First Post

So this is my first ever post. For the most part, I'll be using this to document the progress I make on my 1991 Toyota Supra. I bought the car in December 2009. It is the white-package, non-turbo model, so it had the naturally aspirated, 3.0 liter, inline 6 cylinder 7mge engine. The previous owner said that it had been overheating and assumed that it had a blown head gasket, which is very common on these cars due to the head bolts being under-torqued from the factory.

I lost the pictures I took of the car when I bought it, so here is the closest one I could find:

 

The car I bought is the white package so the grey trim you see on this car is white on my car.

So my original plans for the car were:
1. Replace the head gasket and water pump
2. Coilovers
3. Possible N/A-T conversion

Well that didn't last long. I found a great deal on some HKS Hipermax II coilovers, and was quick to buy them.

 

 

In order to get to the rear shock towers, I removed all of the rear trim. I'm not sure if I'll stay with the "gutted" rear but for now my trunk is stuffed with spare 7mge parts, which brings me to my new plan:

1. Coilovers
2. 7mgte swap
3. 560cc injectors/Lexus AFM
4. Walbro High Pressure Fuel Pump
5. 3" downpipe and exhaust
6. Wideband a/f, boost gauge, egt gauge

I found a 7mgte engine a (fairly) local shop called JE Import Performance, and then went to work on pulling the old engine. After having a little trouble separating the engine from the transmission - decided not to pull the transmission with the engine - it finally came out.

While the 7mge was coming out, I had an opportunity to install the 560cc injectors. These injectors are actually the OEM injectors from the Mitsubishi Evo VIII, but they are almost plug and play on the Supra. The injectors came with clips that needed to be spliced into the factory harness in place of the factory pigtails.

This leads to my first major roadblock. The engine I bought came with a harness that was hacked up near the ECU plugs. I found another hacked harness at the junkyard and I bought the end with the ECU plugs with intentions of matching up and splicing the wires. After matching 60+ wires, I ended up with this:

And this:

As you can see not all of the wires ended up matching... Turns out I made a mistake with the year of the harness I pulled from the junkyard, so I had to bite the bullet and buy a complete harness.

By this time I had the turbo engine in the car and started connecting clips and hoses. A few clips needed to be replaced and a couple hoses were missing but nothing major needed to be done. I also installed the Lexus AFM, Greddy Type S blow-off valve and upper intercooler hard pipe. Because the naturally aspirated engine doesn't require an intercooler or an oil cooler, I had to pick both of those up at the junkyard.

I also bought and installed:
Autometer boost and egt gauge
Apexi Neo SAFC
2 gauge A-pillar pod

One day while I was browsing Craigslist, I stumbled upon the wheels I had been searching for for a while: Mistubishi Starion/Chrysler Conquest Tsi wheels:

 Again, I lost my pics so that's not my wheel but mine are obviously the same except with much less tire tread...

Next to be bought and installed was a 3" downpipe. I found one on the forums and in order to install it I first had to remove the extremely restrictive turbo elbow. This turned out to be the biggest pain in the ass of the entire project thus far. It took about 4 hours of beating on it with an air hammer, mallet, screw driver, etc. and half a can of PB Blaster to get the damn thing off.

The next problem with the downpipe was that the bolts where the OEM o2 sensor is bolted on were cut off and welded over.

So I went at it with a cobalt tip drill bit. I got what I thought was all the way through, until I tried to tap the hole... The tap got caught on a tiny piece at the bottom of the hole and broke off in the hole. Someone recommended that I go to a fabrication shop in Baltimore called Excel Machine and Fabrication and have them get the broken tap out. Well, the guy I talked to in the shop was NOT helpful in the least. He fed me a bunch of BS about a minimum charge of $250 and that they couldn't even do that there and it would need to be burned out. He ripped on the hole I had drilled claiming that it was crooked and blah blah blah. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SHOP.

So I then took it to the local Midas on Rt. 40 in Ellicott City. These guys were EXTREMELY helpful. They offered to try an chip at it and punch it out. Well turns out they were able to get the tap out and they welded in new bolts for me. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SHOP.

So now that the downpipe was on, and the engine was filled with new fluids, I was ready to try and start it up. I haven't had any luck with that yet. It is cranking, but then there is a what seems to be either a pressure release or something burning... I am having trouble identifying exactly what is causing it.


I'll try to get some pics of my car and the parts I've installed up soon.