A little history... Ive known this car for about 10 years and always wanted to own it, even though ive had several of my own i always liked this one. it belonged to a friend of mine and started out as a stock 7MGTE. He then swapped it to a 1JZ then put a 63mm single on it, then sold that motor and built the 1.5JZ and put it back to stock twins to run at Texas 2K8 in the stock twins class. The car ran a few passes but had to retire due to a burned up clutch. In that form the car made 382WHP and 412ft/lb at 18psi. Shortly after texas it was sold to a local kid who begged my friend to sell it to him, he was a total douchebag and ran the dog piss out of it racing anything he could find on the street... the car was a monster on the street and word quickly spread around town about it. Eventually though the kid lost his license racing and when the ECU went out for the 2nd time he parked it for almost 3 years under a tree. Over the years ive kept tabs on it and wanted to restore it to its former glory so i decided to go talk to the kid about buying it from him.... when i saw it sitting under the tree with flat tires,no ecu,covered in dirt and leaves i almost gave up but for some reason i had to have it. After talking to the kid for a while he said he would sell it as he had no plans for it and would rather have the cash than a car rotting under a tree.
Here is what it looked like when i acquired it in March 2012...
The car was then towed to the house of the guy that built it (previous to the kid) and all the fluids were drained and filled, another 1JZ ECU was sourced and installed and the car was brought back from the dead into "running condition"
Here is a vid of the resurrection :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm4EyUfvhAc
After this the car was driven for a week or 2 and i noticed the tranny had bad synchros and then the bearings went out in it
So it got towed back to the shop again...
This time i replaced the tranny with one that had low milage and i filled it with redline gear oil.
I also sent the clutch (stage 3+) back to SPEC to be refinished while it was out..
And new brakes all around...
I also did some small mods like remove that useless factory boost gauge and replace with with a useful voltage gauge from an N/A
I also ditched the ugly 4 spoke airbag wheel and replaced it with an 89 3 spoke (same wheel used in canada and europe until 92)
I also picked up a set of polished TT rims to replace the WELDS that were on it as the cookie cutters on the front werent very good for street use.
At this point i was trying to make a weekend race at ZMAX with some co workers who all owned domestics and were doing some trash talking so i left the welds on the back because they had almost new nitto drag radials on them so i figured id rather burn the rubber off of those than the tires on the TT rims.
Finally got her ready for the race at the last min. Here she is getting ready....
This is the group i went with... New SS, New 5.0,etc.. they all "joked" that my car would probably be the fastest one...
At the track...
Running the NITTO's on the welds was a HUGE mistake!! NO TRACTION what so ever in fact i had to turn the boost down. The car was faster at 11psi than it was at 18psi...
here is me (right lane, car 50) running 11psi (stock boost) vs. the new 5.0 which was the fastest car of their group...
HAHA looks like the joke was on them!!! Or maybe its on me cause now i have to wear a helmet the rest of the night :/
Overall the night went well, i couldnt better my time or gain any traction ( i think the tires were old/hard) but i had fun anyway. However during the beating the oil seals went bad on one of the turbos.
I drove it home and the next day the first thing was to get rid of these:
And install these:
Here is what it looked like when i acquired it in March 2012...
The car was then towed to the house of the guy that built it (previous to the kid) and all the fluids were drained and filled, another 1JZ ECU was sourced and installed and the car was brought back from the dead into "running condition"
Here is a vid of the resurrection :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm4EyUfvhAc
After this the car was driven for a week or 2 and i noticed the tranny had bad synchros and then the bearings went out in it
So it got towed back to the shop again...
This time i replaced the tranny with one that had low milage and i filled it with redline gear oil.
I also sent the clutch (stage 3+) back to SPEC to be refinished while it was out..
And new brakes all around...
I also did some small mods like remove that useless factory boost gauge and replace with with a useful voltage gauge from an N/A
I also ditched the ugly 4 spoke airbag wheel and replaced it with an 89 3 spoke (same wheel used in canada and europe until 92)
I also picked up a set of polished TT rims to replace the WELDS that were on it as the cookie cutters on the front werent very good for street use.
At this point i was trying to make a weekend race at ZMAX with some co workers who all owned domestics and were doing some trash talking so i left the welds on the back because they had almost new nitto drag radials on them so i figured id rather burn the rubber off of those than the tires on the TT rims.
Finally got her ready for the race at the last min. Here she is getting ready....
This is the group i went with... New SS, New 5.0,etc.. they all "joked" that my car would probably be the fastest one...
At the track...
Running the NITTO's on the welds was a HUGE mistake!! NO TRACTION what so ever in fact i had to turn the boost down. The car was faster at 11psi than it was at 18psi...
here is me (right lane, car 50) running 11psi (stock boost) vs. the new 5.0 which was the fastest car of their group...
HAHA looks like the joke was on them!!! Or maybe its on me cause now i have to wear a helmet the rest of the night :/
Overall the night went well, i couldnt better my time or gain any traction ( i think the tires were old/hard) but i had fun anyway. However during the beating the oil seals went bad on one of the turbos.
I drove it home and the next day the first thing was to get rid of these:
And install these:
Last edited:
