all grown up with a more adult car it didn’t take long for me to realize how much I missed the Supra and how much I hate American cars - but I put it out of mind and didn’t think about the Supra much for the next 3 years. Then a few months ago I bought Forza 2 for my Xbox and within 3 days of racing my virtual Supra I was negotiating with people on eBay and Craigslist for a targa top shell to rebuild using my ol’ Supra as a parts-car.
Here’s what I found:
An ’87 Turbo that runs and had a brand-new bodykit with it. Again, on impulse (and since it was dirt cheap and only 45 minutes away) I scooped it up without really checking it out – solid body my ass, dude did a good job hiding some of the not-so-solid parts of the body (especially the driver’s side rear wheel well):
Hopefully that’s the worst of it, no worries tho, I’ve got a friend who’s a professional bodyman at the Toyota dealership and will be helping out in exchange for beer.
The future plans for this project, as Yoda would say, are always in motion. We’ll probably start with getting the body-work done, then paint. I plan to gut it completely and take it pretty much down to the shell and cut out any rust so there’s no nasty surprises in the future. I’ll be pulling the springs and struts off the parts-car along with the sway bars, probably the blue interior, the new’ish turbo, the head, who knows what else. I really have no idea where this project is going to take me, I know I don’t like the primer color exterior or the maroon interior so all that will have to go.
Before the engine goes in I plan to have a full 3” exhaust and an intercooler+pipes upgrade, probably a lexus afm and an afpr etc… I’m shooting for late April ’08 for the ‘new’ Supra to be road-worthy, hopefully…
Here’s how they were last week, no engine in the blue ‘parts car’ at that point and the bumper just set on the grey car:
