Turbo T vs Supra

MCH86GN

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
I was in the right place at the right time. I saw a high 7sec Supra race a Turbo T. Both cars were in a 7-11 and the guy in the Turbo T was in his 50s and the original owner of the car. It served as a daily driver for him for 19 years. He bought it new in May 1988. It was gold color. It was a base model with just the turbo charged powertrain. He was there picking up a six pack, the guys in the Supra and his buddies ranged in age from early 20s to early 30s.

The Supra had a fully built race motor setup, price tag $54k. I'm guessing the owner, in his 30's still lives with his parents. Either that or he is single makes a 6 figure salary. He was all to eager to let everyone know, including a couple teenage girls how much he spent on it. The Supra had an 88mm turbo and when NOS for spooling the turbo when at the strip. Now I will say this, it was a beautiful setup and a beautiful car. First really nice Supra I have ever seen in MI.

The Turbo T had a stage 2, with fully ported GN-R heads and all the goodies. Now he told me that he was still running the stock trans and rearend. Of course the transmission had been rebuilt and he had a 3in steel drive shaft on it. Oh and he was running a 76mm turbo. No cage! Total investment, $17k. The owner of the car had at one time worked at Aggressive Performance and was a mechanic by trade and could do most of his own work. He was running a stock ECM and PowerLogger. He was ready to go home as he had it playing with early that evening.

So when the guy popped his hood on his Turbo T, we heard some laugher coming from the groupies around the Supra. Then with laughter one of the younger guys said you want to race? The guy in the T said how much, to my surprise. The Supra groupie said, the value of your car -$500 and everyone of them though it was funny. They never bother to walk over and see what the guy had under the hood. The guy said to them, put another zero on that and lets go. The only thing is, you can only use one power adder. No NOS. The younger guy said, typical POS v8 big block. He said that's not fair your engine has two more cylinders, probably 450ci inches compared to 183ci and plus your probably running a bigger turbo than the Supra. Then the Supra groupie looks at all the people and says see how these old farts are with their big block engines, even with turbos. Still afraid of the worlds most powerful car.

So I asked the question about the Supra's setup and that is when I was told it was a Boost Logic fully built race motor, bored and stroked to 3.4L or 206ci. The guy in the T pulled out the blueprint of his engine. It was a stage 2 3.8L block, bored stroked to 252ci.

So the Supra groupies took a closer look at his car and he started it up, it had a full exhaust and was not in the least bit loud. I said sure sounds like a Chevy big block to me.

So the owner of the Supra said, I don't need NOS to beat a 252ci v6. The guy in the T said, do you have the $5k? He said of course not I don't carry that kind of cash on me. The guy in the T said me either, but I can have it in 10 minutes. The Supra owner said, how about a $100? The guy said, it will cost me that much in gas to race you. So they agreed to $500 and from a dig and as close to a 1/4 mile as we could calculate.

So we found a road that was lightly used and about a mile long. I will say, I don't advocate street racing. I wish this could have taken place at a drag strip, but the Turbo T guy didn't have a cage and said he wouldn't even be able make one pass with his car at the strip.

So the arm drop was race was on, 1987 Turbo - T vs a 2000 Supra. They did their burnouts, the Supra had 325s and the T had 295s. I was a little concerned about the T hooking up. Well he had his suspension dialed in pretty well.

So the fun part. They staged and the arms dropped and that Buick squatted so hard in the rare and launched so hard it was amazing and off the line it wasn't even close. The T smoked him. Then at about 330' - 500' the Supra hit its power band and it took off like a rocket. He nearly caught the T, but the T beat him by 20' or so. It was a great race and an education for these kids who seem to know nothing about the legacy of Buick and their performance engines. I learned something to, a Supra without NOS takes a lot longer to get up and go. In this instance, I think the Supra would have benefited from 76mm turbo. It lagged pretty bad off the line, but the guy was so confident in his car and he honestly believes it is the world's most powerful car.

Great win for the 25 year old 200k plus miles Turbo T.
 
A stage II car with a 17k total investment? Well he bought the car new for about 17k so he got a stage II and all the other parts for free o_O. How do you know the Supra was a 7 second car? Cool story though.
 
I call BS on this story, no Supras where brought into the US after 1998 and your story says the supra was a model year 2000. :rolleyes:
 
A stage II car with a 17k total investment? Well he bought the car new for about 17k so he got a stage II and all the other parts for free o_O. How do you know the Supra was a 7 second car? Cool story though.


I don't know that it was a high 7s Supra that is what the guy told me. He had a cage and a NOS setup. I assume with the $54k, again, I'm taking his word for it, it should be a high 7s car. They way that it launched like a rocket when it hit a cetain range was something. I think he might have bruned out going 80+ mph.
 
I call BS on this story, no Supras where brought into the US after 1998 and your story says the supra was a model year 2000. :rolleyes:
I could have been wrong on the model year, I assumed it was a 2000. I thought after 2000 they stopped exporting Supra's to the US and 2002 was the last year they were made in Japan - info. off Youtube. The guy simply said the last model year sold. I didn't want to seem to ignorant so I didn't bother asking him. This is why it is good to have your portable DVR. The guy that owns the Turbo T name is Scott. I didn't bother getting the names of the other people. As I said this was the first 2jz Supra I had ever seen in my neighborhood, Lincoln Park, MI. A guy that works at Autozone has a 91 Supra and other than, I'm pretty sure this is the first 2jz Supra I have ever noticed. This is a working class neighborhood, you don't typically see a lot of higher end cars. It's Wayne County MI. In Oakland County MI, is where you are likely to see the higher end cars, if you would consider a Supra that. The guy said he just had it at Milan on 7/21/12 for no ET finals, but was running it in test-n-tune. I'm know very little about Supras, except for what I have seen on Youtube. His car did have a distinct mark on it, it said 15th Anniversary Addition. I promise you, I will have my portable DVR with me if I'm out again on Friday or Saturday night and see if I can get some video of the Supra. Again, I was taking everyone's word for what they were telling me and I would not set here and write up BS. It may be more my ignorance to certain other cars, but not BS. I know about Turbo Regals, 2002 4.6L Explorers and 1998-2003 2.2L S10s and that is about it. I didn't buy my Grand National until the age of 35, I'm 39 now. It was only after I got my Grand National that I started learning about other cars.
 
A stage II car with a 17k total investment? Well he bought the car new for about 17k so he got a stage II and all the other parts for free o_O. How do you know the Supra was a 7 second car? Cool story though.
I was taking the guy Turbo Ts word for it too. I mentioned getting a stage 2 and he said save yourself the money I have $17k invested in this one. He also told me that Champion was supposed to be coming out with a stage 2, obvisously not identical to Buick's stage 2, but they are years behind. He said that in order to from infringing on patents you have to make the part 10% different?! I thought after 20 years patents expired, I will look this up. I worked as intern for Delphi's Intellectual Property Group and also had engineering ethics class and thought it was 20 years from the time the patent was issued. Anyone no if what year the stage 2 was patented by Buick?
 
MAK IV supras were only imported into the US from 92 to 98 if it was a 2000 could be a Canadian or Japanese brought into the US and it would be right hand driven production of the MAK IV stopped in 2006 in Japan, I had 2 supras before both twin turbo 6 inline and both 94 so i know a little about them..
 
Was the supra blue or burgundy? I can vouch for the fact that there were two supras at the last milan no et no et cause i was there... There was one fast supra with two chutes (blue) that absolutely flew and there was another that wasnt as fast.... matter of fact i just found the video..the supra is in the last minute of the video...Is this the one ur talkin about?
 
Was the supra blue or burgundy? I can vouch for the fact that there were two supras at the last milan no et no et cause i was there... There was one fast supra with two chutes (blue) that absolutely flew and there was another that wasnt as fast.... matter of fact i just found the video..the supra is in the last minute of the video...Is this the one ur talkin about?
That definitely wasn't the car I seen. The one I saw was Black and I'm pretty sure it said 15th Anniversy addition and he said that he was there during the no ET finals, but just ran test-n-tune. I think he was BS'ing me about being a high 7s car. I think he tell I was kind of lacking in knowledge about the car. I try to take people at face value. I would have had the blue Supra image burned in my mind had I saw it. This guys car had I full length exhaust and although fast, neither car had nothing on that blue Supra. Holy crap that car was awesome. Thanks for posting the video, my wife and I were supposed to come to this but I got a late start on doing some work on my s10 and it was 8ish before I finished. Even though ladies were free that night, I figured by the time I showed and got there, I would have missed most of the action. Although I needed to go anyway, so I could pick up some methanol for my alky injection. Denatured alcohol is about $16 a gallon at Home Depot, I think methanol is a little cheaper per gallon.
If I see the car again I will get a picture or video of it. I have a new BlackBerry, supplied by work, and I should be able to get a decent picture.

Not to get too far of the subject, do you go to the Michigan Turbo Buick Meet on the Wednesday before the Dream Cruise?
 
No prob...Ive always wanted to go but ive never been able to be home on wed to make it....
 
That was an awesome story, it really sucked my in. I dont care about the $ figures. Buick wins, import loses end of story.
 
That was an awesome story, it really sucked my in. I dont care about the $ figures. Buick wins, import loses end of story.
It is so cliche, meeting at a 7-11, but right around the corner from my house there is a 7-11. I go there and get Pepsi, 2 for $3.33. The 7-11 is on the corner of Dix and Moran. The street we went to was over off Pennsylvania or Sibley Rd. by a bowling alley. When I want to go do a long burnout or something, in the summer, that is where I go. Not a lot of traffic and I have never seen an officer there. Anyway, I'm talking as if you know where I live, I'm south of Detroit. Anyway, did you see the video of the blue Supra at the end of video? My gosh that thing was flying, I don't see cars like that in neighborhood.
 
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