Joined
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2,424 Posts
Mike O'Brien's 1986 MKII Supra
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With so many great build threads going on, I decided to sum all my future and present projects into one mega thread. Expect millions of pictures at huge resolution, and wordy documentation of my secret projects I have been working on for the past few weeks.
To start off, a little bit of history on my car:
When I was 16, I wanted nothing more than a late 60’s El Camino SS or 50’s Chevy panel van or Dodge power wagon. I would stalk the Auto trader and Deals on Wheels free magazines looking for a cheap project car to start with. The Supra I have was actually found on accident by my father. He was driving home from work one day when he was passing a lot that people commonly park their cars that they are trying to sell, due to the heavy traffic that goes by. He saw the car, and pulled into the lot to look at it, because he actually thought it was a fox-body Mustang! He was surprised when he got close to see that it wasn’t, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw the full maroon leather interior, decent paint, no rust and low miles. He came home and asked me if I wanted to go look at a car he just saw. When he told me it was an old “Celica,” I was skeptical and didn’t want anything to do with it, but he urged me to look. When I saw it however, I wanted it more than anything! Sporty, classic, and in great shape, It was a cool car that a high school kid would be lucky to own. We called the number, and had the owner out by the car within the hour. There was a fire under this guy to get rid of the car. It turns out that he was originally from Florida, a military man stationed down south. He purchased the car from the original owner in Florida, and had just brought the car up to Iowa a year earlier when he was reassigned to our local Arsenal. Turns out, he was moving again, to Texas, and had to get rid of the car ASAP, as he had purchased a newer Mercedes while up here in Iowa and did not want to take both with him. Needless to say, when we almost kiddingly threw out the number 2500, he took it and wanted to handover the title the next day! Talk about the right place at the right time! I found a car that spent nearly its entire life in a garage in Florida, 100% rust free and in great shape and a great price. My father and I were very happy. The test drive was sketchy, as it was my first time driving a stick, but it felt so great to finally be behind the wheel of a car I could call my own.
The rest was pretty much history. I bought the wrong offset wheels, put some JDM Hotness Ebay tuner seats in to replace the damaged leather, and drove it though all of high school. Using graduation money (Stupidly) and other funds, I bought the Erebuni ground effects kit and had the entire car repainted Tornado red (Volkswagen Jetta red). I then ventured on to my first rebuild, and catching the turbo bug mid-build, slapped a ct-26 and manifold on the side. After getting the first rebuild finished, I needed to explore fuel supply options, and decided to go with the Megasquirt standalone ECU. While doing some mild wiring, I began to notice a lot of the front car harness has been childishly cut and hacked and rewired previously, which gave me a bit of a challenge to move on through wiring a standalone ECU while only 18 years old. Due to this shotty wiring and I suspect a melted/damaged main fuse block, a fire started one day in the engine bay at the distribution block, and set me way back. The harness was toast, and I was already attempting some heavy re-wiring, so I manned up and decided to re-wire the entire car. I bought a painless universal wiring harness, and went to town. The car was down for nearly a year of spaghetti wiring, and standalone planning. Finally I had the wiring up and running everything in the car that I needed, and I got the car running decent on the new ECU.
After two ct-26 rebuilds, and a tired motor, I moved on to my second motor rebuild, which can be seen in some detail here:
http://forums.celicasupra.com/showthread.php?t=39723&highlight=6m+porn
This motor runs great still, but I am again board with the current setup, and ready to move on to a more advanced and powerful build. This is where I am as of early 2010. I was tired of the mismatched interior, huge sub box taking away all my room in the hatch, frustratingly poor wiring routing under the dash, and slowly collecting parts for a mega motor build. I decided to start with the interior. I was able to source a nice entire black interior (Thanks Leon), and started fabricating some nice add-ons to set the car off (You guys know I can’t leave anything alone and stock!
)
With so many great build threads going on, I decided to sum all my future and present projects into one mega thread. Expect millions of pictures at huge resolution, and wordy documentation of my secret projects I have been working on for the past few weeks.
To start off, a little bit of history on my car:
When I was 16, I wanted nothing more than a late 60’s El Camino SS or 50’s Chevy panel van or Dodge power wagon. I would stalk the Auto trader and Deals on Wheels free magazines looking for a cheap project car to start with. The Supra I have was actually found on accident by my father. He was driving home from work one day when he was passing a lot that people commonly park their cars that they are trying to sell, due to the heavy traffic that goes by. He saw the car, and pulled into the lot to look at it, because he actually thought it was a fox-body Mustang! He was surprised when he got close to see that it wasn’t, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw the full maroon leather interior, decent paint, no rust and low miles. He came home and asked me if I wanted to go look at a car he just saw. When he told me it was an old “Celica,” I was skeptical and didn’t want anything to do with it, but he urged me to look. When I saw it however, I wanted it more than anything! Sporty, classic, and in great shape, It was a cool car that a high school kid would be lucky to own. We called the number, and had the owner out by the car within the hour. There was a fire under this guy to get rid of the car. It turns out that he was originally from Florida, a military man stationed down south. He purchased the car from the original owner in Florida, and had just brought the car up to Iowa a year earlier when he was reassigned to our local Arsenal. Turns out, he was moving again, to Texas, and had to get rid of the car ASAP, as he had purchased a newer Mercedes while up here in Iowa and did not want to take both with him. Needless to say, when we almost kiddingly threw out the number 2500, he took it and wanted to handover the title the next day! Talk about the right place at the right time! I found a car that spent nearly its entire life in a garage in Florida, 100% rust free and in great shape and a great price. My father and I were very happy. The test drive was sketchy, as it was my first time driving a stick, but it felt so great to finally be behind the wheel of a car I could call my own.
The rest was pretty much history. I bought the wrong offset wheels, put some JDM Hotness Ebay tuner seats in to replace the damaged leather, and drove it though all of high school. Using graduation money (Stupidly) and other funds, I bought the Erebuni ground effects kit and had the entire car repainted Tornado red (Volkswagen Jetta red). I then ventured on to my first rebuild, and catching the turbo bug mid-build, slapped a ct-26 and manifold on the side. After getting the first rebuild finished, I needed to explore fuel supply options, and decided to go with the Megasquirt standalone ECU. While doing some mild wiring, I began to notice a lot of the front car harness has been childishly cut and hacked and rewired previously, which gave me a bit of a challenge to move on through wiring a standalone ECU while only 18 years old. Due to this shotty wiring and I suspect a melted/damaged main fuse block, a fire started one day in the engine bay at the distribution block, and set me way back. The harness was toast, and I was already attempting some heavy re-wiring, so I manned up and decided to re-wire the entire car. I bought a painless universal wiring harness, and went to town. The car was down for nearly a year of spaghetti wiring, and standalone planning. Finally I had the wiring up and running everything in the car that I needed, and I got the car running decent on the new ECU.
After two ct-26 rebuilds, and a tired motor, I moved on to my second motor rebuild, which can be seen in some detail here:
http://forums.celicasupra.com/showthread.php?t=39723&highlight=6m+porn
This motor runs great still, but I am again board with the current setup, and ready to move on to a more advanced and powerful build. This is where I am as of early 2010. I was tired of the mismatched interior, huge sub box taking away all my room in the hatch, frustratingly poor wiring routing under the dash, and slowly collecting parts for a mega motor build. I decided to start with the interior. I was able to source a nice entire black interior (Thanks Leon), and started fabricating some nice add-ons to set the car off (You guys know I can’t leave anything alone and stock!
)
