My little N/A Supra

Welcome to my build/ownership experience of my first MKIV Supra

A little backstory and explanation on what made me decide to get a Supra

So my obsession with the MKIV Supra began when I was 11 years old and I saw the famous orange Supra in The Fast and The Furious movie.

Ever since that then I was hooked by the thought of being able to make ordinary cars faster than super cars, granted my taste has changed and the over the top graphics are no longer something I want on my car.

I've wanted a few cars since then but I always found myself coming back to the Supra, I've been following the prices of Supra's since I got my first job and they were very well priced 6 years ago but over the last few I noticed they were starting to rise sharply. I never thought about buying a Supra back then mainly because first jobs never pay that much let alone enough to afford a car like a Supra and the maintenance. But recently I was looking again and with my current job and the sharply increasing prices of Supra's I decided to bite the bullet and actually go looking with the intention of buying.

The big decision that I had to make was which Supra do I want to go with.

Do I go for broke and get a TT Auto, this worried me because it would eat a lot of my disposable income and leave little for making improvements to the car.

So the next logical step was N/A and then see where I decide from there with mods.

The final choice I had to make was whether I wanted to go manual or auto. I've driven auto's before and they never felt as fun as manuals but I approached it with an open mind and went to go test drive an auto Supra... well it's the best auto car I've driven and my word it takes right off the mark unlike other auto cars I've driven that come in slow then surge.

At the time I was looking there were a few auto's and only 2 manual's. The manual's seemed to be in much rougher shape, they seemed to have had a much harder life compared to the auto's.

Well to cut a long story short I decided to go and get myself a 1993 J-Spec N/A Auto.

I bought my Supra on 24-01-2017.

I chose this particular Supra because it's clean and hasn't been molested and is in good condition.

Granted it needs work to make it the clean car I want it to be.

Here are a few pictures a few days after I got it.

I see the car was part of the forum before I owned it by the sticker on it, anyone know who owned it before me?

I don't care much for the interior and have already gotten rid of the gold carbon fibre panel stickers

I had to replace the driver side headlight lens as it was cracked, luckily I met Keron the day I bought my Supra and he organised me a glass lens.

A recent interior upgrade I've made is changing the climate control lights with LED's as the old bulbs had fused.

I've also changed the air filter as the old one was horrible and dirty.

Last weekend I started getting some things sorted that have been on my to do list, I've just been waiting for the weather to clear up, I really need to get a house with a garage

I changed the rocker/valve cover gaskets as they were leaking.

I had to also change the o-ring on the distributor as it was leaking oil badly.

So I set the engine to TDC, made 3 marks on the distributor and one on the housing to mark the timing position.

Unbolted it pulled it out and cleaned it.

I then cut the old o-ring off with a blade making a clean cut, slipped on the new o-ring and applied some oil to it so it slipped back into place.

I aligned everything back up with the marks I mad earlier and tightened it all up.

Next on the list was replacing the damaged distributor cap and rotor.

I then put it all back together giving the throttle body a clean because it was oily.

The last thing on the list was to install the new HID 6000k kit I bought.

It was rather straight forward and completely plug and play. I'm very happy with the result.

I'll add some pictures and a how to on those if anyone wants to do the same.

I have also been hunting for all the rattles and squeaks from the interior of the car. It has been driving me crazy but I think after 2 months of owning it and learning all the little quirks of the car I might only have 2 small rattles left to hunt down.

The car sounded like a beer can filled with stones when driving over bumpy roads.

I'm definitely enjoying owning my Supra even though it's just an N/A, I was rather worried about buying one and regretting it because I had been dreaming of this car for most of my life. I was glad that this wasn't one of those cases of "Don't meet you heroes" because they can't live up to your expectations.

One of the next things I'd like to change is my exhaust as the current one is loud, a bit too loud and is annoying when just driving normally through town.

Anyone have any good suggestions for a decent exhaust for an N/A?

So here is a list of things I am wanting/have to do in the next few months.

1- Change boot rubbers (Current ones are worn and allow the hatch to rattle)

2- Change timing belt (Due a change)

3- Change the serpentine belt (Looking old)

4- Replace spark plugs

5- Replace ignition leads

6- Oil change

7- Coolant flush

8- Straighten up front indicators (Sitting skew)

9- Change interior lights to LED

10- Order new climate control buttons (Current ones are yellowed)

11- Hydro dip dash panels (Panels are scratched)

12- Replace old auto gearknob and handbrake lever with new ones (Old ones are worn)

13- Replace steering wheel and pedals (Old ones are worn and not my style)

14- Refurbish rims (Rims are looking tired and need a new coat of paint)

15- Upgrade fuse for lights (Noticed my HID lights are flickering slightly suspect not enough current)

16- Change floor mats (Old ones are worn)

17- Replace radio (Current radio is #^%$@$)

18- Find the horrible metal rattle that only shows up as I stop the car (hit low rpm) and carries on for a minute after I've stopped and then it goes away. (Suspect the CAT is dying as I've removed both heat shields from the front of car where the noise seems to come from and it still makes a noise) Ideas?

So this is the start of my Supra build/ownership experience, this will be a nice way for me to track the work I've done and share my learning experience.

Hopefully I can help someone with what I've learnt, I'll add more pictures and do more step by step how to's in the future just to make anyone else's life easier.

Great thread, thank you. Some of these are jobs I'll be doing on my NA soon, and it's really useful to see the photos. Glad you uploaded the photos to the forum instead of photobucket too - works much better IMO.

good bit of maintenance going there! Great colour too. Auto's fun isn't it.

If you can get hold of a second hand whifbitz twin box exhaust 2.5" they're nearer to stock volume (have one on mine), the're not made new anymore. 3" you may lose some backpressure. Use Toyota long life Red for coolant, isn't too pricey from Toyota ready mixed, my local dealer gives discounts, so worth asking. Wouldn't get too hung up on mega branded oil as it's not a fire breathing turbo. Be an idea to do a v easy 2 litre drain from gearbox sump, and then refill with dex 3 from Toyota again, using the auto dipstick shaft to refill with a funel. Here is a good list of stuff.

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?56684-FAQ-Oil-Fluid-Interval-Capacity-Steering-Brake-Coolant-Diff-Engine

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?92098-Auto-box-fluid-change-on-MKIV-com&highlight=auto%20box%20fluid%20change

Nice one. I found that changing the boot lid rubbers made a surprising difference. Follow the instructions in threads on here. I think the cars are fairly noisy at the rear generally though.