Power Pages: Toyota Supra

It's common knowledge that the late-model Toyota Supra has been an awesome street prowler since its birth in 1993. It wasn't until Craig Paisley's track-stomping Supra laid down numerous 8-second e.t.s with a stock bottom-end that we realized more money can be pumped into the performance aspect of the Supra rather than the reinforcement of the engine.

The Engine
With the aid of its twin turbochargers, the 2JZ-GTE in OEM trim packs 320 ponies. Imagine that, 320 horses to the flywheel as a base and you haven't even tapped into what the engine is capable of putting out. The Toyota Supra's in-line six cylinder powerplant practically begs you to try to inflict pain on its bottom-end. This engine is engineered for one thing--to take the abuse of a heavy foot.

Performance Parts
In any normal Power Page situation, we attempt to use as many 50-state legal performance enhancers as possible. In this particular Power Page sequence we decided to say, "Screw CARB! Let's see what kind of power we can pump out of this sucka! Our arsenal consisted of a Blitz SUS Power filter, Tanabe Racing Medalion exhaust system and an SP Engineering downpipe. As a fair warning, some of these products are designed for off-road use only.

The Blitz filter system utilizes one SUS Power filter to increase airflow to the twin turbos. The kit comes complete with an aluminum heat shield, fitment adapters and all the necessary brackets and bolts. The filter element is made of stainless mesh rather than the typical cotton or foam elements.

The Tanabe exhaust system is the only product of the three that is half 50-state-legal and half non-50-state-legal. Tanabe engineers decided to insert a baffle into the four-inch polished tip to reduce the decibel output in order to meet legal status. In race trim, the baffle can be removed to unleash the benefits of the 3.5-inch exhaust piping and hi-flow muffler.

Ever wondered just how much power you could gain from a downpipe? Better yet, have you ever wondered how much power a catalytic converter robs? Driving with a catalytic converter removed from the vehicle is a big time bust in the state of California but nobody said driving a car with no catalytic on a Dynojet in California is illegal. The SP Engineering downpipe is a complete bolt-on piece, but removal of the catalytic converter is necessary. SP states that this unit is an off-road downpipe and must not be driven on public roads.

Dyno Testing
Baseline runs netted 285.9 hp and 274.6 lbs-ft of torque. Our baseline is based on a cold run and a hot run. The two runs are done to ensure that the performance enhancer can back up the power a second time.

The Blitz filter took about 15 minutes to install and the power increase was well worth it. In most cases, the Supra will gain minimal power from a filter upgrade unless the car has plenty of other modifications. In the case of our '97 Supra test car, the SUS Power filter extracted 24.1 hp on a hot run. We thought this had to be a fluke, but the cold run displayed 3 more horses than our hot run. With two runs so close to each other, we are positive that the horsepower is legit.

Installation of the two-piece Tanabe exhaust system is a cinch. However, it did require removal of the Supra's factory tow hook to make room for Tanabe's relocated muffler hanger. Other than the relocated muffler hanger, the exhaust is a basic, bolt-on affair.

Tanabe states that its exhaust is street legal only with the baffle bolted into the muffler. Our curiosity always runs wild at the Tuner office, so we decided to run the system with and without the baffle to see just what kind of power can be seen.

With the baffle, the Supra lost a few ponies on the very top of the powerband, but the trade-off was more power gained in the 5000-to-6000 rpm area. Without the baffle, the Toyota generated 314.6 hp and 296.3 lbs-ft of torque.

Our last piece of the trio was the best bang-for-the-buck bolt-on. We knew the SP Engineering downpipe was going to make plenty of power because; one, it removes the factory catalytic converter and two, the larger diameter piping would definitely speed the exhaust flow out of the turbos.

Just as we expected, the SP Engineering downpipe provided the 2JZ-GTE what it wanted--breathing room. The power jumped up to 357.4 ponies and 337.8 lbs-ft of torque. After adding the filter and exhaust system, the Toyota was boosting 11 psi, after the downpipe an additional four psi of boost was generated netting a total of 15 psi. As the rpm came up and boost hit 15 lbs the ECU kicked in the fuel cut resulting in a loss of power after 6500 rpm.

Conclusion
The horsepower potential of the late-model Supra is impressive. When you use the right products we have illustrated that its potential can be realized in a big way. By adding a mere three products to the stock JZA we were able to gain horsepower well over stock output to the flywheel. It's obvious that if the fuel cut hadn't kicked in, peak horsepower would have been far greater than our end result.