Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Mar 2004
- Posts
- 11,919
- Location
- SE England
........well, not quite one for competition on it but certainly wouldn't look out of place:
It's a 1990 Toyota Supra, a non-turbo 3 litre '7M-GE' straight six, with a 5 speed box. It makes approximately 190BHP and 190ft.lb and gets to 60 in 7.5 seconds - and of course, being a Toyota it's got climate control, speed-sensitive steering, cruise control, ABS, electrically adjustable driver's side and back bolsters, front and rear fogs, headlamp washers, an LSD (yay!) and more...
Inside it's terribly Japanese with acres of grey cloth and interior panelling but it's actually a very comfortable and supportive place to be. Even though they're standard seats they're quite aggressively bolstered so really pin you in place. Climate keeps the cabin toasty or cool as you'd expect and there are numerous neat touches like one-touch driver's window, fully adjustable steering column, side window demisting vents and more.
I particularly like the sprung-loaded seats that kick forward when you want to use the back seats:
....which are actually useable - although I wouldn't want to be sat in there for too long, as for tall people it's obviously a bit cramped. Note the optimistic central lap belt
I like the dashboard too, with it's extra ancillery gauges for oil pressure and volts - creates a kind of wrap-around effect with them extending out to the left.
So far I'm very impressed with it - it is, as you may have noticed, lowered quite considerably on uprated springs with KYB shocks and an additional front strut brace, so it rides very hard and firm (but comfortable on the motorways). There's plenty of traction too, although you can certainly feel the LSD working out of junctions or when changing down and accelerating hard to overtake.
The engine:
.......could be turbo'd for extra laughs - but I'm quite tempted to get an uprated coil, new leads, intake kit and maybe an aftermarket exhaust system on it just so it can breathe and run a little better/faster/economically.
Although it's not particularly powerful it's a very torquey motor so pulls nice and cleanly in all gears, so you don't really have to work it very hard to build up speed - and all the time it makes a very nice subtle straight six purr, reverting to a quite aggressive growl under hard acceleration.
Anyway - I'll update this some time later when I've collected my thoughts a bit. I am quite taken with it so far though, as it's a nice daily driver with the right kind of kit and enough grunt, noise and handling capability without being over-the top. Not bad at all! Already ordered some new black 'premium' floor mats so that'll tidy up the interior a bit - I haven't even cleaned it yet and I've already had it for a week
So far, the only things that really need doing are a few dash bulbs changing (as they're dead) and.....well, that's it! The only thing I don't like so far is that the seatbelts end up a long way back behind you if you have the seat far forwards - and there's no belt helpers. Consequently when you get in you have to really reach back to find your belt - more of a minor irritance than a crippling issue, to be fair
I reckon a big set of BBS alloys with gold centres and polished lips would set that off a treat
So there you go - my first Japanese car!
It's a 1990 Toyota Supra, a non-turbo 3 litre '7M-GE' straight six, with a 5 speed box. It makes approximately 190BHP and 190ft.lb and gets to 60 in 7.5 seconds - and of course, being a Toyota it's got climate control, speed-sensitive steering, cruise control, ABS, electrically adjustable driver's side and back bolsters, front and rear fogs, headlamp washers, an LSD (yay!) and more...
Inside it's terribly Japanese with acres of grey cloth and interior panelling but it's actually a very comfortable and supportive place to be. Even though they're standard seats they're quite aggressively bolstered so really pin you in place. Climate keeps the cabin toasty or cool as you'd expect and there are numerous neat touches like one-touch driver's window, fully adjustable steering column, side window demisting vents and more.
I particularly like the sprung-loaded seats that kick forward when you want to use the back seats:
....which are actually useable - although I wouldn't want to be sat in there for too long, as for tall people it's obviously a bit cramped. Note the optimistic central lap belt
I like the dashboard too, with it's extra ancillery gauges for oil pressure and volts - creates a kind of wrap-around effect with them extending out to the left.
So far I'm very impressed with it - it is, as you may have noticed, lowered quite considerably on uprated springs with KYB shocks and an additional front strut brace, so it rides very hard and firm (but comfortable on the motorways). There's plenty of traction too, although you can certainly feel the LSD working out of junctions or when changing down and accelerating hard to overtake.
The engine:
.......could be turbo'd for extra laughs - but I'm quite tempted to get an uprated coil, new leads, intake kit and maybe an aftermarket exhaust system on it just so it can breathe and run a little better/faster/economically.
Although it's not particularly powerful it's a very torquey motor so pulls nice and cleanly in all gears, so you don't really have to work it very hard to build up speed - and all the time it makes a very nice subtle straight six purr, reverting to a quite aggressive growl under hard acceleration.
Anyway - I'll update this some time later when I've collected my thoughts a bit. I am quite taken with it so far though, as it's a nice daily driver with the right kind of kit and enough grunt, noise and handling capability without being over-the top. Not bad at all! Already ordered some new black 'premium' floor mats so that'll tidy up the interior a bit - I haven't even cleaned it yet and I've already had it for a week
So far, the only things that really need doing are a few dash bulbs changing (as they're dead) and.....well, that's it! The only thing I don't like so far is that the seatbelts end up a long way back behind you if you have the seat far forwards - and there's no belt helpers. Consequently when you get in you have to really reach back to find your belt - more of a minor irritance than a crippling issue, to be fair
I reckon a big set of BBS alloys with gold centres and polished lips would set that off a treat
So there you go - my first Japanese car!
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