You probably won't remember me. I had a mint 90 Supra turbo about four years ago:
It proceeded to blow a head gasket on it's first trip home to my place, which I repaired with a head skim, composition gasket and ARP fasteners:
That went fine for about 2 weeks, then this caused a massive overheat:
I couldn't trust the car after that (even though it ran well), so I cashed out. I didn't want to be holding the 7MGTE hand grenade when the pin fell out....
And since then I've known that the Mk3's and I had unfinished business, but the 7MGTE was too frail/finicky/tight in the engine bay around the turbo/exhaust for me to own again (of course, 20+ years of uncaring owners doesn't help a 7MGTE stay alive, nor does ricers boosting the crap out of em when stock).
I'd eye off the very pleasant mk3 shape every time I saw one and think, then remember my red car....and put the thought away.
Anyway, now I own something reasonably fast, I have been looking at asshats butchering Mk3's, turning really nice original cars into poorly performing, dangerous heaps of rice that ended up being parted out for $200 and a crack ball.
I've been watching Mk2's climb in price alarmingly and being harder to find in the last two years and decided now was the time to try and find an umolested Mk3, else they all disappear.
So I managed to pick one up yesterday, it's a 7M non turbo auto and will stay that way. No photos at the moment, it has yet to be transported to me. Plan is to tidy up interior and exterior, pull engine and trans, ship trans off for a rebuild, pull head off for the obligatory preventative head gasket/hardware swap, throw in new welch plugs and seals and reassemble. The engine it apparently is fairly low mileage (oddly, the original engine blew a head gasket). If I disassemble and find it really needs a rebore or a bearing is toast, I'll do that too. If it needs new pistons, I might bump the compression and use E85.
The plan for the car is a nice stock looking Supra with mild performance enhancements to braking and suspension, these are GT cars, not sports cars. It will be a nice weekend tourer that will have the ability to be fun on tight roads. I'll leave going really fast and ruining cars to other people who are much better at it than I am.
It proceeded to blow a head gasket on it's first trip home to my place, which I repaired with a head skim, composition gasket and ARP fasteners:
That went fine for about 2 weeks, then this caused a massive overheat:
I couldn't trust the car after that (even though it ran well), so I cashed out. I didn't want to be holding the 7MGTE hand grenade when the pin fell out....
And since then I've known that the Mk3's and I had unfinished business, but the 7MGTE was too frail/finicky/tight in the engine bay around the turbo/exhaust for me to own again (of course, 20+ years of uncaring owners doesn't help a 7MGTE stay alive, nor does ricers boosting the crap out of em when stock).
I'd eye off the very pleasant mk3 shape every time I saw one and think, then remember my red car....and put the thought away.
Anyway, now I own something reasonably fast, I have been looking at asshats butchering Mk3's, turning really nice original cars into poorly performing, dangerous heaps of rice that ended up being parted out for $200 and a crack ball.
I've been watching Mk2's climb in price alarmingly and being harder to find in the last two years and decided now was the time to try and find an umolested Mk3, else they all disappear.
So I managed to pick one up yesterday, it's a 7M non turbo auto and will stay that way. No photos at the moment, it has yet to be transported to me. Plan is to tidy up interior and exterior, pull engine and trans, ship trans off for a rebuild, pull head off for the obligatory preventative head gasket/hardware swap, throw in new welch plugs and seals and reassemble. The engine it apparently is fairly low mileage (oddly, the original engine blew a head gasket). If I disassemble and find it really needs a rebore or a bearing is toast, I'll do that too. If it needs new pistons, I might bump the compression and use E85.
The plan for the car is a nice stock looking Supra with mild performance enhancements to braking and suspension, these are GT cars, not sports cars. It will be a nice weekend tourer that will have the ability to be fun on tight roads. I'll leave going really fast and ruining cars to other people who are much better at it than I am.
