John Fisher's SRD Project Vantage

John came to us earlier in the year with the hope to make his car more drivable and bring it up to date a bit with technology.

John has been around supra for many years and was one of the first to have the AEM ecu.

A bit of history of John and his car.

My History

I sailed with a Chief Engineer from Norwich way back in 1991 who had just treated himself to a Mark 3 Turbo Manual Supra and said it was a fantastic car, then I saw a new one in a showroom in Ipswich when I went home and knew I had to have one.

My Supras

Obviously from the last comment above I bought a Mk 3 Manual Turbo Supra in 1992 which was 20 months old on an H plate if I remember from Guildford in Surrey, I remember getting into it and thinking how long it was as I could not see approximately the front 3 feet of the car, however with the pop up head lights at least it gave you an indication when parking.

After enjoying the Mk 3 for a while I heard that the new Mk 4 was being launched and when I first saw it I preferred the Mk 3, but after a while the Mk 3 seemed dated and the Mk 4 shape grows on you. The only thing that ever went wrong with my Mk 3 was a new turbo at 75,000 miles, I kept this car until 2002.

In 2000 I decided to invest in a Mk 4 at the time there was quite a lot of choice and I ended up with a Red Mk 4 N/A Aerotop Automatic import which I decided on as I already had a Turbo Supra. This car was a 1993 import.

However it was not long before I got the itch to buy a MK 4 Turbo car - a few people at the time were starting to modify Supras as well.

In 2002 I bought an imported Automatic RZ Turbo which became L4 SUP. This was a 1994 model

At the time I had 3 Supras but alas the old Mk 3 was getting to the stage where she needed a lot of work doing so I decided to sell her on.

Like a lot of people I was buying Japanese performance and Banzai and decided to start modifying the Turbo car a little but this was in the early years and parts and knowledge have improved greatly since then ( 2003 )

I first of all had HKS Super Drager exhaust fitted with and full decat, along with HKS intercooler and pipe work, also fitted at this time was HKS EVC 5 series boost controller, turbo timer and various gauges, the result being a more powerful car with small mods.

The car at this stage was quite fun and drove still much the same as stock. However on a track day in 2004 the engine blew, number 2 turbo had disintegrated spark plug electrodes blown away and obvious bottom end damage.

At this point the engine had to be rebuilt and I decided to go single turbo with an aem ecu. The engine was removed and block decked at machine shop, head was also skimmed at this time.

Cylinders were rebored to take 86.5mm HKS pistons and rings, new bearings were fitted and 2mm HKS head gasket, original conrods and all bolts reused.

A Powerhouse racing 61mm dbb turbo kit was purchased and fitted, along with 264 HKS cams.

Top Feed Fuel rail with 720cc injectors fitted along with new ecu.

A high stall torque convertor was also fitted at the same time.

The car was initially mapped by a tuner from near London and after 3 unsuccessful attempts due to not being able to get the fuelling right some investigation was done and it was found that the injectors were of the wrong impedance - this was after asking for the correct ones for the jdm import and were naturally not checked when fitted - it was assumed they were the right ones.

At this stage the engine was checked for compression and low readings were found on most cylinders, result was engine apart again and cylinders honed and new rings fitted and compression was found acceptable.

The car was transported to Thor for mapping.

The mapping was virtually complete with boost pressure set to 1.25 bar when the engine just stopped on 23rd Dec 2004, a call from Pete Betts and the car was brought back on a trailer to Suffolk where investigation was started at a local workshop where by it was found that the inlet HKS camshaft had snapped in 2 pieces between 5/6 cylinder, a replacement was sourced and fitted then car transported back to Thor for completion.

Since that time the car was never much pleasure to drive, it would stall a lot and in an auto this isn’t a nice thing. This has meant the car has not been used a lot at all.

However with the advent of much more experience more advanced technology and the fact that I can now afford to persevere and have it done correctly, I have never felt like just selling the car on and after 22 years of supra ownership am sure this will turn out to be a pleasure once again.

I can remember how it was when I first had it as a stock car - I also remember what a pleasure it was to drive the naturally aspirated aero top - ( smooth reliability )

With this in mind I took the car to Lee at SRD to discuss what could be done to improve the car so here I will hand over.

Project Vantage

When John brought the car to us it had just had a full repaint by Auto Doc in Aston Martin Lightning Silver, thread can be found here

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?308469-Fisherjohn-paint-work-by-Autodoc

He told us his concerns of driveability so I road tested the car.

I have to say I have no idea how John could drive the car, it stalled on me about 4 times just trying to get it out the driveway lol…

The decision was made to go for a Syvecs Ecu with full auto control, John also had some uprated valves and springs he wanted installed into the head.

With this in mind we knew we would be pulling the engine out and at the same time we could check everything and have a tidy up as well

Unfortunately what we found when we pulled the engine out was not good and has resulted in a much larger project than first thought

Original spec

HKS 86.5 Pistons

Stock Rods

HKS 264 Cams

2mm Head Gasket

ARP Head bolts

Titan Cam Pulleys

Unorthodox solid crank pulley

PHR Turbo kit with 61mm DBB turbo

HKS Manifold and 60mm wastgate

Titan Intake manifiold

Top Feed fuel rail kit

720cc injectors

Walbro 255 fuel pump

HKS SSQV

HKS 2 Row intercooler kit

AEM ECU

AEM Ignition Driver

Stock auto box

High stall TC

Gearbox cooler

Here are pics of when the car arrived to us.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/John_zps191d6b85.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/John1_zpsead6fe32.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/john3_zpsc35b509b.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/john4_zps5fcabd20.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/John2_zps60e72463.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/F030AB16-7851-4224-9A53-62E37850621B_zps0s9yiegn.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/290AE1EA-6F8D-40DC-9C4B-9398E758541D_zpsaam5avoh.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd152/supralee/935AADB7-7CDF-41E0-BA7F-3A93A91E65E8_zps0wwvnbv8.jpg

Looks awesome mate. Have fun subscribed

Wow great post. John hasnt had the best luck with this car at all. Good luck to you john it will be a sweet machine with the new parts and the Syvecs fitted. Look forward to reading about its progress.

Nice project.

Lovely read, wishing you the best in this John, you are in safe hands now.

Looking forward to the updates.

Thanks for the comments guys - All credit here goes to Adam at Autodoc who did a pretty good paint job between 23rd April and 23RD June when car went to SRD. Since then Lee's attention to detail is beyond reproach he really does treat a car like it is his own and am sure he takes great pride in his work, he is transforming this vehicle and am sure he cannot wait to drop the engine and gearbox in which is fully rebuilt and ready for fitting. So a big thanks to Lee and his crew at SRD really who deserve all the credit on this rebuild mostly.

Great looking car John, looking forward to the updates, subscribed

All the best with the build John, looks like your Sup has made it to safety with SRD

Subscribed. Look forward to reading how it goes John.

Well after taking the engine out and stripping it down we found a few issues that raised concern

The pistons had seen some det and there was quite a lot of pitting around the tops and edges of some.

The bores were also not good as there had been some debri gone through the engine and it had been honed a few times already after boreing

The debri had caused some scoring to the bores, crank and bearings.

The decision was made to start from scratch with a different block and crank, we would then use what we could from the old engine.

After talking with John we also decided that while the engine was out it was a good opportunity to paint the engine bay.

This decision was made quite late on so slowed the build down a bit but was a good opportunity to get everything else sorted and ready to go.

The engine bay was fully stripped down ready to go to Simon at Auto body Solutions.

John wanted the car to look as good as possible and uncluttered so we spoke about fully smoothing the bay while at Simon's.

With this is mind the dash and heater box were also removed so all the smoothing work could be done.

What a lovely colour! Top guy John - good luck with this all

Nice little read. Love hearing the story behind the car and its great to see someone's p&j being restored to it's former glory/potential. Thanks for sharing Lee.

Good luck with it all John. Will look forward to updates.

Subscribed I thought this supra was Awesome when we had it in at Autodoc, but going this far the end result is going to be an amazing car

I can't believe the difference in the engine bay,now having seen the old images. I picked my car up from Lee this morning from Lee and saw John's car. The engine bay is greatly improved.

Removing an engine and painting the bay really is the way to go to enhance the bay area. From factory there is no clear coat in there so it is always dull, so when we (or any bodyshop) paint an engine bay and clear coat it the super glossy result is amazing

Put some pictures up Lee, I want to see it

- - - Updated - - -

by the way, why is the dash out too?

When Lee puts the photos up most people will be impressed I was there yesterday and didn't take any as am leaving it all to Lee to continue the story. However the smoothing and painting of the engine bay is phenominol work by Autobody Solutions and seeing it in the flesh with the engine dropped inside is an absolute work of art - All credit to Simon at Autobody Solutions and the SRD team, am sure Lee will be along sometime over the weekend to continue the story and post up the best bit - photos of the engine bay. Many thanks to those guys.

Cool, look forward to seeing the pictures John

Good news John. Waiting for those pics.

Smoothed engine bay too? No I am really looking forward to seeing the photos

The owner has had some of the worst luck from the sound of it. I remember seeing the thread when it was painted and thought it looked great.

Regarding Lee stalling the car 4 times..... is it hardly a surprise seeing as he rolls around in an automatic Datsun

Will look forward to more updates in this thread.

I agree. We didn't have any problems with it stalling...but we didn't drive it any further than one end of the workshop to the other I know John has had a lot of problems with it and it has not been a nice car to drive recently.

John, I bet you are looking forward to going for a good blast in this once its done!

Regarding Lee stalling the car 4 times..... is it hardly a surprise seeing as he rolls around in an automatic Datsun

:d

Looking forward to the pictures .

Well as already said the car is back from Simon's and he has done an amazing job as always.

The reason for taking the dash out was so that the pate work could be done.

Air con and ABS have been removed to tidy things up as well.

Also while the dash was out a new heater matrix was fitted.

Engine bay looks spot on! Cant fault Simons work he always does a top job

Looking forward to more updates Lee!