Donor

Today I picked up a second Supra to be used as a parts car. It's a 1987 non-turbo automatic MA70 with a blown motor. The previous owner doesn't know what happened to it, other than telling me that he "turned off overdrive and started to rip it, then the engine started knocking". I'm not overly worried since the drivetrain of the car has nothing to do with what I need the car for anyway. The body is in very good condition, so almost all of the body parts I need will be coming from this car, with the exception of the front bumper and the spoiler, because it is the older style. Some visual things changed in 1989 and newer Supras, so this one still has the older style, which I'm not really into, and I'd like to keep my car looking the way it does as much as possible. Here's a picture of the parts car I took before leaving, I'll be going back to pick it up some time this week and take it to storage with the JZA70.

I had a quick look underneath and some stuff appears to be rusty, which isn't great news for me getting my subframe in good condition, but at the very least I can get all my body parts and the whole interior which I need for insurance purposes. The rest of the parts will be sold off in a part out on a few Supra forums, to try and help out other Supra owners frantically looking for parts like I was before I found this.
That's all I have for today, hopefully I can get this Supra over to storage soon to hang out with the other one, then get them both up to where I'm keeping them and start swapping things over. Oh, and this one's name is Beyonce, since it will be spending all it's time with my JZ. :)

Storage

Well today was somewhat successful, it really depends how you look at it I suppose. On the good side, the car is now sitting in storage and out of my garage (so I get a nice warm car in the mornings). But on the bad side, the car sustained a little bit of damage on it's way in, and definitely caused a few headaches getting it there. For the most part everything worked out though, as I'll now explain.

Basically we followed the same plan we came up with yesterday with the flatbed driver, and it worked out perfectly. My friend Tyson came over to lend a hand around 3 and we attempted to roll the car down the driveway on the wheel dollies I put it on last night. It's a very heavy car, so pushing it out of the garage didn't work, go figure the car wouldn't even roll down a hill on it's own. We later realized this was probably because we left the brakes on the wheel dollies, which caused one corner to bend in.
We ended up using the tow hooks to tie the back of the Supra to the CRV and pull it down the driveway, which ended up working until we got to where the driveway met the sidewalk. At that point we decided to pull the dollies out (since they weren't moving anyway) and let the car roll back over the crack. We ended up doing the same thing as on Monday with jacking the car up every few feet and straightening the damaged wheel, letting it down, rolling, and repeating when it bent again. It took probably 10-15 times of doing this before we had it far enough out into the street that I could drive it forwards and straighten it. I can't complain about that though, it was the first time I've actually driven my car under it's own power since I got it, which even though was only moving it forward a few feet, was a pretty good feeling.
Another thing we came across while dragging the car down the driveway was a pretty nasty leak coming from the car. I know that the exhaust has been dripping, which I still have to assume is condensation, but this time it was coming from the engine bay. It turned out to be oil dripping, which had me very worried, but after checking it out it looks like it's a bad fitting or something on the oil line going into the rad. That was quite a relief to say the least.

Once we got the car out on the road, we called John the flatbed guy through CAA to come hook us up on his truck and then sat around for a while waiting, hoping that everything would be good. We packed all our goodies in the cars, like the wheel dollies, floor jack, a bunch of tools, booster cables, 2x4's, a baseball bat to hold the hood up, and a couple other things. Here's a picture of the Supra having a few minutes in the sun before going away for a while.

Once the flatbed arrived we wasted no time getting the car loaded up. It went on forwards as planned, the winch hooked onto the tow points beneath the bumper and pulled the car up without a problem, didn't even scrape the exhaust on the ground which is a first, especially considering how low it hangs. Driving the car forward is no problem for the damaged rear wheel, so everything stayed in line going up the flatbed, but as soon as he connected the hooks to the back tow points and brought it forward on the winch a bit to settle the car down, the wheel slid right out to the side again. In the first picture here I was attempting to steer it straight onto the flatbed so it didn't tumble off the side, and the second is the Supra sitting waiting to be secured.

Once we got to the storage place everything went surprisingly well. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures there, but I'll do my best to explain it.
We put the floor jack on the deck of the flatbed and jacked it up with the winch holding the car from rolling back down and inserted the wheel dollies underneath the rear wheels, then let it down and started letting the car down with the winch. We ended up running into a bit of a problem with the dollies getting to the bottom of the deck and the car would try and roll right out of the dollies, then we realized the brake was not on. Once we put that on everything went smoothly and the truck drove right out from under the car.

Now was my next chance to drive it. We shovelled out infront of my storage spot to make room, then attempted to drive the Supra in. As I've been noticing with this car, nothing is quite as easy as it seems, and that definitely proved true for this. Since there was zero traction with the fairly bald tires and snow and ice beneath, the wheels were spinning a little bit, which caused the bad wheel to fold in. As we were going forward, the rear left wheel was just slipping while the rear right was driving all bent, so the car was basically driving diagonally.
We got the CRV to storage and roped it up to the Supra and pulled it straight on with the door to the storage in hopes of that helping, and it did, because pulling it straightened up the wheel too. I tried driving in while Tyson and my Dad pushed on the back to help me with a bit of traction. It worked great and the front end went in without a problem, but unfortunately as the back end was coming in and hit the lip of the storage container, the rear wheel folded in again, which pushed the car over sideways and it hit the side of the container. That did some pretty bad paint damage to the rear molding and the quarter panel, which I didn't get around to taking a picture of because I was just too frustrated at that point. We weren't able to get the car moved from that position since it couldn't go backwards, so we just jacked it up in place and straightened the wheel, and drove the rest of the way in rubbing the side on the edge of the container.
It was terrible hearing that noise, but on the bright side of things, I got to use my power folding mirrors to help me fit the Supra into the small storage container! It's nice to have them there for something useful.

That's really the only updates I have for now, but it will be in storage until mid-March when it will be moved to it's other location where it will be worked on. I'm also toying with the idea of picking up a second Supra for parts, since finding a part out that will include an entire rear subframe is no easy task! Next part I can be expecting besides that will be my DriftMotion intercooler kit for stock twins, and the turbo timer harness for my HKS Type-0. Updates will be here as I have them!

Unsuccessful

Today we attempted to get the Supra out of my garage and into my new storage space, but didn't really have much luck. The Supra is driven forward into my garage, so to get it out, it needs to be reversed. But when reversing the car, since it's missing the lower control arm, the wheel starts to fold outward. My friend Brian and I decided to pick up some wheel dollies to put under the rear wheels from Canadian Tire for $70, and they ended up working really well (even though it took me a little while to figure out how to put them together properly). They didn't exactly do what I intended for them to do, but they're going to come in really handy tomorrow.

Originally the plan was to roll the car up the flatbed with the dollies, but I hadn't really thought about it, because the flatbeds have ridges on the bed which the wheels of the dollies wouldn't go up. There's also a decent sized lip at the bottom which wouldn't work either.
The initial flatbed driver called in another guy who has a smooth back on the truck, without the ridges, so he came over and basically said "you're fucked", because there was no way it was going to work. Then he thought of a really good idea that we'll be using tomorrow. We are going to use the dollies to roll the car out to the road and get it lined up, then get it down on the ground, and then the flatbed guy is going to come meet us again with the smooth backed truck. We'll drive it on forwards, since the car rolls okay going straight forwards without much problem from the wheel, then reverse it off at the storage place. We're going to jack up the car and put the dollies back under on the flatbed when we get there, then let it roll down until the dollies can't roll anymore, which will be when they get to the bottom of the flatbed since they'll hit the lip, then we're going to have the flatbed drive out and let the car come down in place, then jack it up again to remove the dollies and drive it right into the storage spot. It sounds like a plan that should work well so hopefully it does!

As for tonight, we just wasted our time getting it jacked up and filling my street with flatbeds only to find it wouldn't work. I did get to start the car up and hear it run for a while though, which is something I can't complain about. With it sitting up on dollies the wheel has really pushed itself out, which is a little painful to look at, but hopefully it gets fixed up soon. Here's a picture:

I climbed around under there when I had it up on the jack just to check out the situation with the control arm, and unfortunately it doesn't look so good. The control arm ripped right through everything down there and looks to have bent the subframe a bit. So for now it's back to researching to see if a MA70 (USDM model of the MK3 Supra) has the same subframe as my car, and if it does then I'll try and find one in a part out to swap in. Here's a picture of the control arm and one of where the subframe is bent at the end of the control arm. You can see how badly it's mangled, I can't even comprehend what he must have been doing to cause that!

That's it for now, until I finally get the car moved over into storage tomorrow. I'll be taking all the tools I need to get this swapped, and be making a few very late night visits to storage and spending a while in there working on it. Most storage places prefer you don't work on your car there, so I'll need to be careful with it, but I'm really hoping to find the parts I need and get that fixed in the next little while. Then all that will need done to get it driving is to get that intercooler kit on there and I'll be good to go for spring!

Home

Well now the JZA70 is home and parked in the garage. It wasn't easy, but it's here.
We arrived at the sellers house around 11:45 and sat around waiting for the CAA flatbed to show up for a little while, contemplating how to get the car out of the garage. We tried to reverse it out under it's own power, but missing the rear half of the rear lower control arm, the wheel just started folding outwards, so that was not going to work, as clearly the car couldn't go backwards. As we were trying to figure this out, a regular tow truck showed up, because apparently asking CAA for a flatbed doesn't actually mean you want a flatbed, so we had to send him away and await them to send the proper tow for the car. At this point we realized how complicated it was actually going to be getting the car out, as there was a big trailer in the way of the garage, so the flatbed wouldn't be able to back right up to it.
Eventually we figured out a way to get it out, which involved reversing it to the point that the wheel was poking out, jacking it and straightening it, then reversing again, and doing so until the car was enough on the snow that we could attach a chain to the rear tow points and slide it sideways past the trailer. In this time the CAA flatbed showed up, and the ridiculously rude driver decided he didn't wait to wait, nor did he want to tow it, because "CAA doesn't pay him to wait". So we basically told him to forget about it.
The seller called a friend with a tow truck who towed me back to Brampton for a more than reasonable price, which worked out great for me. It's a little nervewracking watching your Supra be towed all the way down highway 400 bouncing around on a flatbed. Here's a picture of it sitting at a place it will become quite familiar with once it's running.

Now the car is at home in my garage and I'm just making up a list of everything I'll need to get fixed on it just to get it back to being a Supra again. The main things right now are just to get it running, which would be that LCA and getting an intercooler on there. For the intercooler I'm probably going to go aftermarket to DriftMotion and get some upgraded piping while I'm at it.
As far as the LCA and body parts, I've found a black '87 Supra for sale on Kijiji for $600, that I am really thinking about picking up. This would cover me for throwing in some back seats if I want them, all of my body parts (although they will be the wrong colour), and the suspension stuff that I need. There would be a bit of interior stuff for me, but not much due to the Recaro interior and the right hand drive. Here are two pictures of the interior, the first is the dash and the second is the stock Recaro drivers seat.

That's it for right now. Hopefully I will get this suspension issue sorted out soon and get the car rolling. I'm dying to take it for a drive even if it's just once quickly around the block just to feel how it drives.
I'll leave this off with a couple pictures of it from today.

Sitting in the garage as we found it this morning


Sitting in the snow awaiting the flatbed to bring it home


Sitting in my garage beside the snowy CR-V

The Car

So I've just picked up a JZA70, and have decided to keep track of my progress with a blog. JZA70 is the chassis code for a Japanese MK3 Toyota Supra. I guess I'll start with some general information about the Supra.
MK3 (Mark 3) Supras were made from 1986 until 1992, then after that they switched to the MK4 Supras, which is the version most people will recognize as the one in the fast and furious movie. The ones sold in our half of the world, North America, are MA70's, and came with the 7M motors. My previous Supra was one of these, they're great cars, just unreliable (as you can expect from a 20 year old sports car). My current Supra is a JZA70, which comes with the 1JZ-GTE, a twin turbo 2.5 liter engine. These were only sold in Japan, although it's pretty popular to swap this motor into the MA70 chassis, so you can have it in left hand drive.

So onto the story. On Friday morning I was sitting in my Aircraft Systems Maintenance class, and decided to search Kijiji for "Supra" on my iPhone, as I tend to do a couple times a day just to see what's out there. This time I happened to come across an ad titled "1992 Toyota Supra 1JZ 280 HP Stock". This sparked my interest, hoping that it would be an original JZA70 Supra. Much to my pleasure when I opened it, it was. Mileage read 141,000, and the price was more than reasonable for what it was. Looked down to see the usual "car runs mint with no rust", but you never really know what you can believe in these ads on Kijiji. It also said that it needed the lower control arm and hub replaced, which would be the reason for the low price.
So I responded to the ad through Kijiji, asking if it would be sold with safety and e-test, and if the car was registered in Canada. I received a reply back explaining that it would not, and that it was indeed Canadian registered, but it still has it's Japanese VIN. I replied to that asking some regular questions about things like the differential, what the lower control arm issues were, timing belt and some other generic stuff. I didn't get a proper reply back so I just sent my phone number, and was soon called back by the seller, and we arranged that I would come and check out the car on Monday.
Later in the day a friend (Sina) and I were at the junkyard pulling some parts for his 5th gen Accord, and I decided I'd try and see if we could get up to see the Supra the same day. That ended up working out, so we drove for about an hour and a half up to Barrie in terrible blowing snow and high winds, and checked the car out for half an hour or so. I made my decision on the way back home that I would like to buy it, and went back up the next day with my friend Sue to check it out in the daylight, and drop off a deposit, and we agreed I would show up on Monday with a flatbed to bring the car back home. All worked well, and it is Sunday now, and I have everything prepared to bring it home tomorrow, I'm just hoping for some decent weather so I can get some pictures of my new Supra on a flatbed making it's way down Highway 400!

Anyways, my car is a 1992 (last model year for the MK3 Supra) Twin Turbo R Supra. The "R" spec Supra is built a little differently, with stuff like a Torsen type differential with more braces, a full Recaro interior, better suspension and more. It's the lightest of the MK3 Supras, it is also quite rare, as I've heard only 500 were produced. It's also a hardtop model, which means it doesn't have the removable (targa) roof which was nice in my previous Supra, but not having it reduces weight, and Supras are known for being very heavy to begin with. It's also got an R154, the same 5 speed manual transmission as was in my previous Supra.

Now onto specifics. The one I've purchased isn't in the greatest condition. Currently it doesn't drive, because it has a broken rear lower control arm and hub, and no intercooler. The control arm was due to the previous owner towing it improperly, which kind of sucks, but it's the reason I got the car at such a good price. The stock intercooler on the car was causing a boost leak, so the previous owner removed it and just stuck a pipe in there, which gives me a great opportunity/excuse to upgrade to a nicer aftermarket intercooler. As for modifications, it's got a 3" turbo-back exhaust, aftermarket blowoff valve, and an intake. I'm not sure on specific brands of these, as I haven't actually picked up the car yet, but I'll be tearing into it to figure this out tomorrow. It also has Tein SS coilovers, a very high end suspension setup, which I'm very happy about, as they appear to be in pristine condition.
The car definitely needs some body work. It's got a kicked in fender, dented roof from shipping, and lots of paint imperfections. I can swap better condition body parts onto it from some other donor Supras I've found on Kijiji, but it will more than likely need a paintjob at some point in it's life. It's going to be stored until spring time so I have all kinds of time to get it together. Here's the picture from the ad on Kijiji, you can't see much, but you can see the damaged driver side fender and chipped paint on the front bumper.

The interior of this car is another story. The Twin Turbo R models came with a full Recaro interior. Recaro is a company that makes high end racing seats, and the seats in the Supra are no exception. They're very nice...when they're actually in the car. This car has no interior beyond the front seats. It has a full dashboard and everything (which, being Japanese, is right hand drive), and the front seats are there. They aren't in very good condition, especially the passenger side (remember that means the left side for this car), but that's something that can be fixed up down the road. They are still safe, which is all that is important to me for the time being.
As for the back of the car, there are no rear seats or anything. It's just metal behind the front seats all the way to the back of the car, as these Supras don't have a seperate trunk, since they are a hatch. This is something I'm going to have to make a decision on. I could go with finding an entire Recaro rear interior, which would be very difficult, or just go for a standard Supra rear. Or my other option is just finding some carpet and going right from the back to the front with it, which would look nice in my opinion, and be the cheapest option, but I still haven't decided so it will stay as metal for now. I have no solid reason to put seats back there, since rear seats in a Supra are next to useless when you see the leg room.
Now for the important part...what's under the hood. The 1JZ-GTE motor in the car sounds incredible. When Sina and I went to check the car out on Friday night, as soon as the key was turned, it fired right up with no issues, and had a very smooth idle. We let it warm up a bit (which took a little while, being so cold and the motor being cooled well) and then gave it a rev. We revved it up to 4000 and the sound of the turbos spooling and blowing off was an amazing sound. Sina rowed it through the gears and checked that each one engaged properly as well as he could, considering that with the broken lower control arm and insane snowstorm we couldn't take it out for a test drive. As far as we could tell from this and checking it over, everything seemed to be solid.
Differentials are a problem on the Supras, and I had a big failure of mine on my previous Supra, but this Twin Turbo R model has a Torsen type differential, which some would argue is a bit stronger, but some say it's weaker. I'm not very well versed on how it works yet so I can't argue either way, but it is supposedly given stronger braces to help support it better, which helps out the integrity of the diff on the R models. Once I get the control arm done, I'll be taking the car out for a spin to really check everything over in a drive. But the motor as far as we could tell seemed very strong and well cared for, which was what really made it all worth it for me. The 1JZ is a very well made motor. There's a picture of it below, also from the Kijiji ad.

Well tomorrow I'm off to Springwater with a CAA flatbed to pick up the Supra and bring it home. Once it gets here it will sit in my garage for a couple days until I find a suitable storage facility for it for about a month. After the month I'll be taking it up to store it somewhere that I have set up and can work on it, I'd just rather not say where on the internet, because you never know.
First thing that will be addressed is the lower control arm and hub issue, then likely getting the intercooler in there. Then it's all body work from there, and come spring time, when all the salt is gone from the road, this JZA70 will be ready for action!