I’m not sure what it is about old Toyotas that I like so much, but this MKIII is a project that’s been floating around in my head for about 5 years. I bought a pair of MkIII Toyota Supras for 700 dollars back then, and though my attempts were eventually foiled and one car sold and the other parked at my father’s house. Back in 2010, though, I was a wide eyed ignorant fool who was eager to part with hard-earned dollars. You see, back then, I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of making my heavyweight luxury sport coupe as light and nimble as possible. Someone on one of the Supra-based internet forums told me in no uncertain terms that ‘nobody will ever build a MKIII lighter than 2800 pounds’. There’s nothing I hate more than being told something is impossible. One day, it will be done.

Exterior –

The lead image is pretty close to what I’d be looking for. I don’t want to go with a flat-black paint job, because I think they look silly, but I would like to have some silly Jay-Dee-Emm bolt-on overfenders, some silly wide wheels, and a much lower stance. I think the car pictured is a little too low, and a little too ‘stance’, but pretty close. I also tend to prefer the 86-88 MKIII nose over the later 1989-92, so the bumper on my 86.5 would be perfect, if cleaned up a bit. Lightweight wheels are imperative, so I’d probably go with a set of Enkei RPF1s in the widest size I could get and give the car a wide square stance. In my humble opinion, 18″ wheels look too large on this car, but I do want to fit some big rotors and calipers, but I’d like to get away with 17s if possible. I’m still undecided on the 3-piece rear wing that some Supras came with, some days I like it, and other days I prefer an unfettered rear end. In order to get the car down to the goal weight of 2700 pounds from the stock 3400-ish, there will be need for a considerable quantity of carbon-fiber square footage on the outside of the car. My build car is an early non-targa non-sunroof car, which I believe is quite rare, and already the lightest car Toyota built on this chassis. The car would receive a carbon roof, carbon doors, a carbon hood, fenders, headlamp covers, mirrors, and hatch, plus polycarbonate windows on all sides. I don’t really like the idea of exposed carbon weave, so I’d paint over all of that in the stock maroon color, as it has stuck with me for some reason as a pretty color. I’ve always liked when people put those nose stripes around the front of “Mustang” Celicas, so maybe I’d put a big white one of those on there. You know, like this.

Interior –

On the inside, this is pretty much the look I would want. Everything not-necessary stripped completely out of the car, and a solid well-build roll cage built up and well connected to the chassis. The MkIII, for as heavy as it is, has a lot of issues with chassis flex, so a good roll cage is imperative. A pair of wide comfortable racing bucket seats would be fitted, and there would be a steering wheel and shifter, but not much else. I would completely strip out the dashboard, and fabricate a small panel to run a digital dashboard display. I would like to look into hacking the displays of an 8-inch Android tablet, as I think it’d be pretty cool to have a touchscreen display that runs your tach, speedometer, some idiot lights, all of your audio to a single center speaker, and navigation of course. Who needs a million gauges, when a half-pound 200 dollar tablet can now pretty much control everything. For some level of comfort, the floors of the car would be coated in a layer of perlon felt, you know, the stuff they usually use for trunks. It’s lightweight and it’s cheap, both are important.

Drivetrain –

I’m a boost addict, and I’ve always wanted to ditch the stock 7MGE straight six and bolting in a 3SGTE four-cylinder turbo. In this fantasy scenario, that 3SGTE has been replaced with a stroker 2.2 liter 5SFE block mated to all of the other parts from a 3SGTE. People always suggest 2JZ swaps, but they are just as heavy and way overplayed. The second suggestion is always LS swap, and I don’t want to be mistaken for a hill person, or someone who would outfit their home in pine furniture. A hillbilly with an LS motor is a lot like a geriatric on Viagra, they’ll stick it in anything.

The 3SGTE owned motorsport and sports cars for Toyota for a long time, they put it in MR2 Turbos, they put it in the Celica All-Trac, they threw one in the SARD TRD JGTC and Le Mans racers, they gave one to Rod Millen, and it dominated at Pikes Peak. It’s a stout engine that is capable of wicked levels of horsepower. The MR2 Turbo was pretty conservative at 200 horsepower, but Millen’s Celica was putting down somewhere around 900 horses from a 2.2 liter. I’ve seen numerous engine builds in the 700-900 horsepower range, so I’m going to be tuner-conservative and aim for 550 with my build. If I can get the car down to 2700 pounds, that would be less than 5 pounds per horsepower. Most of the time, these engines are built for front drive or mid-engine transverse applications (Celicas, MR2s, etc), but I’ve seen a few go into AE86 Corollas with a modified Supra W55 5-speed transmission. Personally, I’d rather go with the 6-Speed from a Japanese market Altezza, which should bolt right up to an S series engine.
Basically the car would be a rolling engine stand with nothing extraneous. Lights and wipers would be run from a separate circuit, and the engine would have its own custom harness running with a stand-alone engine management system.
A huge front mount intercooler, a TD06-20G turbo kit, big intake tubing, big exhaust tubing, high flow injectors, the works. It should be fun, and it should be able to roast tires all day long.
I’ve always wanted a hoony sort of car that I just don’t care about. Something close to a drift missle that is bound to get messed up and you just keep on rocking. It’ll be loud, obnoxious, probably ugly, definitely dangerous, and a whole lot of fun. Am I ever going to finish a project like this? Well first I have to buy a house, and then I have to finish my Honda MB5 project, and then my Porsche project, and then my Audi Project, and then my 68 Mustang project, and THEN I can get down to my Toyota Supra. Yeah, it’ll be years, but it WILL get done. I promise.