A DCT in a Supra?
What happens when you put a modern DCT transmission into a classic Supra?
A Legend
At this point, the Toyota Supra is definitely an established icon. An absolute Japanese classic that defined its era, and still continues to turn heads till this day. Whether you’re a fan of it or not, it’s impossible to deny its performance.
However the Supra, specifically the MK4 in this case, is beginning to show its age. It managed to stay relevant with it’s incredible performance for around 30 years, which can’t be said about many cars. But in a world where even grocery-getter sedans and big heavy SUV’s can achieve unbelievable performance, the MK4 can come up a bit short when trying to keep up with modern sports cars…
The main reason in my opinion is modern transmissions. Gearboxes in today’s cars have improved drastically over the last couple of decades, especially in performance cars, allowing a much more efficient power delivery to the wheels. Which brings us to today’s discussion, what happens if you put a modern transmission in a 30 year old Supra?
Modernizing the MK4
For the MK4 it was never a question of power. Ask anyone about the famous 2JZ, the Supra’s over-engineered twin-turbo engine. None can deny its ability to seemingly make endless power, not to mention its incredible reliability even when pushing huge horsepower numbers. The problem for the Supra today is its transmission, the same goes for any sports car from its era or even the early 2000s.
It’s incredibly difficult to keep up with the newer transmissions that have lightning speed shifting and advanced launch control technology. And that’s what we have here today, a few examples of a built MK4 Supra equipped with a DCT (Dual-Clutch Transmission). They even raced one against an MK5, but we’ll get to that later.
Meet today’s project car, a red MK4 Supra with a fully built engine, “bulletproof” according to the owner, pushing 700 WHP equipped to a DCT gearbox. And let me tell you, the transmission has livened up the car and instantly brought it into the modern world.
The owner sourced a DCT from a BMW E92 M3, which isn’t the latest in transmissions, but still a major upgrade compared to a transmission 3 decades old. It’s obvious in the video how much of a difference the M3 transmission completely changed the car. Even the host of Officially Gassed said to the owner “you’ve brought the Japanese old-school cars into the modern era!” That on its own made my heart melt…
Over the last few years I’ve developed a passion for retrofitting and modernizing older cars, and something like this Supra is such a marvel to behold.
Legend vs Modern
Anyways, now let’s talk about the race. This is a different video also from the Officially Gassed channel, of another Supra also equipped with DCT, that went up against a modified MK5 Supra. That was interesting to watch. Despite the MK4 having 150 horsepower more, the owner was actually expecting his car to perform better during roll races as opposed to drag races from a stand still. His reasoning was that the MK4 had less technology and the weather conditions on the track weren’t ideal.
The race ensues and what do you know, he was right. The MK5 dominated in the drag races, while in roll races the MK4 obliterated the MK5. Granted it lost the first roll and the first win was barely ahead, but honestly in the final roll race, the MK4 won by a big gap, which in my opinion means the driver wasn’t shifting properly, or perhaps the win was dependent on the speed at which they launched. Still an incredible project to witness.
What do you think of the idea of modernizing a classic car, whether it be putting in a modern transmission or otherwise? Would you do it? What car would you choose to work on?
