Fine Tuned Episode #2
Behind the Scenes of the Supra

You would expect that the Fine Tuned crew would have an easier time building the second car instead of the first. However, that was not the case for the 93 supra. It started off as a clean Twin Turbo six speed Supra that required �no body work�. Man, was Chad wrong.

Day 1

Once again it was day one and just like before we were working out of not one but two new shops, Cure Automotive and the Import Car doctor. Brett from Joy Ride and Melanie and Stacy from Motostyle have returned to make the magic happen. I knew on the first day that we were working with a great group of people and the rest of the episodes were going to make the first one look silly. I was fired up and ready for the Twin Turbo 6 speed Supra to roll through the door so we could start bolting on parts and make power.

Our game plan went like this:

Day 1 Tear down, start on interior and audio

Day 2-4 Paint and Body

Day 5 Bolt on Turbo, brakes, suspension

Day 6 Install interior and finish the audio

Day 7 Go to the beach

Day 8 Give the car back to Art

As the car drove through the shop, I knew that we were in trouble. I had that really empty feeling like I just lost my wallet and someone was on a wild shopping spree at Super Autobacs. This was the worst car that I have ever worked on; in fact I dubbed it the Poopra. The car turned out to be a normally aspirated, 5 speed that made a whopping 126 hp on the dyno. We had more problems, the driver door was caved in, the headlights didn�t work, the body kit was glued on, no door handles, no interior and on and on. 85% of the parts that we had ordered would not fit this car. The clutch, shifter, flywheel, turbo, exhaust, intercooler, were all wrong. Now, we had to make a decision, build the N/A motor or do a motor swap. I�m all about power so it was an easy decision to do the motor swap. But I had no idea of the problems we would encounter.

Back to the tear down, the car was parked in the shop we are all walking around in dismay. The interior came out first and this was the easiest because it was missing 40% of the pieces and another 20% was already broken. After that we moved on to the body kit, which was another nightmare. It�s one thing to glue your body kit onto a show car, but a streetcar? We used hammers, chisels, screwdrivers, and a cut off wheel to get this thing off only to find that the body was junk. At the end of the day I needed to find not one but two doors, two new fenders, a new hood, a new bumpers, missing interior pieces and a 2JZ GTE with a six speed.

Day 2-3

I jumped up early to make sure I got a good start on this build. Andy and I left at 5:30 that morning and headed of to Frank�s Auto body to get the car painted. As soon as we dropped the car off I got on the cell and started calling everyone I could think for tips and clues on parts. By the end of the day 3, we had our engine, doors, hood, two fenders and a new body kit from bodykits.com. Basically, I was on the phone for the next to days trying to find parts.

Day 4

Things are coming together but we were still missing parts and that was my main focus. The car showed up and I could not believe that the body is as straight as it is. Mike and the crew at Frank�s did an awesome job.

I stayed on the phone and tried to locate a trans and the missing parts for the majority of the day. There are no 6 speed transmissions in the State of California. We finally made the decision to leave the stock transmission in the car so we sent it off to get rebuilt. In the mean time Andy and JoJo form Cure Automotive upgraded the turbo. Aaron from the Import Car Doctor installed the flywheel and clutch from RPS.

Day 5

The goal for the day was to get the engine and trans in the car. This was a surprisingly easy task but then we found more problems. It seems that the new engine that we had is out of an Aristo from Japan. This means we need a new wiring harness for the car to plug into the AEM ecu. The other problems like the water pump, power steering, and power steering pulley were different. So now we only had one option and that was to find a donor car. We visited our friend at Dung Heb Motorsports and he had a supra that he let us �borrow� parts from. We were able to get all of the engine components that we needed as well as some interior pieces. Thanks Donny and we will replace your parts someday��

Day 6

I was back on the phone for day 6 again. This time instead of trying to find motors and transmissions, I was looking for a wiring harness. Just so you know a 2JZ GTE wiring harness is $1600 and we had to have it! Erwin jumped on the phone and was able to get the harness for half off but that is still expensive for a harness. This is just one of the problems in building a car in 8 days, you never know what you are going to run in to. Luckily, it always works out. We were able to fire the car up at the end of the day and even do a little tuning on it.

Day 7

Well, so much for going to the beach. We had entirely too much to do and as always we are running out of time. The game plan for day seven was to install the coilovers, brakes, exhaust, and start on the stereo. The tein coilovers always bolt in with no problems and no surprises. Rotora brakes are the same in design as the factory brakes. They just simply bolt on. Tires and wheels went on next and we were able to finally set the car on the ground where everyone could get to it. Brett immediatly went to work on the audio and he and Motostlye worked into the wee hours of the morning trying to get us ahead for the final day.

Day 8

The car is still in pieces but I�m confident that we will get it back together. The interior needed to be finished up and installed along with the audio, Tein wiring, and seats. After over looking the seat brackets, I had to scramble to get the right ones only to find out that the seats didn�t fit. When the seats were bolted to the floor the door wouldn�t shut. We had to make a quick call to Seibon and get a set of seats that would fit a Supra. They showed up in a matter of hours and we bolted them in after Stacy and Mel installed all of the interior pieces. Brett finished up the audio and all that was left were the decals. Even though I didn�t want to paint it teal, the car looked good and we all wanted to see Art�s take on it.

The week flew once again and it is always crazy to look back and see what has happened in such a short time span. We take a car that is totally torn up and transform it in a matter of days. On day 8 you could walk in and see the car and say that there is no way it will be finished. This is the case every single time we do a build; it comes down to the last day. I have learned not to stress out and make things work no matter what the situation. It also helps when you have the best people in the automotive industry backing you. To all of the builders, thank you for having my back and with that said, bring on #3.

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