Aaron J Williams

Well I sold my 86 N/A and told myself I would look for a TII with a blown motor for cheap and build something mean to keep for awhile. While searching I picked up this:

It's an 88 and the PO said it pressurized the cooling system when it was running. His mechanic told him it had a cracked block but I suspect coolant seal(s) to be blown. It's N/A now and to fix the engine I'm guessing around $800 for parts. I could pick up a JDM TII swap with trans, IC & ECU for around $1400. So the dilemma is do I fix it up stock, clean it up and sell it and keep searching for a blown up TII or convert it to turbo and be done with it? You are all probably saying turbo it and be done which is all well and good except for this:

What the heck will I do with my 91 Supra turbo if I have an RX-7 turbo? I would much rather drive the RX-7 turbo but I have more money invested in the Supra than I could hope to get back by selling it and I sure don't want to stick it in the barn under a tarp. Now you see my dilemma, I am torn between two fun cars and can't decide which would be the better of the two. HELP!!!!!

NJGreenBudd

iTrader: (1)

pics. need pics man.

ericgrau

iTrader: (1)

I hear JDM TII's are a gamble, some say they're a good starting point for a rebuild.

Yeah, you never get back the money you put into a car so my way is to stay minimal. I'm just gonna put a few sensible upgrades on an NA, most of which I'll do/did only after the stock item breaks or wears out. But that's not the way of a lot of people here. i.e., I'd stick with the Supra and not even get another car. And I say that because it's what you have already and you can't trade or get both without losing a lot of money. In fact I prefer the RX-7.

But there's a reason people aren't that sensible. Fun. So figure out how much each option will cost you and how much fun you'll have. $800 will get you a cheap seal kit. $1500 for OEM seals and another $500-ish if you have bad housings. OTOH you can re-use some seals if they're up to spec. From there upgrading it is the same as your Supra, except rotaries are extra knock sensitive so you need to be more conservative when you tune, make sure your wastegate is working properly, etc. I believe knocking is the most common way to blow a turbo motor, in fact. Next is an overheat, so mind the cooling system maintenance too.

Best thing I can think of with 2 fast cars is to properly store one, drive the other, then when you're doing work on one you drive the stored car. More fun than a slow backup, heh. You could even take this further and make 1 into a project car: do a ton of work at once without worrying about what you'll drive. You could then alternate and do the same to the other car if you wanted. But now we're talking $$$ so you need to plan ahead and budget to keep from going broke.

Slow Rotor

Well your posting on the wrong forum if your after any genuine advice. Noone one this forum will pick a supra over an fc. Turbo the FC cut your losses and loose the supra!

t24todd

iTrader: (7)

jesus is it just me or those wheels on the supra uh.....******* hideous..anyway on the other note wait till find a unmolested t2..dont try to do the swap..it will be cheaper anyways...

Ex-Eg-Driver

iTrader: (1)

Nice Supra Turbo bro

shika805

iTrader: (1)

hahah i agree with t24todd... rims are ridiculous, i say lose the Inline 6 and keep the Rotary man.

MaczPayne

iTrader: (5)

Take both cars to the track, then decide which one you want to keep.

Boosted11

iTrader: (11)

A couple months ago I seen a 1990 supra turbo brand spanking new at a dealership. I was amazed, it was a very very rare site.

FuStEr

+1

Aaron J Williams

Yeah, that's the kind of logic I can understand! If the JDM turbo motors are iffy then there's no reason to spend that much on a rebuildable core when I could just bide my time and find an unmolested TII like t24todd suggested. I also agree that the rims on the Supra are not the best looking things I have ever seen but they came with the car when I bought it and I haven't found a set that I like to replace them yet. Believe it or not, those are 18" MOMO wheels and someone paid $1000 each for them.

I think the plan will be to fix the RX-7 motor, clean the car up and put an outrageously high price tag on it. If it sells, bonus! If it doesn't then I'll have a fast backup car to drive while I'm working on the Supra and something I can upgrade slowly over time while I'm driving the Supra. Thanks guys! I knew there had to be some way to justify keeping both cars, now I just have to convince the wife! With the high price tag the RX-7 won't sell but it will appear like I'm trying to sell it to keep the missus happy. Maybe I can get her interested in performance cars by letting her drive the RX-7 since she's scared to death of the Supra. This just might work after all, Thanks!

hurleysurf24

iTrader: (3)

whats nice about the jspec blocks is that the hosings and rotors have low mileage on them, hence you get a better chance at reusable parts. if you buy a blown t2 then you have no idea if the internals have been replaced. You could have a T2 engine that was previously rebuilt, but resused the stock internals. If you have 150,000 on that engine you can imagine how the hosuings and rotors are gonna look compared to a jspec with aroudn 35000-40000

Aaron J Williams

And the cost of replacing the possibly worn out parts would be more than the $1400 plus shipping they want for a JDM engine? I suppose the problem is finding the good replacement parts in the first place. Everything over here is worn out or has been redone once already. Maybe i'll just keep it N/A for now and be happy with a fresh motor. I could always add the turbo stuff later.

ericgrau

iTrader: (1)

To rebuild the JDM engine you'd basically be replacing the seals. i.e., the assumption is that the JDM engine won't have bad housings/etc. Assuming the NA engine isn't chewed to pieces they'd both cost about the same amount to rebuild.

As for adding a turbo to the NA, nope, sorry it's not easy at all. Nothing fits, needs lots of custom fabricated parts and $$$. The most common (and easiest, cheapest) way is to swap in the whole turbo engine. Just make sure the turbo engine is a 1986-1988 (s4) and it should be just drop in and plug in and go. The wiring on the 1989-1991 (s5) is not compatible so you'd have to go through the major hassle of custom rewiring everything.

V8what?!

Even if you "drop in" an S4 TII motor, you don`t just plug it in and go.

Besides that, lose the supra. Get a jdm motor. Rebuild it and get a standalone to run your new motor. Least headache solution, no more supra, and fast rotary. Got it?