Fresh Mk4 Owner looking for some help :)

[Tosh]

Hi all, 

I'm new to the supra scene, took a punt at a car over the weekend hoping, probably went in to the subject a bit quick and hotheaded but what's been done is done now... 

The supra as I believe started life as an N/A manual car with an LSD (assuming its the A01B diff) and unfortunately still on the W58 gearbox and stock clutch which I believe is already past its due date. (Car is set up on very little boost and supposedly makes around 400hp at the moment. (Limit of both the gearbox and the standard injectors). 

The body was restored about 3 years ago, and at a similar time has had a basic refresh 2JZ-GTE fitted. From what I've been told its had fresh bearings, rings and head gasket. It runs a 6Boost Manifold on a GTX3076 and is ran off of an ECU Master Classic. 

The basic questions I would like to hear some feedback on: 

What would be the most cost effective drop in gearbox setup for this setup bearing in mind I would love to see 600hp out of this car? Would anyone have anything available? I've heard mixed reviews on the R154 so far unless refreshed but I believe that is a plug and play box with no need for adapters? Would also require some bigger injectors to suit if anyone has anything going. 

Will the A01B LSD diff be ok at this power level or would I need to source an A02B instead? 

Would anyone happen to have an upgraded brake setup - either a UK spec caliper or the LS calipers? (The discs are shot on the car so I require a change either way. 

Would a drive by wire throttle body be a positive upgrade or is it not worth the time? 

Does anyone have any wheel setups for sale at a reasonable price? Something on the smaller side with bigger tire would be ideal. (Not stock wheels , something like a ROTA). 

If anyone has any decently priced cat back exhaust I'd also be interested, the car currently has a custom downpipe that's connected to a full factory exhaust. 

Is the dual electric fan setup available from MISHIMOTO a good move? I know the stock clutch fan is very good but I hate the noise behind it! I just want to know if the change will give me any issues in the long run? 

If anyone has any seats available I'd also be interested as the front driver seat is slightly broken, the seat does not lock on the rail and has play in it at the moment which means that the seat slides forward when I brake :D. 

I'm trying to do things on a bit of a budget with this car as I've got some other things going on in life at the moment, so I'd mostly be up for any garage bargains that people have laying around taking up space  . 

I'm based in Wakefield area so if there's anyone around these ends with a vast knowledge on these cars that I could have a chat with I would greatly appreciate. The car will not be getting put on the road until early May most likely so I'll be trying to sort most of these things out prior. 

Overall though just wanted to say hello and hoping that I'll enjoy the ownership and the community! 

 

[Swampy442]

Ok -  Drop in gearbox would be a Toyota spec box, R154, V160 etc bolt right up with the correct drive shaft, but why specify 600hp?

A02B is the same diff as an A01B, just a different ratio

The stock fan doesnt make a noise, unless the clutch is shot, but twin electric fans will be noisier for sure. Wont give any issues but are less effective than the stock fan and shroud.

Finally, this is Supra world, home of the 500 quid switch, theres no bargains any more 

 

[LordNelson]

Home of the £500 switch indeed with used parts coming from Oz seeming normal.  

 

[Tosh]

14 hours ago, Swampy442 said:

Ok -  Drop in gearbox would be a Toyota spec box, R154, V160 etc bolt right up with the correct drive shaft, but why specify 600hp?

A02B is the same diff as an A01B, just a different ratio

The stock fan doesnt make a noise, unless the clutch is shot, but twin electric fans will be noisier for sure. Wont give any issues but are less effective than the stock fan and shroud.

Finally, this is Supra world, home of the 500 quid switch, theres no bargains any more 

 

Thanks for the reply Swampy. 

The goal of 600hp is purely because I've owned a few cars at 5xxHP range and never broke in to the 6 figures, I won't be greatly disappointed if it doesn't get there and I know number chasing is usually a wrong way to go about things. But we all have to set a goal somewhere I guess . The R154 is probably going to be the best bet as I can imagine the V160's are in the 10k+ price range from what i've seen? Unless i've been looking at dreamers ads... 

Thanks for clarifying the diff situation, from what I was told so far is that there is a small casing LSD (A01) and large casing (A02) naturally, I thought the A02 would be a stronger unit because of that, but if there's no difference between them then fair enough! 

With the current exhaust setup on the car, when you rev the engine, you can hear nothing but the fan increasing in speed. Not sure how loud it's meant to be, might be worth having a listen to another one to get an idea. Just liked the look of the mishimoto setup, seems to save a lot of room and weight, but like I said if it's going to cause issues then I wont bother, also to add the car has an aftermarket thick aly radiator not the stock unit. 

I fully understand nothing will be cheap, just saying from my previous cars there are people actively trying to sell stuff and there's people that can't be bothered to put things up for sale and are willing to let things go for cheaper just to make room, and that's what I'm hoping to find haha!

[mattdavies]

I would do some reading of all the technical articles on here as they run thorugh the diff numbering and all the usual FAQs. Its a very good source of information. 

Gearbox wise, I wouldnt discount a CD009 box as a good option or a BMW box. Yes not bolt up but good options that have been done a number of times. 

Keep the stock fan, people have run them successfully on their 1000bhp+ builds.

if your looking to keep costs down then a DBW throttle isnt load better ( depends what you want the car to do ) 

You should be able to pick up a decent exhaust for not a lot of money, people have run the 3" ebay exhaust with no real fitment complaints. 

Upload some picture / the for sale ad 

[Tosh]

20 minutes ago, mattdavies said:

I would do some reading of all the technical articles on here as they run thorugh the diff numbering and all the usual FAQs. Its a very good source of information. 

Gearbox wise, I wouldnt discount a CD009 box as a good option or a BMW box. Yes not bolt up but good options that have been done a number of times. 

Keep the stock fan, people have run them successfully on their 1000bhp+ builds.

if your looking to keep costs down then a DBW throttle isnt load better ( depends what you want the car to do ) 

You should be able to pick up a decent exhaust for not a lot of money, people have run the 3" ebay exhaust with no real fitment complaints. 

Upload some picture / the for sale ad 

Yeah I will try to read through the info as I go along, been quite overwhelmed by the info so far, it's a completely different world than what I'm used to! 

I did hear good things about the CD009 box, and I actually use the 6 speed bmw box in my LS swapped e91 and I do like that box tbh so could be an option, there just isnt many good clutch options for the bmw compared to the CD009 or the Supra specific boxes. 

I was looking at the Whifbitz inlet manifold, rail and throttle body package, £666 I believe it is, looks nice and brings the car up to a more modern standard I guess not sure if there are any benefits in terms of drivability with the DBW. 

Yeah, the exhaust shouldn't be much of an issue, I'll just keep a look out for anything that may pop up! 

Thanks for the info

[AC93]

There are 2 diff sizes 

A series which is more common and 200mm

B series which is 220mm

Then you get A-01/02/03 or B-03/04, this is the final ratio 

01 is 4.1

02 is 3.76

03 is 3.26

04 is 3.53

The last letter is A for open diff and B for LSD 

You can swap the internals to get a different ratio or to install a LSD which you'll need if you're going up in powerrrr. So get an A01/02B diff or buy an aftermarket one like OS Giken or Kaaz 

[Tosh]

15 minutes ago, AC93 said:

There are 2 diff sizes 

A series which is more common and 200mm

B series which is 220mm

Then you get A-01/02/03 or B-03/04, this is the final ratio 

01 is 4.1

02 is 3.76

03 is 3.26

04 is 3.53

The last letter is A for open diff and B for LSD 

You can swap the internals to get a different ratio or to install a LSD which you'll need if you're going up in powerrrr. So get an A01/02B diff or buy an aftermarket one like OS Giken or Kaaz 

Thanks you for the insight! That's really helpful info

This is an N/A original car and definitely has an LSD so I believe this will be the A01B that I currently have. I just wanted to make sure they were strong enough to take some power with it being an N/A diff. I'll have to have a look at how this diff would work with the BMW Gearbox as I'm kind of leaning towards that option right now. 

[AC93]

I've got a A03B diff with my BMW box, takes the power fine. Just depends if you want acceleration over top speed then you can decide what ratio 01/02/03 is better for you. Plenty of people here using 01/02 ratios on NA-T's 

[Swampy442]

The fan increasing with engine speed is the viscous clutch giving up the ghost, you should be able to stop the fan with the engine running and hold it with a finger. They can be rebuilt and if you have the shroud its by far the best cooling option. Electric fans wont cause an issue like I said but it sounds like you've already made your decision based on looks rather than function.

BMW boxes - the ratio's are way off if you use the diesel boxes, the M3 boxes unbelievably noisy, a mate of mine swapped his M3 box to a 154 it was that annoying.

[Tosh]

4 minutes ago, Swampy442 said:

The fan increasing with engine speed is the viscous clutch giving up the ghost, you should be able to stop the fan with the engine running and hold it with a finger. They can be rebuilt and if you have the shroud its by far the best cooling option. Electric fans wont cause an issue like I said but it sounds like you've already made your decision based on looks rather than function.

BMW boxes - the ratio's are way off if you use the diesel boxes, the M3 boxes unbelievably noisy, a mate of mine swapped his M3 box to a 154 it was that annoying.

Ahh okay, to be honest the noise put me off the most! If it’s not meant to be like that then I would be happy to repair this unit instead, the looks and space were side benefits really. I do have the shroud yes, do you know the best way forward for me to having this one fixed? 
 

Yes I kind of figured that it would have to be the petrol box from the 135/335i, as I mentioned above I do have a bmw diesel box in my LS swapped BMW, and I do like the feel of it but there’s very limited clutch options. I’m not sure about the noise, couldn’t really complain about mine but then again it’s is basically a straight piped LS, there’s not much you can hear other than the exhaust noise  .

I see that finding an R154 won’t be an easy task but probably my best option, especially an upgraded one would be ideal. 
 

Ive also kind of considered an 8HP swap, but I’m assuming that would probably escalate in terms of cost. The turbolamik controller isn’t crazy money and you can pick up the 8HP70 cheap enough, but wiring it all up, custom mounts, prop shaft and mapping it is another story. You don’t happen to know how much whifbitz charges for the conversion? 

[Burna]

On 2/27/2024 at 10:42 PM, Tosh said:

Ahh okay, to be honest the noise put me off the most! If it’s not meant to be like that then I would be happy to repair this unit instead, the looks and space were side benefits really. I do have the shroud yes, do you know the best way forward for me to having this one fixed? 
 

Yes I kind of figured that it would have to be the petrol box from the 135/335i, as I mentioned above I do have a bmw diesel box in my LS swapped BMW, and I do like the feel of it but there’s very limited clutch options. I’m not sure about the noise, couldn’t really complain about mine but then again it’s is basically a straight piped LS, there’s not much you can hear other than the exhaust noise  .

I see that finding an R154 won’t be an easy task but probably my best option, especially an upgraded one would be ideal. 
 

Ive also kind of considered an 8HP swap, but I’m assuming that would probably escalate in terms of cost. The turbolamik controller isn’t crazy money and you can pick up the 8HP70 cheap enough, but wiring it all up, custom mounts, prop shaft and mapping it is another story. You don’t happen to know how much whifbitz charges for the conversion? 

For the fan clutch, speak to Kevin at Supratronix. He sells new ones for only £220 delivered. https://www.instagram.com/supratronix/

I had the 8HP swap done at SRD, and from what price I've seen Paul at Whiffbitz quote before, they are both roughly the same at around £8K, which is pretty good for what you end up with  But as we all know, budget for double that, as it probably will snowball once the build brings things to light lol

Edited February 29 by Burna (see edit history)

[HarleyFDMD]

If you go down the R154 route make sure you buy the later model remote shifter variant. You can still buy them brand new in fact which would also be preferable.

You mentioned about buying an 'upgraded one'... by which i assume you mean the Marlin Crawler thrust washer and shift forks? My advice would be to steer clear. The thrust washer yeah ok, but the billet shift forks are crap! Definitely not an upgrade, i had mine built with these components and the 3rd/4th shift fork failed after about 500 miles and started grinding against the outer sleave. I looked online and im not the only one to suffer this either. I've now replaced it with a new oem fork.

[Tosh]

On 3/9/2024 at 11:31 PM, HarleyFDMD said:

If you go down the R154 route make sure you buy the later model remote shifter variant. You can still buy them brand new in fact which would also be preferable.

You mentioned about buying an 'upgraded one'... by which i assume you mean the Marlin Crawler thrust washer and shift forks? My advice would be to steer clear. The thrust washer yeah ok, but the billet shift forks are crap! Definitely not an upgrade, i had mine built with these components and the 3rd/4th shift fork failed after about 500 miles and started grinding against the outer sleave. I looked online and im not the only one to suffer this either. I've now replaced it with a new oem fork.

Thank you for the reply, I've decided to go down the 8HP route now though, I thought at the price point for the R154, then a rebuild and upgraded washer, decent clutch setup etc. I'd just do things once and proper. I wasn't too confident in the R154 setup to be honest and I think it would always be in the back of my head that something might go on it after reading a lot about them on here  . 

[HarleyFDMD]

2 hours ago, Tosh said:

Thank you for the reply, I've decided to go down the 8HP route now though, I thought at the price point for the R154, then a rebuild and upgraded washer, decent clutch setup etc. I'd just do things once and proper. I wasn't too confident in the R154 setup to be honest and I think it would always be in the back of my head that something might go on it after reading a lot about them on here  . 

I dont blame you. I recently sold my R154 for the same reasons. Bought a V160 though

[Tosh]

4 minutes ago, HarleyFDMD said:

I dont blame you. I recently sold my R154 for the same reasons. Bought a V160 though

Yeah it was between the 8HP and a V160 for me, hard to decide and definitely was being pushed in to the "purist" side with the V160, but in the end the 8HP just ticked more boxes for me. I'm sure you're very happy with your choice though! I'll probably be sat there at some points wishing I had the manual  . 

[HarleyFDMD]

8HP is definitely faster, all the dyno videos I've seen with 8HP boxes just look insane, doesn't drop boost between gears etc.

But yeah i just wanted to keep it Toyota and keep the clutch pedal!

[Scooter]

I have a x2 used viscous fan/clutch thingies if you haven't sorted that yet, one unknown miles, one low mile very good/clean one?